Active New Top (30 days) Compact Card See you later Alligator! – How to avoid and survive an attack Alisa Felix - 4 hours ago Cute little guy, but also slightly frightening… I am hoping to visit Florida later this year but have been worried by seeing one too many news articles of people being attacked by alligators. After some research though (which I’m sharing below), I’ve come to the conclusion that attacks are rare and can be mostly avoided by taking a few steps. I’ve seen quite a few people on this forum from the southeast, so please share any additional experience you have. Florida man killed in possible alligator attack while searching lake for Frisbees – Quick summary: Man was out late at night looking for frisbees along a lake and gets attacked by an alligator. Another person finds his body the next morning. Lessons learned: Don’t walk around bodies of water at night when your visibility is limited and alligators are more active. If you NEED to go around water at night, wear a headlamp and look around for glowing eyes reflecting back at you. This person also was known to frequent the park and disregard the posted “No Swimming” signs. So follow the rules. An alligator killed a person near Myrtle Beach in South Carolina – Quick summary: Not too many details here except that the person died near a retention pond. Lessons learned: So even shallow and man made bodies of water can have alligators. Woman killed by gator on Kiawah Island was ‘fascinated,’ took pictures before attack – Quick summary: Lady sees a alligator in the pond of a friends house and goes out to take pictures of it. Her friend warns her that the alligator grabbed a deer from that spot the other day and the lady just ignores her and says “I don’t look like a deer.” The lady then goes in to touch the alligator and it grabs and pulls her into the water. The husband of the friend grabs a rope and throws it to her to try and pull her out but the alligator got her to waist deep water and rolled pulling her down and killing her. Lessons learned: Pretty obvious here to most. Don’t get near alligators, don’t try and pet them. If you are trying to save someone who is being pulled in by one then do what these guys did and throw a rope and don’t go in yourself. After SC’s 2nd fatal alligator attack in 2 years, incidents remain rare, authorities stress Quick summary: Lady walks her dog near the water’s edge and the alligator lunges out to eat the dog but only grabs the leash. The lady is able to unhook the dog’s collar but the alligator then pulls her in. Lessons learned: Again, stay away from the water’s edge in places where alligators might live. Coroner ID’s mother, 2 young children killed after car hits alligator on I-95 Quick summary: Mother and two young children hit an alligator crossing the road and then crash their car and die. Lessons learned: They can even get you on the highways. Drive slow, especially around blind corners and hills. A Florida Girl Survived an Alligator’s Attack by Shoving Her Fingers Up Its Nostrils Quick summary: Finally a good story. 10 year old girl sitting in some shallow water is bit by an alligator. She thumps it on the head and nothing happens. She then remembers a survival technique she learned when visiting Gatorland and stuck her fingers into it’s nostrils which caused the alligator to open it’s mouth. Lessons learned: Pick a alligator’s nose if it bites you. Here’s some comedic ways to deal with alligators/crocodiles. (not recommended): Hit them over the head with a frying pan Get them into a trash can How to avoid an attack: These are the areas where the American alligator live Above image source From what I learned, there are some crocodiles in Florida, but they are rare and the main threat you are likely to encounter in the USA is the American Alligator. Still, tips on how to avoid them should be about the same. From CNN article – Spring to early summer is mating season and protective mothers watch over their eggs hatching in September and October. Winter is the safest season because it is cold and they aren’t doing a whole lot. When temperatures start settling into the 80s (27 Celsius), gators become mostly nocturnal. So it’s best to avoid that refreshing night dip in unknown waters when it’s hot. Don’t feed, bother, or provoke alligators. Feeding them is bad because it makes them associate humans with food. Avoid heavy vegetation near the water’s edge where they might be nesting or waiting. If you are attacked, try poking the eyes or sides of the mouth. If you are on land, avoid the myth of running in a zig-zag and just run in a straight line. If you are caught in the famous death roll, try and roll with it to reduce tearing of your limbs. From forestwildlife.org – Check for ripples in the water, look for backs, eyes, or snouts sticking above the surface. They are most likely to be near the shoreline, in shallow areas, and in weedy areas. If you hear this sound near your area, avoid it. Although, they most likely are going to be silent and stealthy when stalking their prey. Fight back by punching, kicking, and poking it’s eyes. Try and stuff objects like a life jacket into it’s mouth and trigger its gag reflex. If you are swimming in the water and see an alligator swimming by, remain calm and stay as still as possible to not draw attention to yourself. The Legend himself Read More 3 6 Featured AdviceScenarios What to do about a personal data leak or breach – Before and After brownfox-ffContributor - 8 hours ago This recent news roundup mentioned that the state of California has leaked and mishandled data on thousands of gun owners. This has come up before. Data leaks and breaches always seem frustrating and sad. While I would love to see strict penalties for poor security and mishandling that lead to data leaks and exposure, this also got me thinking – what _can_ we do to prepare for or prevent a personal data leak? The Prepared site has excellent articles and forum posts on general digital security and preparedness. But what about data breaches specifically? Here are some intro steps from a bit of light research: What to do before and after a data breach: Before: Use encrypted text messages. Install Signal – the most secure, open source, encrypted text messaging app. Keep your data private. You can use Signal for all texts on your phone – it will simply use encryption with anyone else who also has Signal, but still send regular text messages to those who do not. Then you can invite them to improve their texting too. Use a password manager. Don’t store your sensitive information inside emails etc. Don’t give out your Social Security Number (SSN). Or other very sensitive info. This may depend on geography. In North America there are usually only two places that need to know about your SSN: Your employer (so you can get paid), and your bank. That is it. Many other places try to ask and get this information. Tell them no. Often you may find them sheepishly admit the information was “optional”, and they will back down. Sign up your email address at https://haveibeenpwned.com/ . This is an interesting website that monitors data breaches and will email you if it finds that your email address has been included in a data leak. A good way to at least be aware that your information may have been exposed. Get a backup credit card and/or bank account. If you have the ability, having one main credit card but also a backup card can help to ensure you still have a way to operate or pay your bills if your main card is stolen or compromised. Likewise – opening two different bank accounts at different _types_ of institutions with different risk profiles – e.g. one large national bank and one local credit union. Storing some funds in each can help to make sure you still have access to some of your money. Keep some cash on hand. So you can keep operating even if everything goes down. Freeze and set a PIN on your credit file. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion will let you set a PIN – like a password – that must be used to unfreeze your credit account. This should prevent or make it more difficult for anyone to take out a loan in your name or otherwise access your credit. If you want to take out a loan or apply for credit yourself, you can simply call them with the PIN to unfreeze, and then re-freeze your account. Get and read your own credit report every six months. This can be a painful process, but the three firms above should let you get a free copy of your own credit report. Emphasis on free: they are not allowed to charge for it. However, they often make this intentionally difficult and confusing by adding many “upgrade” tiers and options, and changing the name to things like “consumer disclosure report” instead. Checking your report e.g. every six months can help you to spot if anyone used or tried to use your credit account. Consider credit- or identity-protection. I am wary of these services and have never tried them. I am not sure how much they actually help in the event anything happens. Would love to hear from anyone who has had good or bad experiences with identity protection. After: Call the company or organization and confirm whether your data was included in the breach or leak. Find out what type of data was affected. If your credit card info was leaked, you probably want to call your credit card company to cancel and replace the card. See if the company now offers help, or offers free identity protection after the fact. They may be able to help you get back to normal. Change the password on any accounts that were affected. What other ideas or actions can you think of? References Forum post “Getting Weekly Credit Reports”. Thanks to community member Supersonic for posting. https://www.tomsguide.com/us/data-breach-to-dos,news-18007.html https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-threats-what-to-do-after-a-data-breach.html https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-protect-yourself-after-data-breach https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/business-data-breach-insurance Read More 5 6 Featured AdviceScenarios 4th of July safety tips Henry Tubbs - 1 day ago Following the spirit of Peter 44’s topic the other day How to survive this nasty heat wave of 110+ degrees, I wanted to compile some 4th of July safety tips. Really?? 4th of July safety tips? So don’t eat too many burgers and hot dogs and maybe wear safety glasses at the parades so people on the floats don’t throw candy and hit you in the eye? Well… there are more dangers to this holiday than and upset stomach from eating too many burgers, so here are the ones I came up with and comment below if you have any other tips or things to add to the ones I do. If lighting fireworks out on your driveway or in the middle of the street have a garden hose, fire extinguisher, and a 5 gallon bucket full of water ready. Pull cars away from where you will be lighting things and take a minute to look around your street for flammable brush, boxes, or anything else that may be nearby. If a firework doesn’t go off, don’t disassemble it or try to light it again. Wait 30 seconds and then walk towards it with your hose and drench the sucker. Then submerge it in your 5 gallon bucket of water. In fact, take all of your spent and dud fireworks and store them in that bucket of water over night. In the morning drain the water and then throw away the firework shells. Having a first aid kit nearby can be handy in case someone gets a minor burn from a sparkler. Clear out any dry brush and material from your property. You don’t want a stray firework from your neighbor to catch and take down your house. See the below chart for a visualization of the danger of the 4th and wildfires. Bring dogs inside to prevent them from getting scared and running away If you are aware of any Veterans in your neighborhood think twice about lighting fireworks near their home or sit down and ask if they are okay with it. I’ve heard some Veterans struggle with PTSD and dread the 4th because it is a trigger. If you are grilling, make sure not to grill next to your house or a fence because the heat could damage the wall or set it on fire. Don’t be stupid. A neighbor kid the other year lit a ground bloom (also known as a Flower) firework in his back pocket thinking it would be funny and it melted his pants and fused the fabric to his butt and gave him a severe burn. Don’t have roman candle fights with each other, it’s fun but stupid. Take the steps now to be prepared for this potentially dangerous holiday and have fun! Happy Independence Day! Read More 13 12 Featured An introduction to lightweight backpacking Chance - 6 days ago An Introduction to Lightweight Backpacking Greetings everyone here at The Prepared. I have been asked to write out my thoughts on lightweight backpacking and how it can play a part in helping people get through the very difficult conditions we may have to face in the near future. This essay is not intended to be a hiker vs prepper series of arguments. Hikers have a distinctively different outlook than preppers. However, backpacking gear comes from the same desire to survive and thrive in a hostile world. Hikers and preppers can learn a lot from one another. This essay is intended to open a path between our communities so that both may benefit. Some Principles of Backpack Weight Reduction 1) The heaviest thing we carry on our backs is fear. Write down what you fear. Learn how to overcome it. 2) Weigh everything. List every item and record its weight. If you do not use it, it is just a rock. 3) Reduce weight where possible. Eliminate factory packaging. Carry the least amount of non food consumables between resupplys. Trim excess whatever as is possible without damaging a things integrity. Can one item do multiple tasks? Are lighter, equally useful substitutes available? Can some pieces of equipment be shared among a committed couple or dependable group? Are resources available in your environment which can be used, then discarded when done, so that there is no need to carry it around? 4) Properly distribute all weights Pack in modular sets so that weights can be adjusted as needed to maintain balance: water bottles against your back, food bags in the middle, never let anything dangle off the packs exterior, gadgets in your belt pouches, trekking poles in your hands (not your pack). 5) The more you learn the less you need to carry or the more effective it is. 6) When useless weight has been eliminated, add weight back, as the situation requires, to ensure minimum safety and comfort under anticipated conditions. Definitions The following is mainly a presentation on what lightweight gear is and how to use it under normal wilderness trail conditions. ‘Lightweight’ is defined in the current sense of a base weight at about 20 pounds. This does not include what you wear on a normal day or carry in your hands. This also does not include the rapidly changing weights of fuel, water and food. Over the years, gear weights have gotten ever lighter. It is now fairy easy to get pack, base weight down to about 10 pounds. Somewhere around this point is where the gear starts getting expensive but IMHO worth it. There is no one single source of ‘got it all figured out’ book or web site which tells you everything you need to know about lightweight backpacking. There are, however, dozens of summaries from personal experience – such as this one – which are a useful starting point for the motivated individual. Not Included Weight Shoes and Walking Very few people know how to walk (including experienced hikers) and most shoes cripple the feet. A way to learn how to walk properly is to buy whatever kinds of shoes and boots offered at thrift stores, experiment with various off the retail shelf socks and inserts then consciously walk as much as possible in them. Once you have learned enough to have a conversation about feet, shoes and walking, locate a running shoe store operated by qualified personnel. They probably won’t care too much about SHTF scenarios but they will be interested in helping you to select a shoe suitable for extensive back country hiking. Trekking Poles Trekking poles are the human version of four wheel drive. The nominal pole height is with your forearms at 90 degrees to your body. Adjust as you feel is needed. On flat land, the poles will become outriggers preventing ankle roll outs or serious stumbles from becoming injury delivering falls. On steep downhills the poles can be lengthened and now extended out in front as a kind of brake. This will take some stress off of your legs and back and prevent a downhill fall. When your arms are strong enough, the lengthened poles can be used to push yourself uphill. Animals and predatory humans instinctively regard trekking poles as weapons, which they are. Tarps and one pound tents are possible because trekking poles are used to hold them up. Wear Clothing The clothing layers that are considered normal wear are the base layer or underwear and the shell or pants, shirt, hat and sunglasses on a lanyard around your neck. Please take the time to do your own base layer research. Fully test out your choices by wearing them for days at a time. An inappropriate base layer will cause all sorts of problems. The fabric of choice for the shell is nylon or a variety of synthetic blends. Synthetic fabrics are extremely light, dry fast and wear forever. Up until recently, safari shirts and kind of limited pocket cargo pants were the most popular choices on the trail. These are probably still good choices for preppers. Two key requirements of a shirt is that it have full length sleeves and that there not be a stitched seam across the top of the shoulder. This goes for the base layer T shirt or sports bra as well. Such a seam at this location will cut into your shoulder under the weight of even a lightweight backpack. The pain comes on fast and will put a stop to your hike. One very useful type of pants is the ‘convertible’. This allows the bottom of each leg to be unzipped to create temporary hiking shorts. A reminder: Cotton Kills! Rapidly Changing Weights As previously mentioned, fuel, water and food are not counted against the base weight of the backpack because these weights change quickly and in practical terms are very difficult to measure. However, these obviously are weights which needs to be managed. Fuel & Stove If you do not need to cook your food you do not need a stove or its fuel. An upfront savings of 1 to 2 pounds. Water Water weighs 2.2 pounds per liter. Hikers generally favor the tall plastic bottles made by Lifewtr or smartwater. Both are about 1.4 ounces empty weight each. 1 quart Nalgene plastic bottles weigh about 6 ounces. Metal bottles tend towards Nalgene weights. Food A rule of thumb is that we can go without air for 3 minutes, without water for 3 days and without food for 30 days. The air and water estimates are highly controversial, but people can go without food for extended periods and generally are the better for having done so. The health improving effects of not eating are widely documented and even formalized in fasting disciplines. Thru-hikers routinely, but inadvertently, practice a kind of fasting because the act of long distance hiking will burn more nutrition between re-supply points (usually measured in calories) than can be carried in a pack. The way we deal with this is to eat like starving coyotes while in town. Historically, refugees have routinely had to travel hard with minimal food or no food at all. Preppers will have to deal with this in future SHTF scenarios. It would be interesting to hear a qualified nutritionist comment on how conscious fasting disciplines can be used to extend food supplies. Actual hiker foods are normally straight off the grocery store shelves. Some hikers will cook, dry and vacuum package food then have someone send it to a re-supply point on the trail. Very few eat the freeze dried backpacker foods. No one eats MRE’s. An understanding of food values is as important as an understanding of lightweight gear. Unfortunately, it is outside the scope of this presentation. Food weights vary from one hiker to the next and one re-supply point to another. This is where lightweight backpacking really pays off: you can load up with as much food as you can get in your pack and still make big miles without crippling yourself. The estimated load limit for my light weight backpack is about 35 pounds. As my total pack weight is about 13 pounds 9 ounces, that allows for about 19 pounds of food and 2 pounds, or one liter, of water. That is enough for 5 to 7 days of normal hiking. Rationing and/or fasting could potentially double that estimate. Water weight obviously varies daily and is replenished on the fly but as food weight decreases, water weight can increase. Water is an very important part of a fast. Backpack Base Weight This base weight presentation will be organized around my backpack and some of my personal gear selections. This is not an attempt to promote my gear choices or my favorite vendors. I do not financially benefit in any way or receive free gear. This is simply the outfit I know best and hope that a examination of it will serve as a departure point for others who wish to assemble their own lightweight backpack. Out on the trail there are almost no two packs alike as there are hundreds of ways to put one together. Just ask any gear head. Pack Sack System, about 24 ounces There is no need for built in compartments with zippers and excessive loops. There is no need for strong fabrics or heavy duty hip belt and shoulder strap harnesses either. I have an original Gossamer Gear ‘G4’, bought in 2010, now with 1300 miles of mountain hiking bushwhacking on it and its still good to go. It is just a big empty sack. With two belt pouches it weighs 20 ounces. Too bad its not made anymore. But you can make your own with a very low cost pattern from Quest Outfitters! There are two easy to overlook sources of weight that properly belong to the pack sack category: pack cover and gear stuff sacks. Pack covers are a pointless weight and a waste of money. They do not keep the surface next to your back dry so moisture leaks into the pack from there and the bottom of the cover collects water. Hikers have been experimenting with a variety of plastic bags used inside the pack as pack liners and stuff sacks. Current favorites are turkey roasting bags and the Clean Zipper brand zip lock bags (lighter and safer than ZipLoc). I use 5 dyneema fabric stuff sacks and a waterproof liner from Zpack. These weight just over 3.5 ounces. Sleeping Bag system, about 48 ounces The most common choices are goose down insulation in the 0 to 10 degree range. Do your research as you will get what you pay for. I threw down a kilobuck for a state of the art 10 degree bag that all but sings me to sleep. Weighs 37 ounces. Like pack sacks, total sleeping bag weight includes two other pieces of gear: the ground sheet and the ground pad. A 6×4 foot (or so) piece of black Tyvek can be bought from picture frame shops or online and is a good choice for the ground sheet. It weighs about 4.5 ounces. The same size piece of clear plastic Polycryo from Gossamer Gear weighs 1.8 ounces and is claimed to be tougher than Tyvek. The Thermorest Z-lite pad is an all around good choice. I cut off 4 of the sections to make a ¾ length pad which dropped the weight from 13 ounces to 9.2 ounces. Two reasons: A) the G4 backpack uses the Z-lite as the frame. You will have to study the pattern from Quest Outfitters to see why. Anyway, 14 sections make too thick of a frame. 10 sections is perfect, B) when the ¾ pad is laid out for sleeping, you can put the empty pack sack under your feet for a full length ground pad insulating effect. Tent, about 33 ounces Free standing tents are more popular than tarps and bivvy bags because tents can more easily handle a wider variation of weather conditions as well as provide privacy in public areas like campgrounds. The tent will add several degrees of heat capture even without direct solar gain. 2 person tents for single person will also allow for room to wait out a multi day storm without going stir crazy. Tents of any kind, as well as tarps and bivvys, need to be carried in waterproof stuff sacks because they are usually wet from overnight dew or rain. I transferred the tent stake weight to my one of my trekking poles. Note: The rain poncho and the bivvy always seem like good light weight gear choices but in practice they never work out very well. The poncho is simply not big enough and the bivvy becomes a sauna on a warm, skeeter filled night because it cannot be opened. I have always wondered if these technologies could be improved. If so, the weight reduction would be on the order of several pounds. The light weight backpacking community has pretty much abandoned both of them. Perhaps gear heads in the prepper community would be interested to keep exploring this weight reduction opportunity. Carry Clothing, about 55 ounces The insulating layer is quite important as is easy to imagine. What usually gets overlooked is that hiking burns calories which heats the body. Too warm of an insulating layer gets the body too hot while hiking and thus is pointlessly heavy to carry. The most common list is: insulated bottoms & tops (which double as pajamas and increase the heat capture of the sleeping bag) Second pair of socks. Possible second pair of shorts. Dedicated sleeping socks. Skull cap & balaclava. Weather resistant gloves. And zip lock bags which are carried to isolate dirty socks. The same problem of overheating applies to the weather shell, usually a goose down puffy under a rain jacket. But there is an important additional problem; body heat also generates sweat which can be captured by the rain jacket. Unless vented, this can lead to soaking wet clothing then to chaffing or hypothermia. One solution is to wear a vest, made of synthetic material, under the rain jacket and keep flapping air between the several layers. The other is to buy a crazy expensive rain jacket at the hardshell level which will vent out the sweat without letting the rain in. Water Containers, About 5.5 ounces A noted earlier, tall skinny smartwater bottles weigh 1.4 ounces each. I prefer to carry 2 Platypus 2 liter bags at 1.6 ounces each with the drinking tube attachment at 2.2 ounces. These are BPA free and work very well with the Sawyer inline filtration system. Water Filtration, about 6.5 ounces. Micro Squeeze Sawyer filter, its misc parts and the A/B containers of Aquamira chemical disinfectant. The Micro Sawyer works with the smartwater and platypus containers but not with any other water container that I know of. Food Containers & Utensils, about 4 ounces Food containers are a bit of a wild card. The normal container is a couple of simple stuff sacks or even heavy duty plastic grocery bags. For no-stovers, add a P38 can opener and titanium spork for about 2.5 ounces. In some areas, bear cans, Ursacks or hanging your food bags from trees are advisable or required. As bear cans and a two Ursacks are in the pound range, hanging food bags is the preferred option. I made a food hanging kit from the little stuff sack that the tent stakes came in and a length of macrame cord. Weighs about 1.5 ounces. Medical / Hygiene / Repair / Misc Kits, about 7 ounces Note: There is a truism on the trail that the bigger the medical kit the less likely the hiker knows how to use it. With any luck this is not true of preppers. However, your recommended medical kits look like they could stand to be measured against the Principles of Backpack Weight Reduction and still be as effective as you intend them to be. Medical: 2 Neosporin goop packets, one with tic fork in it. Two band-aids. 20 Advil tablets. 6 electrolyte tablets. Not counted weight is duct tape and muscle tape attached to one of my trekking poles. Another Note: It is also a truism that very few hikers know anything about wilderness first aid regardless of med kit size. Our guiding philosophy is: ‘Don’t Get Hurt!’. Granted, not a very good one, but injuries are quite rare. Hygiene: (it is unethical to use soap in the backcountry) 2 ounce spray bottle full of 70% rubbing alcohol and dedicated handkerchief for daily cleaning of feet and smelly bits. 1 toothbrush with handle cut down (to get it inside a plastic bag) 6 dental floss toothpick things. Plus a plastic comb. Repair: 20 feet of polyester thread wrapped around a plastic thing I found with a sewing needle stuck through it. Misc: mini lighter in tiny plastic bag with vitamin bottle absorbent pouch and small piece of cardboard soaked in candle wax for fire starter. A KN95 face mask and two sets of soft ear plugs. Poop Kit, about 6 ounces In a small stuff sack are a half roll of toilet paper, a 2 fl oz squeeze bottle of hand sanitizer gel and The Deuce cat hole digging tool. In addition are 4, one quart zip lock bags for areas where packing out your toilet paper is required. The Bat Belt, about 32 ounces More and more hikers are attaching little pouches to their hip belt and shoulder straps. Photographers often have a not so small camera bag hanging off of their sternum and shoulder straps. If done correctly, this throws weight forward and down in a kind of counter balance to the loaded backpack weight without interfering with the back and forth movement of trekking pole swinging arms. Here is what I carry: 100% Deet skeeter juice. Skeeter hat net Petzl Zipka headlamp (eliminates the bulky head harness) Reading glasses 3 AAA & 2 AA batteries in a plastic case Garmin Oregon 450 stand alone GPS (uses 2aa batteries) Small cell phone BTECH UV-5X3 handy talkie (do not have ham license yet) Opinel folding knife (can sharpen on a river rock) BASUNE slingshot (never runs out of bullets) Some of this stuff is a new addition to my regular outfit and I am struggling with how to incorporate it. Given the list of hardware that preppers like to carry around, the Bat Belt seems like a backpacking technology that your community would be motivated to advance. I am very interested in any in any suggestions or innovations that you come up with. Happy Trails! Chance Read More 15 18 Featured COVID at home: prepare for a severe case July LewisContributor - 2 hours ago Covid might seem so January 2022, but if it stays true to form, there is likely to be another variant and another peak at some point. So I thought this was worth posting! We had a covid case in the family during the omicron peak that became somewhat serious despite the person being vaxxed, boosted and taking paxlovid. (one bad night, but all turned out fine). In most ways I was prepared, but I had one important gap, which was figuring out in advance how to get medical help and support after hours. This was for that all important “should we go to the ER??” call in the middle of the night when we knew the ERs were completely overwhelmed, and my relative was fighting me on it, and I didn’t know what to do. If I had thought to find out ahead of time what my after hours resources were, I would have been better prepared. My overall suggestion is to remind people that even now, covid can randomly hit you hard, and it’s good to prepare in advance and also the second you get a positive test – just in case it does. Here are my tips! Ahead of time: Have at-home rapid tests so you can test as soon as symptoms appear. Have a primary care doctor if you can. If you have barriers to health care, try to identify a free clinic or other medical resource you can turn to if needed. Know ahead of time if/how you can get medical help/advice after hours. Many primary care services have an on call doctor, and health insurance companies may have a nurse help line. You may also have a close relative or friend who is a medical professional. Have a pulse ox and a thermometer at home Ideally have a blood pressure cuff and know how to use it Have basic meds on hand like tylenol, chloraseptic, anti-diarrhea Have gatorade, pedialyte or similar on hand Have plenty of easy to prepare food in the house Have a plan for who you can turn to for errands and other help As soon as you get a positive test: Contact your doctor or a clinic and find out if you can get an anti-viral pill or other treatment. DON’T WAIT for it to get serious!!!! Start the ball rolling now, even if you feel mostly fine. It sometimes takes time to get it, and it is most effective if you take it as soon as you get symptoms. Go over the list above and address any gaps. Order or have a friend/family member drop off any meds/equipment/food you need. If you don’t already know how to get medical advice/help on weekends or after hours, find out now! If covid does take a turn for the worse, it’s practically a given that it will happen in the middle of the night or on a weekend. Take a baseline pulse ox reading and temperature, write it down, and keep monitoring. Familiarize yourself with emergency symptoms. Go over them with your household so you are on the same page about when to get help. Trouble breathing Persistent pain or pressure in the chest New confusion Inability to wake or stay awake Pale, gray, or blue-colored skin, lips, or nail beds, depending on skin tone Remember hydration! You need to drink more when you have a fever, and things like sweating and diarrhea make you require even more fluids. If you already feel horrible, you might not notice you are getting dehydrated. My relative’s bad night was in part due to dehydration, which led to low blood pressure and passing out. Low blood pressure made it hard to get a pulse ox reading. Scary! That’s a LOT of bullets but it really doesn’t take that much time to go through. If you get covid, you will probably be fine – but just in case, prepare! Read More 19 57 Advice New affordable online pharmacy saves people thousands on life saving medicine rebecca - 6 hours ago You may have seen Mark Cuban on Shark Tank as the famous billionaire investor/businessman. He recently opened up an online pharmacy that is trending all over the news right now with the amazing cost savings that it is offering to people. Instead of selling drugs for ridiculous amounts, they only mark it up 15% (still a healthy profit for them). A traditional pharmacy may charge you or your insurance company $9657, but at this place it is only $39. Isn’t that insane how much of a savings that is for you? Important medications are now accessible to people who may have just gone without, rationed, or went bankrupt trying to stay alive. If you need a lifesaving prescription medication, check out costplusdrugs.com and see if you can get it cheaper on there. They don’t take insurance cards to pay for the drugs, but the savings are still so incredibly good that you might end up paying less for the same medication then you were with your co-pay or deductible. It is easier to store up some extra $40 medication than it is a $9500 one. Hopefully this allows people to not only have what they need, but save some up for a rainy day if there are supply chain issues, job loss, etc. Read More 9 4 News Remove rust off your gear and tools with vinegar or ketchup Gideon ParkerStaff - 7 hours ago Did you know that vinegar is a great way to remove surface rust off of metal objects like tools, stoves, or camping gear? I didn’t, but after seeing it done on YouTube I gave it a try and it worked quite well. I do take care of my tools, but have inherited and found some used tools that were neglected and gathered some rust. The following two were my fault though. The small pair of wire cutters and the rust on this parang were from me not applying a protective layer of oil on them. The first step is to scrub everything down with soapy water to remove any grease or oil that is on there. This is an important step because I forgot to do that the first time I put all these in a vinegar bath and not very much rust came off. After washing them properly and then soaking in vinegar again, it worked much better. Because it would take quite a lot of vinegar to submerge the parang, I opted to try spraying it and the wire cutters down with some ketchup on just the areas that have built up rust. The rest of the tools I submerged in vinegar for 24 hours. Without even touching them, look at the rust that has just flaked off. Taking a brass wire brush, I lightly brushed off the remaining rust and the tools are looking much nicer now! Some of the files and punches still had some of the 20+ year old rust on them, but they do look much nicer now and I’m happy with the results. Another soak or two with additional brushing probably could get them back to new. The parang however didn’t show any signs of improvement. I’m not sure why, because the ketchup worked great on the wire cutters. Maybe it is the type of steel it is made out of. I then put some oil on a rag and wiped all the tools down to prevent this from happening again. Neat little trick, but hopefully I never have to do it again and can prevent this from happening with proper maintenance in the first place. Further reading: How to maintain garden tools with a bucket of sand and oil Read More 2 0 Gear Best modular bag for car? Don - 8 hours ago Hi guys, I’m pretty new to prepping and have been reading a ton of stuff on this site. I’m in the middle of assembling my kit but I really could use some recommendations for a bag. I have almost all of the items of a level 3 kit stored throughout my truck but scattered throughout. I’m ideally looking for some sort of modular bag to use that I can attach smaller packs or bags on/in based on the situation I’m in. For example, I want to keep all my clothes/hygiene in a small day pack and possible use this also as a gym bag or emergency change of clothes for work. I also want to be able to strap a sleeping bag and tent if I’m in a bugout situation but leave in the truck if I’m just trying to get home. I also have a rather large molle ifac (9”x7”x5”) that would be nice to strap to the bottom or side but keep easily assessable. I am leaning toward an Osprey Aether AG 60 or a Deuter Aviant Voyager 65+10. Both of these have removable daypacks but I’m worried they will take up two much space in my truck (won’t fit under the backseat) Does anybody have a good recommendation for a bag in the +/-40L range with attachment options for top, bottom and sides (or separate daypack options)? Conversely any recommendations for internal bag pouches? Thanks Read More 13 18 Gear DIY Project: Rain barrel water collector brownfox-ffContributor - 9 hours ago If you have a roof, and it rains, you can collect and store rain water to improve your resilience. Having extra water increases your drought tolerance, extends your watering window, and may even save you some money. Note: This assumes you already have gutters and downspouts connected to your roof, to move the water away. If not you will need to set those up first, which is big enough to be its own project. Where Rain Water Collection Is Legal Strangely, some countries allow collection of rainwater, and some do not. Check your country or local laws to confirm, before you begin. I collected a list of links and countries at the end of this article; updates or additional sources are welcome. Tools You Need A drill A level A pencil Safety goggles How To Do It You will need a rain barrel, a sturdy base to stand it on, and a diverter to get the water from the downspout into the barrel. The diverter is the trickiest part, but I’ve done the research so you don’t have to. The Barrel [There are many different styles of rain barrel to choose from. Photo credit – Jennifer C on Flickr. Licensed under CreativeCommons CC-BY 2.0] You want a food grade barrel. Depending on your goals and budget, you can often find these for free on craigslist or from local restaurants and food supply stores. You can also buy them at hardware stores. Some cities and counties have water barrel programs where they may give away or sell you barrels at a discounted rate. Check your local water utility. I sourced a free barrel from a neighbour but it was not opaque. I wanted an opaque barrel so no light would get through to reduce algae growth. I ended up buying one from the hardware store. A Closed Top I prefer a barrel with a closed top, so mosquitos and critters can’t get in and breed or drown. Some barrels come with hatches. I assembled a hatch cover using some plastic and some old landscaping cloth, to keep sunlight out. The Base One gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds or 3.7 kilograms. A 55 gallon barrel of water weighs 460 pounds, or 208kg. You need a sturdy base to hold this weight. I used the following layers as a base: Sand on the ground, below the base. Make sure this is level before you start. 24” square cement pad. These might be called “paving stones” or similar names, depending on where you get them. Four standard cement blocks. These measure 8” bx 8” by 16”, so if you fit them into an “L” pattern you can put an 8” side and 16” side together to perfectly cover the 24” pad. A second layer of cement blocks to raise the barrel up. This increases the water pressure, and is tall enough that you can fit a standard 5-gallon bucket under the tap A second 24” cement pad on top Make sure your base is level again, then set everything into place. The Diverter The diverter moves the water from the downspout into your rain barrel. I spent thirty hours researching eleven different models of downspout diverters. In the end I chose the EarthMinded FlexiFit diverter. I chose this diverter model because: You only need to cut one small hole in the side of your downspout You do *not* need to sever the entire downspout. So if the project does not work out, you can simply plug up the hole (plug included) and move on The diverter fits many sizes of downspout. Depending on where you live, your downspouts may be square, round, rectangular, and many different sizes -2”x3” , 3”x4”, round 3 to 6”, K-style, etc. The EarthMinded diverter is made of flexible, UV-resistant rubber (EPDM) so it can change shape to accommodate your downspout. Even if it doesn’t fit exactly it can still collect *some* water. They do also sell a round model for round downspouts. The diverter automatically handles overflow, so you don’t need to do anything. When the barrel is full, water flows back up the attachment hose to the top of the diverter. Any more rainwater then simply continues on through a hole in the diverter and down the spout. You don’t need to worry or adjust anything when it rains or stops raining. The water barrel system stays closed. Because the water flows in from the side, you can use a closed top barrel. This keeps out mosquitos, keeps out sunlight so algae doesn’t grow, and keeps animals from crawling into your barrel. I prefer to buy from the company themselves, but you can also sometimes find this diverter at big box stores or hardware stores. The EarthMinded installation video is pretty clear. Around 3:38 you can see how the diverter fits into the downspout. Because of surface tension, rain running into a downspout clings to the inside edges of the material. This diverter collects water nicely and funnels it into the connecting hose. [The EarthMinded “FlexiFit” diverter is made of flexible rubber, and fits into many different sizes of downspout. Once the rain barrel is full, excess water flows through the hole and away normally.] Screen shot of EarthMinded diverter in cross-section of downspout – from their installation video. Setting It Up Now that you have all of your parts the procedure is fairly easy. Assemble your base, and put the water barrel on top. Make sure the connecting hose can reach from the downspout to the barrel. The important part is: make sure that the hole in the downspout is lower than the highest water level of the barrel. This is what makes the diverter work. If the hole in the downspout is lower than the top of the barrel, then once the barrel is full, water will push back into the connector hose and down the downspout, to continue away on its journey. If you attach to the downspout too high or too low, this won’t work. See the image below. With your barrel in place, use your level to mark where the diverter should go, and where to drill the hole. If you have a short level, you can use a 2×4 or wooden board to help measure. Image from the manufacturer instructions. The diverter hole in the downspout must be cut _below the highest water line_ of the water barrel. This ensures that water will flow back down the connector hose, and into the downspout, once the barrel is full. e.g. If your barrel has a hole in the top or front, the downspout must be installed at a level _below_ those holes. The EarthMinded kit comes with three circular saw blades for your drill – these are the sizes needed for the tap at the bottom of the barrel (small), the connector hose in the barrel (medium), and the diverter in the downspout (large). I like to drill the hole for the connector hose in the barrel first, about 2-3” from the top of the barrel. Then place the barrel on the stand and measure a level connection for the hose. This tells me where to drill into the downspout. Once you have drilled your hole, connect it up. If you have a garden hose you can test the diverter works by spraying water onto the roof. How Much Water Will You Get? You need to know: How big is your roof? How much rain do you get each month? One inch of rain on 1,000 square feet of roof collects 623 gallons of water. That’s enough water to fill more than 11, fifty-five gallon barrels. The pitch of the roof doesn’t matter. So multiply your roof’s square footage by 0.623 – that’s how many gallons you will get from one inch of rain. In metric: one millimeter of rain on one square meter of roof collects one Litre of water. Rainwater collection calculator here: https://www.watercache.com/resources/rainwater-collection-calculator I have to put my barrel away during winter, so I only count rain received during the summer months. If you have multiple downspouts, choose which one(s) you will use to install a barrel. Consider whether you want the biggest roof area, the closest spout to your garden or where you will use the water, or other needs. How Many Barrels Do You Need? [Photo by Pete Favelle – licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 2.0] One way to estimate how much water you might use is to calculate 0.5 gallons per square foot of garden space, per week. Another strategy is simply to look at the space you have and how many barrels you could fit. Starting with just one barrel is a fine plan. Use it for a season and track your use. How often do you empty the barrel? How often does it rain before you use all of the water? You can decide whether you need more barrels in more locations. What Can You Use It For? You shouldn’t normally drink rain water that has been collected into a barrel without properly filtering, cleaning, and processing it first. Main non-potable uses include watering your garden, watering trees or perennial fruit, or flushing toilets. Return On Investment (ROI) So how well does a water barrel pay for itself? The biggest factor will depend on where you get your barrel. If you find a free barrel from a local restaurant versus paying $200 for a fancy barrel from a big box store, that will obviously affect your ROI. Based on rough pricing and some rounding, I find the following costs for these materials: Barrel: $0 to $150, depending Cement pads: $15 each * 2 pads = $30 Standard cement blocks: $5 each * 8 blocks = $40 Water diverter kit: $50 with shipping That gives a base cost of $30 + $40 + $50 = $120, plus what you spend for the barrel. You will also need to know how much you pay for water. In many places if you are on metered city water they charge you not only for the water you use, but also a “drainage fee”; so you are charged two amounts for the same water. All the more reason to install these barrels! All-in-all – In my area with my roof sizes, yearly rainfall, and price for water, a rain barrel should save me $20 to $30 per summer in reduced water use. At a cost of $120 for the base, this means the project pays for itself in 4 to 6 years. If you pay another $120 for the barrel itself, the project pays itself back in 8 to 12 years. Personally I am happy with a 6 year return on investment that extends my drought tolerance and allows me to make good use of a free resource that would otherwise flow away. If the price of water goes up in your area, this would pay for itself even sooner. And if you are counting on this water to water your garden, water perennial food or fruit, or serve activities like flushing toilets during water restrictions, it is even more valuable. You will have to decide how much peace-of-mind and improved water security is worth for yourself. I would love to hear about your rain barrel project! (edit after posting: Corrected bad wording about “being level”. The important part of setup is not to “make sure the connector hose is level”, but rather: ensure the connector hose attaches to the downspout at a level *lower* than the highest water mark / highest water line of the rain barrel. This is what makes the water stop filling the barrel, and begin to backflow into the downspout, continuing on its journey. Thank you to community member Robert Larson for the questions and help identifying this incorrect phrasing.) — More Info Demystifying Diverters – info on how downspout diverters work, and related topics Rainwater Harvesting Calculator US Climate & Rainfall Data World Water Reserve – more info on diverters Laws On Rain Water Collection Collection assessment – Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, and Singapore all allow and encourage collecting and using rain water. United States – collection laws by state The UK, collecting rain water is legal so long as it is kept separate from main drinking water Canada (link to PDF) – legal to capture for use flushing toilets and surface irrigation Japan – encouraged in many areas, with subsidies available Belgium (source1, source2) – Rights to using and collecting water protected in the Constitution, with no legal requirement to connect your home to the local water distribution network. Many municipalities offer rebates for installing rainwater collection tanks. Read More 20 16 Endure: A tabletop RPG for preppers Seth Johnston - 11 hours ago Heya everyone! I wanted to share something cool I found that we could use to test out or even just play around in hypothetical scenarios. It’s a rules-lite, pay-what-you-want Tabletop Roleplaying Game known as Endure. You can find it here! https://vonbednar.itch.io/endure The basic idea of it is that you are an average person caught in a Crisis Scenario. This isn’t The Division, where you’re essentially a super soldier putting the world together one city block at a time. No, I’d say it feels more like The Long Dark or The Last of Us. You can also set the game in whatever time period or setting you want, as long as you’re surviving a Crisis. All you need to play this game is two six-sided dice. No complex character sheets, no battle maps, none of that. I like this because it leaves the game open for Players and GMs to tell the story they want to without being confined to a framework. The only thing I don’t like about it is that combat isn’t explained very well, as they just advise avoiding it if you can. While that makes sense, a little more on the subject would be nice. Regardless, I hope y’all find this game interesting! Read More 2 7 ScenariosSkills Minor prepping victory: Perennial Fruit! brownfox-ffContributor - 12 hours ago I was inspired last year by Josh’s review of “The Resilient Farm and Homestead”. I love the author’s take on improving resilience and regenerative systems, and seeing what we can do to provide more for ourselves. e.g. Falk says > “Self-reliant households are the basic building blocks of any culture that is viable over the long term”> “If our goal is a peaceful, just society, self-reliance at the home and community levels must be a central focus of our lives” I have been reading and learning about permaculture over the past few years. We don’t have a lot of space available, but last summer I decided to see what I could do in my own small life. I spent many hours of research learning what resilient, perennial species might grow well in our area (gardening zone 3), and spoke with several local gardeners and permaculturists on what food, plants, and species do well for them. I landed on two perennial fruit bushes: saskatoons (also known as juneberry or pigeon berry), and haskaps (also known as honeyberries). Both of these plants are hardy down to gardening zone 2, and both produce perennial fruit. They don’t seem to need a lot of care. When fully grown the bushes should take up space roughly five feet by five feet (depending on variety), which is great for me as they won’t get out of hand. If you’ve never had them – haskaps are similar to a long blueberry, though usually a more tart flavour. I took a hard look at the yard space around our house and was able to free up enough space to plant four bushes – a path roughly five feet wide and twenty feet long, wrapping around a garage building next to our garden. It took some solid work with a five pound pickaxe and a sturdy shovel to dig deeply enough to plant them. But growing up doing manual work on a farm I find that kind of labor feels rewarding. I have been attentively watering and working to care for the bushes since last year. During the hottest summer heat they took quite a bit of water each day; part of the reason I was motivated to set up a water barrel and system for rain capture. I did not expect the bushes to fruit in their first year. Haskaps are a bit finicky to plant and cultivate – you need specific varieties next to each other in order for them to pollinate. What’s more I discovered they are quite difficult to source and find – it took several months of hunting and calling before I found a greenhouse nursery that even carried them! However, this week it all paid off: I was rewarded with a first harvest of perennial fruit! This first picking was roughly one cup of berries: It may be small, but this feels like a wholesome success. Is it a large amount? No. Will it feed an entire family? No. But it is more than zero. And it is hopefully renewable, and free. I have been able to build and introduce some valuable habitat, and add some flavour, nutrition, and variety into my meals. One step forward! Best of luck to everyone with your own gardens and journeys. (edit: I have edited one of the photos and increased the contrast to make it easier to see) Read More 13 27 What is the best place to buy mylar bags? ChickenPrepper - 13 hours ago What’s a good place to get Mylar bags from? Just off Amazon, or do you all have a go to place for these things? Amazon reveals hundreds of possible vendors, most made overseas. If I’m to commit to some bags o’ rice for long term, I’d like to ensure I get decent stuff. Thanks! Read More 3 4 AdviceGear An observation on prepping in 2022 Bill Masen - 2 days ago Two years of Covid 19 and the shortages of everything from food to lumber, people basically locked down for months on end, economic chaos that followed, Everything more expensive etc. That event alone seriously stifled the mocking voices who laughed at those of us who were wise enough to get involving with prepping. Then just as Covid 19 started to fade from the news along comes the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the mad panic to rearm by NATO, The conflict itself and the growing wave of sanctions plunged the world back into a situation once again of shortages of energy, food, fuel and raw materials, massive price rises, security threats and risks. OPEN threats of nuclear weapons being used, mass migration from the east have followed. The global economy taking yet another pounding, tax rises are inevitable, already wheat, animal feed, diesel, fertiliser, nickel, titanium etc prices are rocketing and shortages announced. In my country energy prices have risen FOURTEEN times faster than wages already, the combined gas and electricity bill for the average British house has gone up from around £1200 to £1900 and is forecast to get as high as £4500 by October. Petrol has rocketed up in days from £1.45 a litre to £1.70 a litre. All rather grim reading I’m sorry to say, BUT The mocking of preppers has stopped all together, and people enquiring about how to get started in prepping / off gridding and homesteading is increasing every day. Sales of Heritage seeds is UP, people getting Allotments (small food growing plots of land) is UP, people installing WOOD BURNING stoves UP, People caching and stock piling UP, People buying Micro wind turbines and PV panels UP, People selling up and relocating OUT OF TOWN up over 30% according to some UK media sources etc So my oberservation is this ” Why does it take TWO global crises to make people wake to to the vulnerability of society to disruption, and for them to see the benefits of prepping”. A report I read about two years ago estimated that 30 million of you folks in the Americas are into prepping in one form or another. I think that number is likely to rise now. Read More 12 36 Meta Success! I finally made a batch of soap that I liked Robert LarsonContributor - 2 days ago After some great advice from the wonderful people here on the forum my second attempt at making soap turned out MUCH better than the first time. Check out the comments on this forum thread to see my first failed attempt. For those who are interested in making soap, I’ll give a brief summary of how to do it. Shopping list: Pure sodium hydroxide (lye). I bought 2lb for $16 on Amazon and it came with a free silicone mold. I’d link to the item I bought but it doesn’t seem to be available any longer. Silicone molds. These make the process much nicer and produce a better bar than homemade cardboard molds, so it is definitely worth investing in these. Two small 3-4 gallon buckets Silicone spatula Soap blender Disposable paper cup Kitchen scale to measure ingredients Fat sources. Coconut oil, beef tallow, olive oil, and many other options. Check out the possibilities on soapcalc.net to see what they can help you use. Avoid polyunsaturated fats, I learned this the hard way in my first attempt, which is linked up above. Distilled water Eye protection and disposable gloves A quick and dirty summary of how soap is made is that you take some fat source like olive oil, mix with lye and water, and chemical reactions happen that turn it into soap. To calculate what recipe you are going to use, go onto soapcalc.net and plug in your various fat sources and how much you have. For this successful attempt I used about 2/3 beef tallow and 1/3 coconut and olive oil. The users on this forum taught me which parameters I should shoot for. I went with an INS of 160, higher than this gives you a harsher soap and having some superfat to offset possibly being off on your recipe and avoiding excess lye that will burn you. Tweak your fat levels until you reach the goals you are going for. Here is my recipe. I don’t know what all this means but I’ve highlighted the things I look at. According to your recipe, measure out your ingredients. Use a disposable cup for the lye, but the other food grade materials (water and the fats) can be measured into your normal kitchen’s bowls because they won’t touch anything toxic. Take one of the 4 gallon buckets outside and put on eye protection, gloves, and a long sleeve shirt. Pour in the water first and then the lye and stir with the spatula. It will give off some nasty fumes and heat up pretty hot from the chemical reaction. Back inside you will heat up your fats to as close to the same temperature as the lye mixture. I just threw it all in the crock pot and melted down the solid beef tallow and coconut oil. If you are doing just oils like coconut oil and olive oil then just heat them up in the microwave. Combine the lye and oil mixture in your second bucket and mix for 2-3 minutes with the electric mixer until it is very creamy and thickens up a bit. Pour the liquid soap into the molds and use the spatula to clean out the last drop. Put the molds in a cool dark cupboard and cover with a cloth for it to harden. I gave it a couple days and then pulled the soap bars out of the molds and stood them up on a piece of cardboard to get more airflow. Let them sit for a month to cure and they are ready to use. The nice bars in the back of this picture were from the mold, and the weird pieces were ones that I broke up from a large chunk in a cardboard mold that I made. I won’t use a homemade mold again and will get more silicone molds because they make it so much nicer. My soap bars smelt very strongly like beef broth when they were just poured into the molds. By the time a month had passed and they were ready to use they still smelt slightly beefy if you put your nose up to them. When you lather your hands a smell of beef broth can be smelt but your hands don’t smell like anything after you rinse them off. It’s an interesting smell that I don’t particularly like, but my wife has showered with it and said she didn’t smell anything. Maybe I am just more sensitive to it. Next time I make soap, I have some pig lard that I need to use. It probably won’t smell as strongly as the beef tallow, but I still am going to only put in 25% lard because I am not a fan of the meat smelling soap. I also do not want to add essential oils because I don’t want to smell peppermint beef either. Well, that’s about it. I am extremely new to this world of soap making and if I said something incorrect please correct me. I don’t know how everything works, I just know that if you do steps A+B you get C and that’s what I want. It’s a fun experiment and I feel a sense of self sufficiency. If there was a nationwide run on soap for whatever reason I could make my own and share with others. Soap and cleanliness is very important for health and moral so it is an important survival and prepping skill to know how to make. At first I was scared and worried I wouldn’t get the chemistry right, and I actually didn’t the first time, but once I knew what to shoot for it was very easy to do. It is not a hard skill to learn and there are so many things and variations you can run with from here. I just like plain, simple, cheap survival soap though. Maybe one day I’ll expand into scents, colors and shapes. Read More 18 21 Skills The basic model my family uses for planning to Shelter in place vs Bug out Rick Ryder - 3 days ago I’ve been a prepper for a long time and developed my plans before finding The Prepared. It feels good knowing that the plans we developed on our own mirror much of the officially recommended plans on this site. I’m thankful for this community and thought it might be helpful to share my personal version of our plans. Lately I’ve been sleeping (somewhat) better, because I’m using the pandemic as a driver to review and update Go-Bags for the three adults living in our home. In addition to straight “physical survival” I’m giving a nod to Maslow and building in some “psychological comfort” as I work my way through this exercise. Staying grounded and sane can be critical during an emergency, and also go a long way toward helping you recover after one. During an emergency our “Primary Plan” is to shelter-in-place in our home. We’re well equipped and prepared to stay in place for weeks. But we know we can’t count on that option, and we might have to leave in a hurry. So we have an “Alternate Plan” and that’s where the Go-Bags are essential. (We also have “Contingency” and “Survival” plans, but that discussion is for another time.) Planning for an emergency is a vital step in stocking a Go-Bag that will fit your personal needs. I’ve found it’s a big plus to think about “what might happen? what am I preparing for?” When you’re planning, think of the ASSUMPTIONS you’re making (“I’ll be able to drive my car 30 miles to get out of the city and reach my brother’s home”) and CONTINGENCIES (“I might have to spend the next 12 hours in my car because the highway is blocked”). To help you develop your personal plan (and your Go-Bags), I talk about my family and the scenarios that we’re working to prepare for, with a focus on the “Alternate Plan.” For the most part, I’m NOT going to tell you what to put in your bag; solid info on that subject is available on this site. My goal in being prepared is to help reduce the impact of an emergency on my family, friends, and neighbors. What kind of emergency? Well, that’s where my “scenarios” help me out, and that’s the focus of this post. Another thing to keep in mind is your location: mine is the Pacific Northwest. We’ve had a few earthquakes (and a volcano eruption) since I moved here so I know “seismic shift” is a risk for us; if you live in the Midwest you may focus your prepping on tornadoes; if you live near water you may need to prep for floods; and if you live in the SE USA naturally you’ll think about hurricanes. Here are the possible situations that I think about when I’m prepping. They’re in descending order from “most likely and simplest to prepare for.” I live in a house that I own; in an apartment or a condo you may need different solutions. Scenario #1: Shelter in place (“minor crisis”) Our family typically experience one or more of these scenarios every year. There are significant challenges in your region: a weather event or minor earthquake causes a power-outage or conditions that threaten the supply chain. After evaluating the situation, you conclude your best option is to stay home. You will need food, water, heat, meds, and a plan for self-defense. You may want to draw on your Go Bags to sustain you – or you may choose to keep them intact in case you need to GO. A generator & fuel, a well-stocked pantry, cash in smaller denomination bills, a back-up source of heat in cooler months, and accessible tools will directly make a difference on your level of comfort and safety. Plan for at least two weeks. Try to keep a low profile while you shelter in place; anticipate that people who did NOT plan ahead will be in your neighborhood. Scenario #2: Short time away from home with indoor shelter available (“significant crisis”) We’ve only had a few of these scenarios in 40 years. You need to leave your home because a minor earthquake makes it uninhabitable, or a local environmental issue pushes you out, or you need to go the ER and can’t be sure when you’ll return. You might shelter with a member of your family, or in a public shelter, or in a hospital. This is a situation where you expect to travel in your own vehicle or walk a short distance to get a ride, spend most of your time INDOORS, be SECURE from harm, and have support from others including water, food, blankets, and a place to sleep. This is NOT about extended travel by foot or for outdoor-living survival situations. Wear comfortable clothing: scrub pants, long sleeve top, a zip-up fleece hoodie, and a baseball hat (to shield eyes). Important: If communication channels are not working, leave a written message in a previously-agreed-to onsite secure location that will tell family/friends where you plan to go. Keep in mind that when you are in public spaces, like a shelter, anything you have may become lost, contaminated, or taken from you. Firearms might not be allowed either. For this scenario, I make sure that our go-bags have copies of all important documents; for all three of my family-members I carry scans on a thumb-drive AND hard-copy: medical info, family and friends contact info, driver’s license, passport, veteran’s ID and VA ID, Medicare card, a list of passwords, bank & insurance info – you take it from here. We each also have earbuds (connect to phone for music), “quiet headphones” (earmuffs) to screen out noisy surroundings, and eyeshades (to screen out light – some places may have lights on both day and night, and basic PPE: nitrile gloves, N95 masks, and goggles. Scenario #3: Extended time away from home (“recoverable emergency”) Only once so far: a major wildfire complex came within miles of our family home, and we were put into a “mandatory evacuation” classification. You need to leave your home and circumstances suggest that the infrastructure will NOT recover in a reasonable amount of time – say, two weeks. Think: pandemic, major earthquake or environmental disaster, and/or the prospect of civil disorder; the grid is down or at-risk. Assume you decide to go early in the cycle, the roads are drivable, and your destination is more distant. You do not know when you will return. Scenario #4: You may never return home (“major disaster”) In my opinion this is both the “least likely” scenario, and the most critical. The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic exposed us all to a hint of what might be on the horizon. If this hits, your family’s life may depend on how well you prepared. This is worst-case: imagine news reports of major displacements like Chernobyl, or war-time chaos and refugees. Take everything you believe you need to survive: food, water, clothing, firearms, AND high-value items including all your cash. Take any/all Go Bags. Load up your vehicle but don’t overload it; secure your load and do your best to keep a low profile as you implement your plan. Use your situational awareness skills. Stay safe: use extra caution if entering your house/apartment after an earthquake or other natural disaster! If you read this far – thank you! I hope you found something that will help you prepare for the adventures life brings your way. Stay Safe, Stay Sane. Read More 17 6 Scenarios How are you doing? Times are stressful, keep an eye on how you are handling things Alisa Felix - 4 days ago How are you doing? No seriously… think about it. Take a moment of reflection of how you are feeling. Put things on scale of 1-10 if that will help you. Think about the various areas of your life, finances, physical fitness, job, family life, hobbies, etc… Are you living balanced or is one area out of wack? It’s important to be in tune with your body and mind, we often get so busy and overwhelmed that the ship might be sinking underneath us (our mental or physical health), but we are so focused on the horizon. I’ve been struggling lately with everything just being so expensive and there isn’t really any end in sight. It’s making it even harder to save money for the future and my “fun money” for hobbies and recreation is smaller than ever. So I guess my main worry is the economy. We are all strangers here, feel free to open up and vent to others here on how you are doing. I’m at least here to listen to you if you need it. Being prepared brings comfort and reassurance. Guess I just need to prepare more. If I had lots of gas and food stored, I might not be as worried about all the rising costs of everything, Looking back on old forum posts I came across this one with some good advice: Philosophies for good mental health Read More 13 13 Advice Does anyone have experience sprouting seeds to eat? Peter 44 - 4 days ago In the spirit of trying to eat more healthy, I want to consume more vegetables. There are many vegetables though that I just do not like or don’t sit well with me, and I get sick of the others pretty quickly. I’ve also heard that the same head of lettuce today is less nutritionally dense than that my grandparents ate because soil is losing it’s minerals. The idea of sprouting my own seeds and eating those may be the way I can eat as little vegetables as possible but still get the nutrition I need. Don’t sprouts have a ton of nutrition per ounce compared to a full grown vegetable? I’ve seen them talked about with survival groups often as a way to get fresh veggies without having to go outside, have sunlight, or even put in much work. Could be a good SHTF nutrition supply. Does anyone have experience sprouting their own seeds? I see there are two methods, using trays or in a mason jar with a mesh lid. Also, where are cheap places to buy spouting seeds? Thank you all! Read More 11 12 Advice FIFO can racks for the pantry Dogpatch - 5 days ago I took a chance on these little racks I found on Amazon, bought two, and quickly decided to outfit the whole shelf with them. They are literally shoe-horned into the shelf, but they fit, wall to wall. I’ll never go back to boxes for regular size cans again. I will be gradually adding more. Read More 4 6 Drop, cover, and hold on? Maybe not— esp. if you’re in the PNW! pnwsarahContributor - 6 days ago I almost never read an article about earthquakes and feel like I learned a substantial new thing that will change my approach to preparedness, but this one, sent to me by a geologist friend this afternoon, was an exception. Also cool because it vindicates the generally-useful-for-preppers idea of “situational awareness”. https://temblor.net/earthquake-insights/opinion-when-the-next-cascadia-megaquake-strikes-heres-what-ill-do-13866/ Citation: Goldfinger, G., 2022, Opinion: When the next Cascadia megaquake strikes, here’s what I’ll do, Temblor, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.242 Chris Goldfinger is a professor at OSU and one of the leading authorities on the Cascadia Subduction Zone— he did some of the research that demonstrated that it has unleashed megaquakes in the past (and will do so in the future)— so I take his thoughts seriously! Summary: The conventional wisdom on what to do when you feel ground shaking is “drop, cover, and hold on.” This makes sense in places that don’t have an earthquake early warning system, where earthquakes tend to be smaller (M5-7 instead of M8-9), and where most of the buildings are engineered to withstand that magnitude of quake. Given virtually no warning and low likelihood that the building you’re in will collapse, it’s smart to get under the nearest table, as fast as you can, and protect yourself from objects rocketing off walls and shelves. If you try to get outside, you’ll probably be thrown to the ground by the force of the quake or fall on the stairs, and if you do make it outside, then you’re exposed to falling bricks and signs, shattering glass, etc. BUT in a big subduction zone earthquake, if you’re decently far away from the rupture (which you’ll likely be, because the rupture happens offshore), the faster but weaker P-waves will arrive significantly (i.e., maybe 45-60 seconds!) in advance of the stronger surface waves, which means you get a warning in the form of lighter shaking. Throw an early warning system (which the West Coast now has) on top of that and you might have 2-3 minutes of notice before the really violent shaking starts— enough to get out of the building you’re in, if you’re on one of the lower floors. The article describes how, in some places— especially those with big earthquakes, buildings prone to collapse in them, and early warning systems, e.g., Mexico City— this understanding has been incorporated into earthquake preparedness for a long time, and in lieu of a simplistic “Drop cover and hold on” directive (which in the U.S. may be more of a cultural holdover from Cold War nuclear strike drills than anything else— to the extent that it’s efficacy in earthquakes is backed by data, they seem to be the wrong data!), preparedness advice is more contingent on the setting. Goldfinger advocates a “situational awareness” approach, in which the messaging is more nuanced and reflective of the reality that the best thing to do depends on where you are. While this lacks the simplicity (and ease of recall) of DCHO, more and more entities, including the government of Israel and a school district in the Portland suburbs, seem to be moving away from one size fits all directives toward this model. My thoughts: “Situational awareness” seems like the best approach for organizations that are housed in one building: You still give your employees/attendees/students one directive, but it’s tailored to the structure. Downside is that saying, “In case of an earthquake, evacuate,” is essentially the same as saying, “This building is crap”— especially to a public that is used to hearing these differing directions and will increasingly understand why they differ. Without accompanying policy change (and it would have to be well-designed policy), we might see messaging that is more about preserving the users’ sense of safety in the building (and desire to return to it) than it is about informing people of hazards. Situational awareness will also be much harder for individuals to implement than organizations. After all, we go in and out of buildings all the time without knowing their construction and retrofit history. Most people won’t pay attention or care, and those of us who do care will still be making educated guesses. That said, I’ve been making educated guesses about the seismic resilience of buildings for years— I just didn’t have anything to do with the information (unless you count being more or less nervous about going to this doctor’s appointment or that meeting as “doing something”). Now when I go into a building that I don’t like the look of, I can scan the exterior for fall hazards and pay attention to how long it takes me to get to where I’m going within the building from the entry, and have a sense of whether or not to run when the P-waves hit. Hope others find it as interesting as I did!! Read More 10 3 Scenarios Games that teach survival skills Eric - 1 week ago What games have you found that teach survival skills in a fun way? I’ll include some of my favorites as comments and encourage others to do the same. Read More 16 30 ScenariosSkills A review of NextDNS. Stop unwanted content from ever reaching your internet connected device Supersonic - 1 week ago Summary: This post goes over how to speed up your internet and stop unwanted content from ever reaching your device for free. It’s very easy and can be done in less than 15 minutes. What is DNS? In simple terms, it’s like a phone book of the internet. If you type https://theprepared.com into your web browser, that request is sent over to a DNS which converts that to the IP address (172.66.43.161) which computers can understand. This all takes a fraction of a second, but those fractions of a second can add up over time. What DNS do I have? Most devices by default are setup to query your internet service provider’s DNS registry. This not only gives your ISP more in-depth data on which sites you visit on the internet (so they can sell that valuable data and make more money on you by targeting you with ads), but it is often quite slow compared to other options. A faster option is using Google’s public DNS, full instructions here. While it is fast, many may not like Google having even more info on them because Google is not known to be the most privacy conscious company out there. Would you like an even better option though? The fastest DNS resolver out there, and one that doesn’t sell your data to advertisers is Cloudflare. You see in the below chart how your default internet service provider might have a query speed of 70ms, Google has one of 34ms, and Cloudflare is 14ms. Another benefit of Cloudflare is that there are some optional malware and adult content blocking options. Click here for full instructions on how to set Cloudflare as your DNS resolver and/or enabling these minor blocking capabilities. While it may not be as fast as Cloudflare, I’ve been playing around with a different DNS called NextDNS. The reason you might want to try this one out is because it has a free, stylish, and easy to use interface that allows you to add many more layers of filtering. By doing this, you will have even more control to stop the bad stuff of the internet from ever getting to your device. If you aren’t tech savvy at all, don’t worry there are some simple toggles you can click to set it and leave it. If you want to dive deeper and have more control though, you can. How do I get started with NextDNS? It’s super easy to get started, go to https://nextdns.io/ and click “Try it now”. No signup is required to try it out for a week and you have full control right out of the gate without any account creation necessary. If you do like it, create a free account and have control over things for longer. Next, scroll down on the page and see step-by-step instructions on how to set it up on practically any device. The next tab on top of the page, is security. Each option you have to toggle on/off has an easy to understand description underneath so you know if that is something you want or not. On the Privacy tab, there aren’t as many options, but instead you can add individual blocklists. Don’t go all crazy and add every block list possible, just pick a few that call to you. I’d at least do “Energized Ultimate and NextDNS Ads & Trackers Blocklist” These filters are very impressive and are updated very regularly. For example, some of the privacy filters I have enabled were updated 10 minutes ago, 4 days ago, and 3 hours ago. On the Parental Control tab, you can set up specific times in which certain sites such as Facebook, Netflix, or Snapchat are blocked, like after 10pm so your kid will get to sleep. You can also block entire categories of sites such as pornography, gambling, or social media websites. The Denylist and Allowlist tabs are if you want to copy and paste specific websites to either block or allow them. Maybe a site you like is getting caught up in one of the filters, you can allow that particular site instead of disabling the entire filter. The Analytics tab is fun because that shows a summary of how many queries were made and what percentage were blocked. The Logs tab goes into more detail on which site was accessed. If you see repeated calls to Adobe for example, you can copy and paste that and add it to the denylist if you don’t want that ever happening again. On the last tab, Settings, you can disable logging, change how long logs are kept for, download logs, or clear them. This first test run of NextDNS works for a week and then you need to create a free account to save your settings and access them in the future. The free tier of NextDNS gives you 300,000 queries per month per device, which should be enough for most of us, but you can pay for more if you need it. Overall I am quite happy with this service in the few days I’ve been testing it. I’ve set up a Raspberry Pi powered pihole DNS blocker before, which is similar to this but attached to your network, and I prefer this easy, quick, and free way over that. Setting this all up takes only a few minutes and can be reversed in seconds if it’s not for you. Why this is relevant to this crowd Be prepared against security and privacy threats by stopping it from ever getting to your device. If the website is totally blocked, no tracking or malicious software can even bother you. This can help you kick a bad habit of gambling or spending too much time on social media, or block unreliable news sources you may come across. I am in no way an expert on DNS, but if you need help troubleshooting things let me know and I’ll see if I can help. Read More 14 4 Year old eggs stored in whole in shell with water and pickling lime – A GREAT easy way to store eggs! Sharon - 1 week ago I Read More 9 6 I Cooking in a haybox – a fuel efficient way to slow-cook your meals Dogpatch - 1 week ago This has been discussed a little before, but I’ve got a “new” resource to share in the form of a 1909 online booklet: https://archive.org/details/firelesscookbook00mitc/page/n7/mode/2up “The Fireless Cookbook”. The Haybox is a type of thermal cooker that only requires fuel for the initial boiling of the food. The container of boiling food is placed inside a box filled with hay or other insulating material and allowed to slow-cook for a few hours. I’m just about ready to give it a try. Bought an excellent heavy duty box from the UPS store and have a supply of hay. Just need the time to get all set up. I’ll start with some dry beans, which are notorious for their long cooking time/fuel consumption. I’m pretty interested in this method because most of our power outages occur in foul weather and my cooking resources would otherwise all be mainly outdoors. Read More 20 53 GearSkills Wine for the apocalypse July LewisContributor - 1 week ago So my husband bought a wine rack for the basement this winter and has been having fun picking out moderately priced wines and filling it up. I didn’t think to add it to my emergency food spreadsheet until just now! I have a formula in the spreadsheet that calculates how many days worth of calories we have, and this gave my supplies a nice boost. This will be a part of our rotating pantry so hopefully we won’t have any wine go bad. But I’m seeing confusing info on the shelf life of wine. Fine wines are supposed to last 20-30 years when stored properly, while other wines are good for 2-3 years. What’s the difference?? These are not fine wines and many have screw tops. Our storage conditions are not ideal – no temperature extremes but also not the ideal 55 F degrees. Maybe 65 in the winter, 75 in summer. Anyone have any insight/experience in wine storage? Read More 10 10 Advice 1 2 3 … 43 44 45 Next > Recently Active COVID at home: prepare for a severe case - 2 hours agoSee you later Alligator! – How to avoid and survive an attack - 4 hours agoNew affordable online pharmacy saves people thousands on life saving medicine - 6 hours agoRemove rust off your gear and tools with vinegar or ketchup - 7 hours agoWhat to do about a personal data leak or breach – Before and After - 8 hours ago RULES This forum is heavily moderated to keep things valuable to as many people as possible. Full community policies are here. The basics: 1. Be nice to each other. 2. Stay focused on prepping. 3. Avoid politics, religion, and other arguments. 4. No unfounded conspiracies, fake news, etc. 5. Debate ideas, not people. FILTER Show all Advice Gear Meta News Scenarios Skills

See you later Alligator! – How to avoid and survive an attack

Alisa Felix - 4 hours ago

Cute little guy, but also slightly frightening…

I am hoping to visit Florida later this year but have been worried by seeing one too many news articles of people being attacked by alligators. After some research though (which I’m sharing below), I’ve come to the conclusion that attacks are rare and can be mostly avoided by taking a few steps. I’ve seen quite a few people on this forum from the southeast, so please share any additional experience you have.

Florida man killed in possible alligator attack while searching lake for Frisbees  –

Quick summary: Man was out late at night looking for frisbees along a lake and gets attacked by an alligator. Another person finds his body the next morning.

Lessons learned: Don’t walk around bodies of water at night when your visibility is limited and alligators are more active. If you NEED to go around water at night, wear a headlamp and look around for glowing eyes reflecting back at you.

This person also was known to frequent the park and disregard the posted “No Swimming” signs. So follow the rules.

An alligator killed a person near Myrtle Beach in South Carolina –

Quick summary: Not too many details here except that the person died near a retention pond.

Lessons learned: So even shallow and man made bodies of water can have alligators.

Woman killed by gator on Kiawah Island was ‘fascinated,’ took pictures before attack –

Quick summary: Lady sees a alligator in the pond of a friends house and goes out to take pictures of it. Her friend warns her that the alligator grabbed a deer from that spot the other day and the lady just ignores her and says “I don’t look like a deer.” The lady then goes in to touch the alligator and it grabs and pulls her into the water. The husband of the friend grabs a rope and throws it to her to try and pull her out but the alligator got her to waist deep water and rolled pulling her down and killing her.

Lessons learned: Pretty obvious here to most. Don’t get near alligators, don’t try and pet them. If you are trying to save someone who is being pulled in by one then do what these guys did and throw a rope and don’t go in yourself.

After SC’s 2nd fatal alligator attack in 2 years, incidents remain rare, authorities stress

Quick summary: Lady walks her dog near the water’s edge and the alligator lunges out to eat the dog but only grabs the leash. The lady is able to unhook the dog’s collar but the alligator then pulls her in.

Lessons learned: Again, stay away from the water’s edge in places where alligators might live.

Coroner ID’s mother, 2 young children killed after car hits alligator on I-95

Quick summary: Mother and two young children hit an alligator crossing the road and then crash their car and die.

Lessons learned: They can even get you on the highways. Drive slow, especially around blind corners and hills.

A Florida Girl Survived an Alligator’s Attack by Shoving Her Fingers Up Its Nostrils

Quick summary: Finally a good story. 10 year old girl sitting in some shallow water is bit by an alligator. She thumps it on the head and nothing happens. She then remembers a survival technique she learned when visiting Gatorland and stuck her fingers into it’s nostrils which caused the alligator to open it’s mouth.

Lessons learned: Pick a alligator’s nose if it bites you.

Here’s some comedic ways to deal with alligators/crocodiles. (not recommended):

Hit them over the head with a frying pan 

Get them into a trash can

How to avoid an attack:

These are the areas where the American alligator live

Above image source

From what I learned, there are some crocodiles in Florida, but they are rare and the main threat you are likely to encounter in the USA is the American Alligator. Still, tips on how to avoid them should be about the same.

From CNN article –

Spring to early summer is mating season and protective mothers watch over their eggs hatching in September and October. Winter is the safest season because it is cold and they aren’t doing a whole lot.

When temperatures start settling into the 80s (27 Celsius), gators become mostly nocturnal. So it’s best to avoid that refreshing night dip in unknown waters when it’s hot.

Don’t feed, bother, or provoke alligators. Feeding them is bad because it makes them associate humans with food.

Avoid heavy vegetation near the water’s edge where they might be nesting or waiting.

If you are attacked, try poking the eyes or sides of the mouth. If you are on land, avoid the myth of running in a zig-zag and just run in a straight line. If you are caught in the famous death roll, try and roll with it to reduce tearing of your limbs.

From forestwildlife.org –

Check for ripples in the water, look for backs, eyes, or snouts sticking above the surface. They are most likely to be near the shoreline, in shallow areas, and in weedy areas.

If you hear this sound near your area, avoid it.

Although, they most likely are going to be silent and stealthy when stalking their prey.

Fight back by punching, kicking, and poking it’s eyes. Try and stuff objects like a life jacket into it’s mouth and trigger its gag reflex.

If you are swimming in the water and see an alligator swimming by, remain calm and stay as still as possible to not draw attention to yourself.

The Legend himself

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What to do about a personal data leak or breach – Before and After

brownfox-ffContributor - 8 hours ago

This recent news roundup mentioned that the state of California has leaked and mishandled data on thousands of gun owners. This has come up before. Data leaks and breaches always seem frustrating and sad. While I would love to see strict penalties for poor security and mishandling that lead to data leaks and exposure, this also got me thinking – what _can_ we do to prepare for or prevent a personal data leak?

The Prepared site has excellent articles and forum posts on general digital security and preparedness. But what about data breaches specifically? Here are some intro steps from a bit of light research:

What to do before and after a data breach:

Before:

Use encrypted text messages. Install Signal – the most secure, open source, encrypted text messaging app. Keep your data private. You can use Signal for all texts on your phone – it will simply use encryption with anyone else who also has Signal, but still send regular text messages to those who do not. Then you can invite them to improve their texting too. Use a password manager. Don’t store your sensitive information inside emails etc. Don’t give out your Social Security Number (SSN). Or other very sensitive info. This may depend on geography. In North America there are usually only two places that need to know about your SSN: Your employer (so you can get paid), and your bank. That is it. Many other places try to ask and get this information. Tell them no. Often you may find them sheepishly admit the information was “optional”, and they will back down. Sign up your email address at https://haveibeenpwned.com/ . This is an interesting website that monitors data breaches and will email you if it finds that your email address has been included in a data leak. A good way to at least be aware that your information may have been exposed. Get a backup credit card and/or bank account. If you have the ability, having one main credit card but also a backup card can help to ensure you still have a way to operate or pay your bills if your main card is stolen or compromised. Likewise – opening two different bank accounts at different _types_ of institutions with different risk profiles – e.g. one large national bank and one local credit union. Storing some funds in each can help to make sure you still have access to some of your money. Keep some cash on hand. So you can keep operating even if everything goes down. Freeze and set a PIN on your credit file. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion will let you set a PIN – like a password – that must be used to unfreeze your credit account. This should prevent or make it more difficult for anyone to take out a loan in your name or otherwise access your credit. If you want to take out a loan or apply for credit yourself, you can simply call them with the PIN to unfreeze, and then re-freeze your account. Get and read your own credit report every six months. This can be a painful process, but the three firms above should let you get a free copy of your own credit report. Emphasis on free: they are not allowed to charge for it. However, they often make this intentionally difficult and confusing by adding many “upgrade” tiers and options, and changing the name to things like “consumer disclosure report” instead. Checking your report e.g. every six months can help you to spot if anyone used or tried to use your credit account. Consider credit- or identity-protection. I am wary of these services and have never tried them. I am not sure how much they actually help in the event anything happens. Would love to hear from anyone who has had good or bad experiences with identity protection.

After:

Call the company or organization and confirm whether your data was included in the breach or leak. Find out what type of data was affected. If your credit card info was leaked, you probably want to call your credit card company to cancel and replace the card. See if the company now offers help, or offers free identity protection after the fact. They may be able to help you get back to normal. Change the password on any accounts that were affected.

What other ideas or actions can you think of?

References

Forum post “Getting Weekly Credit Reports”. Thanks to community member Supersonic for posting. https://www.tomsguide.com/us/data-breach-to-dos,news-18007.html https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-threats-what-to-do-after-a-data-breach.html https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-protect-yourself-after-data-breach https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/business-data-breach-insurance Read More

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4th of July safety tips

Henry Tubbs - 1 day ago

Following the spirit of Peter 44’s topic the other day How to survive this nasty heat wave of 110+ degrees, I wanted to compile some 4th of July safety tips. Really?? 4th of July safety tips? So don’t eat too many burgers and hot dogs and maybe wear safety glasses at the parades so people on the floats don’t throw candy and hit you in the eye? Well… there are more dangers to this holiday than and upset stomach from eating too many burgers, so here are the ones I came up with and comment below if you have any other tips or things to add to the ones I do.

If lighting fireworks out on your driveway or in the middle of the street have a garden hose, fire extinguisher, and a 5 gallon bucket full of water ready. Pull cars away from where you will be lighting things and take a minute to look around your street for flammable brush, boxes, or anything else that may be nearby.  If a firework doesn’t go off, don’t disassemble it or try to light it again. Wait 30 seconds and then walk towards it with your hose and drench the sucker. Then submerge it in your 5 gallon bucket of water. In fact, take all of your spent and dud fireworks and store them in that bucket of water over night. In the morning drain the water and then throw away the firework shells. Having a first aid kit nearby can be handy in case someone gets a minor burn from a sparkler. Clear out any dry brush and material from your property. You don’t want a stray firework from your neighbor to catch and take down your house. See the below chart for a visualization of the danger of the 4th and wildfires. Bring dogs inside to prevent them from getting scared and running away If you are aware of any Veterans in your neighborhood think twice about lighting fireworks near their home or sit down and ask if they are okay with it. I’ve heard some Veterans struggle with PTSD and dread the 4th because it is a trigger. If you are grilling, make sure not to grill next to your house or a fence because the heat could damage the wall or set it on fire. Don’t be stupid. A neighbor kid the other year lit a ground bloom (also known as a Flower) firework in his back pocket thinking it would be funny and it melted his pants and fused the fabric to his butt and gave him a severe burn. Don’t have roman candle fights with each other, it’s fun but stupid.

Take the steps now to be prepared for this potentially dangerous holiday and have fun! Happy Independence Day!

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An introduction to lightweight backpacking

Chance - 6 days ago

An Introduction to Lightweight Backpacking

Greetings everyone here at The Prepared. I have been asked to write out my thoughts on lightweight backpacking and how it can play a part in helping people get through the very difficult conditions we may have to face in the near future.

This essay is not intended to be a hiker vs prepper series of arguments. Hikers have a distinctively different outlook than preppers. However, backpacking gear comes from the same desire to survive and thrive in a hostile world. Hikers and preppers can learn a lot from one another. This essay is intended to open a path between our communities so that both may benefit.

Some Principles of Backpack Weight Reduction

1) The heaviest thing we carry on our backs is fear.

Write down what you fear.

Learn how to overcome it.

2) Weigh everything.

List every item and record its weight.

If you do not use it, it is just a rock.

3) Reduce weight where possible.

Eliminate factory packaging.

Carry the least amount of non food consumables between resupplys.

Trim excess whatever as is possible without damaging a things integrity.

Can one item do multiple tasks?

Are lighter, equally useful substitutes available?

Can some pieces of equipment be shared among a committed couple or dependable group?

Are resources available in your environment which can be used, then discarded when done, so that there is no need to carry it around?

4) Properly distribute all weights

Pack in modular sets so that weights can be adjusted as needed to maintain balance: water bottles against your back, food bags in the middle, never let anything dangle off the packs exterior, gadgets in your belt pouches, trekking poles in your hands (not your pack).

5) The more you learn the less you need to carry or the more effective it is.

6) When useless weight has been eliminated, add weight back, as the situation requires, to ensure minimum safety and comfort under anticipated conditions.

Definitions

The following is mainly a presentation on what lightweight gear is and how to use it under normal wilderness trail conditions.

‘Lightweight’ is defined in the current sense of a base weight at about 20 pounds. This does not include what you wear on a normal day or carry in your hands. This also does not include the rapidly changing weights of fuel, water and food.

Over the years, gear weights have gotten ever lighter. It is now fairy easy to get pack, base weight down to about 10 pounds. Somewhere around this point is where the gear starts getting expensive but IMHO worth it.

There is no one single source of ‘got it all figured out’ book or web site which tells you everything you need to know about lightweight backpacking. There are, however, dozens of summaries from personal experience – such as this one – which are a useful starting point for the motivated individual.

Not Included Weight

Shoes and Walking

Very few people know how to walk (including experienced hikers) and most shoes cripple the feet. A way to learn how to walk properly is to buy whatever kinds of shoes and boots offered at thrift stores, experiment with various off the retail shelf socks and inserts then consciously walk as much as possible in them.

Once you have learned enough to have a conversation about feet, shoes and walking, locate a running shoe store operated by qualified personnel. They probably won’t care too much about SHTF scenarios but they will be interested in helping you to select a shoe suitable for extensive back country hiking.

Trekking Poles

Trekking poles are the human version of four wheel drive. The nominal pole height is with your forearms at 90 degrees to your body. Adjust as you feel is needed.

On flat land, the poles will become outriggers preventing ankle roll outs or serious stumbles from becoming injury delivering falls. On steep downhills the poles can be lengthened and now extended out in front as a kind of brake. This will take some stress off of your legs and back and prevent a downhill fall. When your arms are strong enough, the lengthened poles can be used to push yourself uphill.

Animals and predatory humans instinctively regard trekking poles as weapons, which they are. Tarps and one pound tents are possible because trekking poles are used to hold them up.

Wear Clothing 

The clothing layers that are considered normal wear are the base layer or underwear and the shell or pants, shirt, hat and sunglasses on a lanyard around your neck.

Please take the time to do your own base layer research. Fully test out your choices by wearing them for days at a time. An inappropriate base layer will cause all sorts of problems.

The fabric of choice for the shell is nylon or a variety of synthetic blends. Synthetic fabrics are extremely light, dry fast and wear forever. Up until recently, safari shirts and kind of limited pocket cargo pants were the most popular choices on the trail. These are probably still good choices for preppers.

Two key requirements of a shirt is that it have full length sleeves and that there not be a stitched seam across the top of the shoulder. This goes for the base layer T shirt or sports bra as well. Such a seam at this location will cut into your shoulder under the weight of even a lightweight backpack. The pain comes on fast and will put a stop to your hike.

One very useful type of pants is the ‘convertible’. This allows the bottom of each leg to be unzipped to create temporary hiking shorts.

A reminder: Cotton Kills!

Rapidly Changing Weights

As previously mentioned, fuel, water and food are not counted against the base weight of the backpack because these weights change quickly and in practical terms are very difficult to measure. However, these obviously are weights which needs to be managed.

Fuel & Stove

If you do not need to cook your food you do not need a stove or its fuel. An upfront savings of 1 to 2 pounds.

Water

Water weighs 2.2 pounds per liter. Hikers generally favor the tall plastic bottles made by Lifewtr or smartwater. Both are about 1.4 ounces empty weight each. 1 quart Nalgene plastic bottles weigh about 6 ounces. Metal bottles tend towards Nalgene weights.

Food

A rule of thumb is that we can go without air for 3 minutes, without water for 3 days and without food for 30 days. The air and water estimates are highly controversial, but people can go without food for extended periods and generally are the better for having done so. The health improving effects of not eating are widely documented and even formalized in fasting disciplines.

Thru-hikers routinely, but inadvertently, practice a kind of fasting because the act of long distance hiking will burn more nutrition between re-supply points (usually measured in calories) than can be carried in a pack. The way we deal with this is to eat like starving coyotes while in town.

Historically, refugees have routinely had to travel hard with minimal food or no food at all. Preppers will have to deal with this in future SHTF scenarios. It would be interesting to hear a qualified nutritionist comment on how conscious fasting disciplines can be used to extend food supplies.

Actual hiker foods are normally straight off the grocery store shelves. Some hikers will cook, dry and vacuum package food then have someone send it to a re-supply point on the trail. Very few eat the freeze dried backpacker foods. No one eats MRE’s.

An understanding of food values is as important as an understanding of lightweight gear. Unfortunately, it is outside the scope of this presentation.

Food weights vary from one hiker to the next and one re-supply point to another. This is where lightweight backpacking really pays off: you can load up with as much food as you can get in your pack and still make big miles without crippling yourself.

The estimated load limit for my light weight backpack is about 35 pounds. As my total pack weight is about 13 pounds 9 ounces, that allows for about 19 pounds of food and 2 pounds, or one liter, of water. That is enough for 5 to 7 days of normal hiking. Rationing and/or fasting could potentially double that estimate. Water weight obviously varies daily and is replenished on the fly but as food weight decreases, water weight can increase. Water is an very important part of a fast.

Backpack Base Weight

This base weight presentation will be organized around my backpack and some of my personal gear selections. This is not an attempt to promote my gear choices or my favorite vendors. I do not financially benefit in any way or receive free gear. This is simply the outfit I know best and hope that a examination of it will serve as a departure point for others who wish to assemble their own lightweight backpack. Out on the trail there are almost no two packs alike as there are hundreds of ways to put one together. Just ask any gear head.

Pack Sack System, about 24 ounces

There is no need for built in compartments with zippers and excessive loops. There is no need for strong fabrics or heavy duty hip belt and shoulder strap harnesses either. I have an original Gossamer Gear ‘G4’, bought in 2010, now with 1300 miles of mountain hiking bushwhacking on it and its still good to go. It is just a big empty sack. With two belt pouches it weighs 20 ounces. Too bad its not made anymore. But you can make your own with a very low cost pattern from Quest Outfitters!

There are two easy to overlook sources of weight that properly belong to the pack sack category: pack cover and gear stuff sacks.

Pack covers are a pointless weight and a waste of money. They do not keep the surface next to your back dry so moisture leaks into the pack from there and the bottom of the cover collects water. Hikers have been experimenting with a variety of plastic bags used inside the pack as pack liners and stuff sacks. Current favorites are turkey roasting bags and the Clean Zipper brand zip lock bags (lighter and safer than ZipLoc). I use 5 dyneema fabric stuff sacks and a waterproof liner from Zpack. These weight just over 3.5 ounces.

Sleeping Bag system, about 48 ounces

The most common choices are goose down insulation in the 0 to 10 degree range. Do your research as you will get what you pay for. I threw down a kilobuck for a state of the art 10 degree bag that all but sings me to sleep. Weighs 37 ounces.

Like pack sacks, total sleeping bag weight includes two other pieces of gear: the ground sheet and the ground pad.

A 6×4 foot (or so) piece of black Tyvek can be bought from picture frame shops or online and is a good choice for the ground sheet. It weighs about 4.5 ounces. The same size piece of clear plastic Polycryo from Gossamer Gear weighs 1.8 ounces and is claimed to be tougher than Tyvek.

The Thermorest Z-lite pad is an all around good choice. I cut off 4 of the sections to make a  ¾ length pad which dropped the weight from 13 ounces to 9.2 ounces. Two reasons: A) the G4 backpack uses the Z-lite as the frame. You will have to study the pattern from Quest Outfitters to see why. Anyway, 14 sections make too thick of a frame. 10 sections is perfect, B) when the ¾ pad is laid out for sleeping, you can put the empty pack sack under your feet for a full length ground pad insulating effect.

Tent, about 33 ounces

Free standing tents are more popular than tarps and bivvy bags because tents can more easily handle a wider variation of weather conditions as well as provide privacy in public areas like campgrounds. The tent will add several degrees of heat capture even without direct solar gain. 2 person tents for single person will also allow for room to wait out a multi day storm without going stir crazy.

Tents of any kind, as well as tarps and bivvys, need to be carried in waterproof stuff sacks because they are usually wet from overnight dew or rain.

I transferred the tent stake weight to my one of my trekking poles.

Note: The rain poncho and the bivvy always seem like good light weight gear choices but in practice they never work out very well. The poncho is simply not big enough and the bivvy becomes a sauna on a warm, skeeter filled night because it cannot be opened. I have always wondered if these technologies could be improved. If so, the weight reduction would be on the order of several pounds. The light weight backpacking community has pretty much abandoned both of them. Perhaps gear heads in the prepper community would be interested to keep exploring this weight reduction opportunity.

Carry Clothing, about 55 ounces

The insulating layer is quite important as is easy to imagine. What usually gets overlooked is that hiking burns calories which heats the body. Too warm of an insulating layer gets the body too hot while hiking and thus is pointlessly heavy to carry.

The most common list is: insulated bottoms & tops (which double as pajamas and increase the heat capture of the sleeping bag) Second pair of socks. Possible second pair of shorts. Dedicated sleeping socks. Skull cap & balaclava. Weather resistant gloves. And zip lock bags which are carried to isolate dirty socks.

The same problem of overheating applies to the weather shell, usually a goose down puffy under a rain jacket. But there is an important additional problem; body heat also generates sweat which can be captured by the rain jacket. Unless vented, this can lead to soaking wet clothing then to chaffing or hypothermia.

One solution is to wear a vest, made of synthetic material, under the rain jacket and keep flapping air between the several layers. The other is to buy a crazy expensive rain jacket at the hardshell level which will vent out the sweat without letting the rain in.

Water Containers, About 5.5 ounces

A noted earlier, tall skinny smartwater bottles weigh 1.4 ounces each. I prefer to carry 2 Platypus 2 liter bags at 1.6 ounces each with the drinking tube attachment at 2.2 ounces. These are BPA free and work very well with the Sawyer inline filtration system.

Water Filtration, about 6.5 ounces.

Micro Squeeze Sawyer filter, its misc parts and the A/B containers of Aquamira chemical disinfectant. The Micro Sawyer works with the smartwater and platypus containers but not with any other water container that I know of.

Food Containers & Utensils, about 4 ounces

Food containers are a bit of a wild card. The normal container is a couple of simple stuff sacks or even heavy duty plastic grocery bags. For no-stovers, add a P38 can opener and titanium spork for about 2.5 ounces.

In some areas, bear cans, Ursacks or hanging your food bags from trees are advisable or required. As bear cans and a two Ursacks are in the pound range, hanging food bags is the preferred option. I made a food hanging kit from the little stuff sack that the tent stakes came in and a length of macrame cord. Weighs about 1.5 ounces.

Medical / Hygiene / Repair / Misc Kits, about 7 ounces

Note: There is a truism on the trail that the bigger the medical kit the less likely the hiker knows how to use it. With any luck this is not true of preppers. However, your recommended medical kits look like they could stand to be measured against the Principles of Backpack Weight Reduction and still be as effective as you intend them to be.

Medical: 2 Neosporin goop packets, one with tic fork in it. Two band-aids. 20 Advil tablets. 6 electrolyte tablets. Not counted weight is duct tape and muscle tape attached to one of my trekking poles.

Another Note: It is also a truism that very few hikers know anything about wilderness first aid regardless of med kit size. Our guiding philosophy is: ‘Don’t Get Hurt!’. Granted, not a very good one, but injuries are quite rare.

Hygiene: (it is unethical to use soap in the backcountry) 2 ounce spray bottle full of 70% rubbing alcohol and dedicated handkerchief for daily cleaning of feet and smelly bits. 1 toothbrush with handle cut down (to get it inside a plastic bag) 6 dental floss toothpick things. Plus a plastic comb.

Repair: 20 feet of polyester thread wrapped around a plastic thing I found with a sewing needle stuck through it.

Misc: mini lighter in tiny plastic bag with vitamin bottle absorbent pouch and small piece of cardboard soaked in candle wax for fire starter. A KN95 face mask and two sets of soft ear plugs.

Poop Kit, about 6 ounces

In a small stuff sack are a half roll of toilet paper, a 2 fl oz squeeze bottle of hand sanitizer gel and The Deuce cat hole digging tool. In addition are 4, one quart zip lock bags for areas where packing out your toilet paper is required.

The Bat Belt, about 32 ounces

More and more hikers are attaching little pouches to their hip belt and shoulder straps. Photographers often have a not so small camera bag hanging off of their sternum and shoulder straps.

If done correctly, this throws weight forward and down in a kind of counter balance to the loaded backpack weight without interfering with the back and forth movement of trekking pole swinging arms.

Here is what I carry:

100% Deet skeeter juice.

Skeeter hat net

Petzl Zipka headlamp (eliminates the bulky head harness)

Reading glasses

3 AAA & 2 AA batteries in a plastic case

Garmin Oregon 450 stand alone GPS (uses 2aa batteries)

Small cell phone

BTECH UV-5X3 handy talkie (do not have ham license yet)

Opinel folding knife (can sharpen on a river rock)

BASUNE slingshot (never runs out of bullets)

Some of this stuff is a new addition to my regular outfit and I am struggling with how to incorporate it. Given the list of hardware that preppers like to carry around, the Bat Belt seems like a backpacking technology that your community would be motivated to advance. I am very interested in any in any suggestions or innovations that you come up with.

Happy Trails!

Chance

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18 Featured

COVID at home: prepare for a severe case

July LewisContributor - 2 hours ago

Covid might seem so January 2022, but if it stays true to form, there is likely to be another variant and another peak at some point. So I thought this was worth posting!

We had a covid case in the family during the omicron peak that became somewhat serious despite the person being vaxxed, boosted and taking paxlovid. (one bad night, but all turned out fine). In most ways I was prepared, but I had one important gap, which was figuring out in advance how to get medical help and support after hours. This was for that all important “should we go to the ER??” call in the middle of the night when we knew the ERs were completely overwhelmed, and my relative was fighting me on it, and I didn’t know what to do. If I had thought to find out ahead of time what my after hours resources were, I would have been better prepared. My overall suggestion is to remind people that even now, covid can randomly hit you hard, and it’s good to prepare in advance and also the second you get a positive test – just in case it does. Here are my tips! 

Ahead of time:

Have at-home rapid tests so you can test as soon as symptoms appear. Have a primary care doctor if you can. If you have barriers to health care, try to identify a free clinic or other medical resource you can turn to if needed. Know ahead of time if/how you can get medical help/advice after hours. Many primary care services have an on call doctor, and health insurance companies may have a nurse help line. You may also have a close relative or friend who is a medical professional. Have a pulse ox and a thermometer at home Ideally have a blood pressure cuff and know how to use it Have basic meds on hand like tylenol, chloraseptic, anti-diarrhea  Have gatorade, pedialyte or similar on hand Have plenty of easy to prepare food in the house Have a plan for who you can turn to for errands and other help

As soon as you get a positive test:

Contact your doctor or a clinic and find out if you can get an anti-viral pill or other treatment. DON’T WAIT for it to get serious!!!! Start the ball rolling now, even if you feel mostly fine. It sometimes takes time to get it, and it is most effective if you take it as soon as you get symptoms. Go over the list above and address any gaps. Order or have a friend/family member drop off any meds/equipment/food you need. If you don’t already know how to get medical advice/help on weekends or after hours, find out now! If covid does take a turn for the worse, it’s practically a given that it will happen in the middle of the night or on a weekend. Take a baseline pulse ox reading and temperature, write it down, and keep monitoring. Familiarize yourself with emergency symptoms. Go over them with your household so you are on the same page about when to get help. Trouble breathing Persistent pain or pressure in the chest New confusion Inability to wake or stay awake Pale, gray, or blue-colored skin, lips, or nail beds, depending on skin tone Remember hydration! You need to drink more when you have a fever, and things like sweating and diarrhea make you require even more fluids. If you already feel horrible, you might not notice you are getting dehydrated. My relative’s bad night was in part due to dehydration, which led to low blood pressure and passing out. Low blood pressure made it hard to get a pulse ox reading. Scary! 

That’s a LOT of bullets but it really doesn’t take that much time to go through. If you get covid, you will probably be fine – but just in case, prepare!

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57

Advice

New affordable online pharmacy saves people thousands on life saving medicine

rebecca - 6 hours ago

You may have seen Mark Cuban on Shark Tank as the famous billionaire investor/businessman. He recently opened up an online pharmacy that is trending all over the news right now with the amazing cost savings that it is offering to people. Instead of selling drugs for ridiculous amounts, they only mark it up 15% (still a healthy profit for them). A traditional pharmacy may charge you or your insurance company $9657, but at this place it is only $39. Isn’t that insane how much of a savings that is for you? Important medications are now accessible to people who may have just gone without, rationed, or went bankrupt trying to stay alive.

If you need a lifesaving prescription medication, check out costplusdrugs.com and see if you can get it cheaper on there. 

They don’t take insurance cards to pay for the drugs, but the savings are still so incredibly good that you might end up paying less for the same medication then you were with your co-pay or deductible.

It is easier to store up some extra $40 medication than it is a $9500 one. Hopefully this allows people to not only have what they need, but save some up for a rainy day if there are supply chain issues, job loss, etc.

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9

4

News

Remove rust off your gear and tools with vinegar or ketchup

Gideon ParkerStaff - 7 hours ago

Did you know that vinegar is a great way to remove surface rust off of metal objects like tools, stoves, or camping gear? I didn’t, but after seeing it done on YouTube I gave it a try and it worked quite well.

I do take care of my tools, but have inherited and found some used tools that were neglected and gathered some rust.

The following two were my fault though. The small pair of wire cutters and the rust on this parang were from me not applying a protective layer of oil on them. 

The first step is to scrub everything down with soapy water to remove any grease or oil that is on there. This is an important step because I forgot to do that the first time I put all these in a vinegar bath and not very much rust came off. After washing them properly and then soaking in vinegar again, it worked much better.

Because it would take quite a lot of vinegar to submerge the parang, I opted to try spraying it and the wire cutters down with some ketchup on just the areas that have built up rust.

The rest of the tools I submerged in vinegar for 24 hours. Without even touching them, look at the rust that has just flaked off.

Taking a brass wire brush, I lightly brushed off the remaining rust and the tools are looking much nicer now!

Some of the files and punches still had some of the 20+ year old rust on them, but they do look much nicer now and I’m happy with the results. Another soak or two with additional brushing probably could get them back to new. 

The parang however didn’t show any signs of improvement. I’m not sure why, because the ketchup worked great on the wire cutters. Maybe it is the type of steel it is made out of.

I then put some oil on a rag and wiped all the tools down to prevent this from happening again. 

Neat little trick, but hopefully I never have to do it again and can prevent this from happening with proper maintenance in the first place.

Further reading: How to maintain garden tools with a bucket of sand and oil

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2

0

Gear

Best modular bag for car?

Don - 8 hours ago

Hi guys,

I’m pretty new to prepping and have been reading a ton of stuff on this site. I’m in the middle of assembling my kit but I really could use some recommendations for a bag.  I have almost all of the items of a level 3 kit stored throughout my truck but scattered throughout. I’m ideally looking for some sort of modular bag to use that I can attach smaller packs or bags on/in based on the situation I’m in.  For example, I want to keep all my clothes/hygiene in a small day pack and possible use this also as a gym bag or emergency change of clothes for work. I also want to be able to strap a sleeping bag and tent if I’m in a bugout situation but leave in the truck if I’m just trying to get home.  I also have a rather large molle ifac  (9”x7”x5”) that would be nice to strap to the bottom or side but keep easily assessable.

I am leaning toward an Osprey Aether AG 60 or a Deuter Aviant Voyager 65+10. Both of these have removable daypacks but I’m worried they will take up two much space in my truck (won’t fit under the backseat)

Does anybody have a good recommendation for a bag in the +/-40L range with attachment options for top, bottom and sides (or separate daypack options)?  Conversely any recommendations for internal bag pouches?

Thanks

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18

Gear

DIY Project: Rain barrel water collector

brownfox-ffContributor - 9 hours ago

If you have a roof, and it rains, you can collect and store rain water to improve your resilience. Having extra water increases your drought tolerance, extends your watering window, and may even save you some money.

Note: This assumes you already have gutters and downspouts connected to your roof, to move the water away. If not you will need to set those up first, which is big enough to be its own project.

Where Rain Water Collection Is Legal

Strangely, some countries allow collection of rainwater, and some do not. Check your country or local laws to confirm, before you begin. I collected a list of links and countries at the end of this article; updates or additional sources are welcome.

Tools You Need

A drill A level A pencil Safety goggles

How To Do It

You will need a rain barrel, a sturdy base to stand it on, and a diverter to get the water from the downspout into the barrel. The diverter is the trickiest part, but I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.

The Barrel

[There are many different styles of rain barrel to choose from. Photo credit – Jennifer C on Flickr. Licensed under CreativeCommons CC-BY 2.0]

You want a food grade barrel. Depending on your goals and budget, you can often find these for free on craigslist or from local restaurants and food supply stores. You can also buy them at hardware stores. Some cities and counties have water barrel programs where they may give away or sell you barrels at a discounted rate. Check your local water utility.

I sourced a free barrel from a neighbour but it was not opaque. I wanted an opaque barrel so no light would get through to reduce algae growth. I ended up buying one from the hardware store.

A Closed Top

I prefer a barrel with a closed top, so mosquitos and critters can’t get in and breed or drown. Some barrels come with hatches. I assembled a hatch cover using some plastic and some old landscaping cloth, to keep sunlight out.

The Base

One gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds or 3.7 kilograms. A 55 gallon barrel of water weighs 460 pounds, or 208kg. You need a sturdy base to hold this weight.

I used the following layers as a base:

Sand on the ground, below the base. Make sure this is level before you start. 24” square cement pad. These might be called “paving stones” or similar names, depending on where you get them. Four standard cement blocks. These measure 8” bx 8” by 16”, so if you fit them into an “L” pattern you can put an 8” side and 16” side together to perfectly cover the 24” pad. A second layer of cement blocks to raise the barrel up. This increases the water pressure, and is tall enough that you can fit a standard 5-gallon bucket under the tap A second 24” cement pad on top

Make sure your base is level again, then set everything into place.

The Diverter

The diverter moves the water from the downspout into your rain barrel.

I spent thirty hours researching eleven different models of downspout diverters. In the end I chose the EarthMinded FlexiFit diverter.

I chose this diverter model because:

You only need to cut one small hole in the side of your downspout You do *not* need to sever the entire downspout. So if the project does not work out, you can simply plug up the hole (plug included) and move on The diverter fits many sizes of downspout. Depending on where you live, your downspouts may be square, round, rectangular, and many different sizes -2”x3” , 3”x4”, round 3 to 6”, K-style, etc. The EarthMinded diverter is made of flexible, UV-resistant rubber (EPDM) so it can change shape to accommodate your downspout. Even if it doesn’t fit exactly it can still collect *some* water. They do also sell a round model for round downspouts. The diverter automatically handles overflow, so you don’t need to do anything. When the barrel is full, water flows back up the attachment hose to the top of the diverter. Any more rainwater then simply continues on through a hole in the diverter and down the spout. You don’t need to worry or adjust anything when it rains or stops raining. The water barrel system stays closed. Because the water flows in from the side, you can use a closed top barrel. This keeps out mosquitos, keeps out sunlight so algae doesn’t grow, and keeps animals from crawling into your barrel.

I prefer to buy from the company themselves, but you can also sometimes find this diverter at big box stores or hardware stores.

The EarthMinded installation video is pretty clear. Around 3:38 you can see how the diverter fits into the downspout. Because of surface tension, rain running into a downspout clings to the inside edges of the material. This diverter collects water nicely and funnels it into the connecting hose.

[The EarthMinded “FlexiFit” diverter is made of flexible rubber, and fits into many different sizes of downspout. Once the rain barrel is full, excess water flows through the hole and away normally.]

Screen shot of EarthMinded diverter in cross-section of downspout – from their installation video.

Setting It Up

Now that you have all of your parts the procedure is fairly easy.

Assemble your base, and put the water barrel on top. Make sure the connecting hose can reach from the downspout to the barrel. The important part is: make sure that the hole in the downspout is lower than the highest water level of the barrel. This is what makes the diverter work. If the hole in the downspout is lower than the top of the barrel, then once the barrel is full, water will push back into the connector hose and down the downspout, to continue away on its journey. If you attach to the downspout too high or too low, this won’t work. See the image below. With your barrel in place, use your level to mark where the diverter should go, and where to drill the hole. If you have a short level, you can use a 2×4 or wooden board to help measure.

Image from the manufacturer instructions. The diverter hole in the downspout must be cut _below the highest water line_ of the water barrel. This ensures that water will flow back down the connector hose, and into the downspout, once the barrel is full. e.g. If your barrel has a hole in the top or front, the downspout must be installed at a level _below_ those holes.

The EarthMinded kit comes with three circular saw blades for your drill – these are the sizes needed for the tap at the bottom of the barrel (small), the connector hose in the barrel (medium), and the diverter in the downspout (large).

I like to drill the hole for the connector hose in the barrel first, about 2-3” from the top of the barrel. Then place the barrel on the stand and measure a level connection for the hose. This tells me where to drill into the downspout.

Once you have drilled your hole, connect it up. If you have a garden hose you can test the diverter works by spraying water onto the roof.

How Much Water Will You Get?

You need to know:

How big is your roof? How much rain do you get each month?

One inch of rain on 1,000 square feet of roof collects 623 gallons of water. That’s enough water to fill more than 11, fifty-five gallon barrels. The pitch of the roof doesn’t matter. So multiply your roof’s square footage by 0.623 – that’s how many gallons you will get from one inch of rain.

In metric: one millimeter of rain on one square meter of roof collects one Litre of water.

Rainwater collection calculator here: https://www.watercache.com/resources/rainwater-collection-calculator

I have to put my barrel away during winter, so I only count rain received during the summer months.

If you have multiple downspouts, choose which one(s) you will use to install a barrel. Consider whether you want the biggest roof area, the closest spout to your garden or where you will use the water, or other needs.

How Many Barrels Do You Need?

[Photo by Pete Favelle – licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 2.0]

One way to estimate how much water you might use is to calculate 0.5 gallons per square foot of garden space, per week.

Another strategy is simply to look at the space you have and how many barrels you could fit.

Starting with just one barrel is a fine plan. Use it for a season and track your use. How often do you empty the barrel? How often does it rain before you use all of the water? You can decide whether you need more barrels in more locations.

What Can You Use It For?

You shouldn’t normally drink rain water that has been collected into a barrel without properly filtering, cleaning, and processing it first. Main non-potable uses include watering your garden, watering trees or perennial fruit, or flushing toilets.

Return On Investment (ROI)

So how well does a water barrel pay for itself? The biggest factor will depend on where you get your barrel. If you find a free barrel from a local restaurant versus paying $200 for a fancy barrel from a big box store, that will obviously affect your ROI.

Based on rough pricing and some rounding, I find the following costs for these materials:

Barrel: $0 to $150, depending Cement pads: $15 each * 2 pads = $30 Standard cement blocks: $5 each * 8 blocks = $40 Water diverter kit: $50 with shipping

That gives a base cost of $30 + $40 + $50 = $120, plus what you spend for the barrel.

You will also need to know how much you pay for water. In many places if you are on metered city water they charge you not only for the water you use, but also a “drainage fee”; so you are charged two amounts for the same water. All the more reason to install these barrels!

All-in-all – In my area with my roof sizes, yearly rainfall, and price for water, a rain barrel should save me $20 to $30 per summer in reduced water use. At a cost of $120 for the base, this means the project pays for itself in 4 to 6 years. If you pay another $120 for the barrel itself, the project pays itself back in 8 to 12 years.

Personally I am happy with a 6 year return on investment that extends my drought tolerance and allows me to make good use of a free resource that would otherwise flow away. If the price of water goes up in your area, this would pay for itself even sooner. And if you are counting on this water to water your garden, water perennial food or fruit, or serve activities like flushing toilets during water restrictions, it is even more valuable. You will have to decide how much peace-of-mind and improved water security is worth for yourself.

I would love to hear about your rain barrel project!

(edit after posting: Corrected bad wording about “being level”. The important part of setup is not to “make sure the connector hose is level”, but rather: ensure the connector hose attaches to the downspout at a level *lower* than the highest water mark / highest water line of the rain barrel. This is what makes the water stop filling the barrel, and begin to backflow into the downspout, continuing on its journey. Thank you to community member Robert Larson for the questions and help identifying this incorrect phrasing.)

—

More Info

Demystifying Diverters – info on how downspout diverters work, and related topics Rainwater Harvesting Calculator US Climate & Rainfall Data World Water Reserve – more info on diverters

Laws On Rain Water Collection

Collection assessment – Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, and Singapore all allow and encourage collecting and using rain water. United States – collection laws by state The UK, collecting rain water is legal so long as it is kept separate from main drinking water Canada (link to PDF) – legal to capture for use flushing toilets and surface irrigation Japan – encouraged in many areas, with subsidies available Belgium (source1, source2) – Rights to using and collecting water protected in the Constitution, with no legal requirement to connect your home to the local water distribution network. Many municipalities offer rebates for installing rainwater collection tanks. Read More

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16

Endure: A tabletop RPG for preppers

Seth Johnston - 11 hours ago

Heya everyone! I wanted to share something cool I found that we could use to test out or even just play around in hypothetical scenarios. It’s a rules-lite, pay-what-you-want Tabletop Roleplaying Game known as Endure. You can find it here!

https://vonbednar.itch.io/endure

The basic idea of it is that you are an average person caught in a Crisis Scenario. This isn’t The Division, where you’re essentially a super soldier putting the world together one city block at a time. No, I’d say it feels more like The Long Dark or The Last of Us. You can also set the game in whatever time period or setting you want, as long as you’re surviving a Crisis.

All you need to play this game is two six-sided dice. No complex character sheets, no battle maps, none of that. I like this because it leaves the game open for Players and GMs to tell the story they want to without being confined to a framework. The only thing I don’t like about it is that combat isn’t explained very well, as they just advise avoiding it if you can. While that makes sense, a little more on the subject would be nice.

Regardless, I hope y’all find this game interesting!

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ScenariosSkills

Minor prepping victory: Perennial Fruit!

brownfox-ffContributor - 12 hours ago

I was inspired last year by Josh’s review of “The Resilient Farm and Homestead”. I love the author’s take on improving resilience and regenerative systems, and seeing what we can do to provide more for ourselves. e.g. Falk says

> “Self-reliant households are the basic building blocks of any culture that is viable over the long term”> “If our goal is a peaceful, just society, self-reliance at the home and community levels must be a central focus of our lives”

I have been reading and learning about permaculture over the past few years. We don’t have a lot of space available, but last summer I decided to see what I could do in my own small life. I spent many hours of research learning what resilient, perennial species might grow well in our area (gardening zone 3), and spoke with several local gardeners and permaculturists on what food, plants, and species do well for them.

I landed on two perennial fruit bushes: saskatoons (also known as juneberry or pigeon berry), and haskaps (also known as honeyberries).

Both of these plants are hardy down to gardening zone 2, and both produce perennial fruit. They don’t seem to need a lot of care. When fully grown the bushes should take up space roughly five feet by five feet (depending on variety), which is great for me as they won’t get out of hand. If you’ve never had them – haskaps are similar to a long blueberry, though usually a more tart flavour.

I took a hard look at the yard space around our house and was able to free up enough space to plant four bushes – a path roughly five feet wide and twenty feet long, wrapping around a garage building next to our garden. It took some solid work with a five pound pickaxe and a sturdy shovel to dig deeply enough to plant them. But growing up doing manual work on a farm I find that kind of labor feels rewarding.

I have been attentively watering and working to care for the bushes since last year. During the hottest summer heat they took quite a bit of water each day; part of the reason I was motivated to set up a water barrel and system for rain capture. I did not expect the bushes to fruit in their first year. Haskaps are a bit finicky to plant and cultivate – you need specific varieties next to each other in order for them to pollinate. What’s more I discovered they are quite difficult to source and find – it took several months of hunting and calling before I found a greenhouse nursery that even carried them!

However, this week it all paid off: I was rewarded with a first harvest of perennial fruit!

This first picking was roughly one cup of berries:

It may be small, but this feels like a wholesome success. Is it a large amount? No. Will it feed an entire family? No. But it is more than zero. And it is hopefully renewable, and free. I have been able to build and introduce some valuable habitat, and add some flavour, nutrition, and variety into my meals.

One step forward!

Best of luck to everyone with your own gardens and journeys.

(edit: I have edited one of the photos and increased the contrast to make it easier to see)

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What is the best place to buy mylar bags?

ChickenPrepper - 13 hours ago

What’s a good place to get Mylar bags from? Just off Amazon, or do you all have a go to place for these things? Amazon reveals hundreds of possible vendors, most made overseas. If I’m to commit to some bags o’ rice for long term, I’d like to ensure I get decent stuff. Thanks!

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AdviceGear

An observation on prepping in 2022

Bill Masen - 2 days ago

Two years of Covid 19 and the shortages of everything from food to lumber, people basically locked down for months on end, economic chaos that followed, Everything more expensive etc.

That event alone seriously stifled the mocking voices who laughed at those of us who were wise enough to get involving with prepping.

Then just as Covid 19 started to fade from the news along comes the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the mad panic to rearm by NATO, The conflict itself and the growing wave of sanctions plunged the world back into a situation once again of shortages of energy, food, fuel and raw materials, massive price rises, security threats and risks. 

OPEN threats of nuclear weapons being used, mass migration from the east have followed.  The global economy taking yet another pounding, tax rises are inevitable, already wheat, animal feed, diesel, fertiliser, nickel, titanium etc prices are rocketing and shortages announced.

In my country energy prices have risen FOURTEEN times faster than wages already, the combined gas and electricity bill for the average British house has gone up from around £1200 to £1900 and is forecast to get as high as £4500 by October.    Petrol has rocketed up in days from £1.45 a litre to £1.70 a litre.

All rather grim reading I’m sorry to say, BUT  The mocking of preppers has stopped all together, and people enquiring about how to get started in prepping / off gridding and homesteading is increasing every day.

Sales of Heritage seeds is UP, people getting Allotments (small food growing plots of land) is UP, people installing WOOD BURNING stoves UP, People caching and stock piling UP, People buying Micro wind turbines and PV panels UP, People selling up and relocating OUT OF TOWN up over 30% according to some UK media sources etc

So my oberservation is this

” Why does it take TWO global crises to make people wake to to the vulnerability of society to disruption, and for them to see the benefits of prepping”.

A report I read about two years ago estimated that 30 million of you folks in the Americas are into prepping in one form or another. I think that number is likely to rise now.

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Meta

Success! I finally made a batch of soap that I liked

Robert LarsonContributor - 2 days ago

After some great advice from the wonderful people here on the forum my second attempt at making soap turned out MUCH better than the first time. Check out the comments on this forum thread to see my first failed attempt.

For those who are interested in making soap, I’ll give a brief summary of how to do it.

Shopping list:

Pure sodium hydroxide (lye). I bought 2lb for $16 on Amazon and it came with a free silicone mold. I’d link to the item I bought but it doesn’t seem to be available any longer. Silicone molds. These make the process much nicer and produce a better bar than homemade cardboard molds, so it is definitely worth investing in these. Two small 3-4 gallon buckets Silicone spatula Soap blender Disposable paper cup Kitchen scale to measure ingredients Fat sources. Coconut oil, beef tallow, olive oil, and many other options. Check out the possibilities on soapcalc.net to see what they can help you use. Avoid polyunsaturated fats, I learned this the hard way in my first attempt, which is linked up above. Distilled water Eye protection and disposable gloves

A quick and dirty summary of how soap is made is that you take some fat source like olive oil, mix with lye and water, and chemical reactions happen that turn it into soap.

To calculate what recipe you are going to use, go onto soapcalc.net and plug in your various fat sources and how much you have. For this successful attempt I used about 2/3 beef tallow and 1/3 coconut and olive oil. The users on this forum taught me which parameters I should shoot for. I went with an INS of 160, higher than this gives you a harsher soap and having some superfat to offset possibly being off on your recipe and avoiding excess lye that will burn you. Tweak your fat levels until you reach the goals you are going for. Here is my recipe. I don’t know what all this means but I’ve highlighted the things I look at.

According to your recipe, measure out your ingredients. Use a disposable cup for the lye, but the other food grade materials (water and the fats) can be measured into your normal kitchen’s bowls because they won’t touch anything toxic. 

Take one of the 4 gallon buckets outside and put on eye protection, gloves, and a long sleeve shirt. Pour in the water first and then the lye and stir with the spatula. It will give off some nasty fumes and heat up pretty hot from the chemical reaction. 

Back inside you will heat up your fats to as close to the same temperature as the lye mixture. I just threw it all in the crock pot and melted down the solid beef tallow and coconut oil. If you are doing just oils like coconut oil and olive oil then just heat them up in the microwave.

Combine the lye and oil mixture in your second bucket and mix for 2-3 minutes with the electric mixer until it is very creamy and thickens up a bit.

Pour the liquid soap into the molds and use the spatula to clean out the last drop. Put the molds in a cool dark cupboard and cover with a cloth for it to harden. I gave it a couple days and then pulled the soap bars out of the molds and stood them up on a piece of cardboard to get more airflow. Let them sit for a month to cure and they are ready to use.

The nice bars in the back of this picture were from the mold, and the weird pieces were ones that I broke up from a large chunk in a cardboard mold that I made. I won’t use a homemade mold again and will get more silicone molds because they make it so much nicer.

My soap bars smelt very strongly like beef broth when they were just poured into the molds. By the time a month had passed and they were ready to use they still smelt slightly beefy if you put your nose up to them. When you lather your hands a smell of beef broth can be smelt but your hands don’t smell like anything after you rinse them off. It’s an interesting smell that I don’t particularly like, but my wife has showered with it and said she didn’t smell anything. Maybe I am just more sensitive to it. Next time I make soap, I have some pig lard that I need to use. It probably won’t smell as strongly as the beef tallow, but I still am going to only put in 25% lard because I am not a fan of the meat smelling soap. I also do not want to add essential oils because I don’t want to smell peppermint beef either.

Well, that’s about it. I am extremely new to this world of soap making and if I said something incorrect please correct me. I don’t know how everything works, I just know that if you do steps A+B you get C and that’s what I want. It’s a fun experiment and I feel a sense of self sufficiency. If there was a nationwide run on soap for whatever reason I could make my own and share with others. Soap and cleanliness is very important for health and moral so it is an important survival and prepping skill to know how to make. At first I was scared and worried I wouldn’t get the chemistry right, and I actually didn’t the first time, but once I knew what to shoot for it was very easy to do. It is not a hard skill to learn and there are so many things and variations you can run with from here. I just like plain, simple, cheap survival soap though. Maybe one day I’ll expand into scents, colors and shapes.  

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Skills

The basic model my family uses for planning to Shelter in place vs Bug out

Rick Ryder - 3 days ago

I’ve been a prepper for a long time and developed my plans before finding The Prepared. It feels good knowing that the plans we developed on our own mirror much of the officially recommended plans on this site. I’m thankful for this community and thought it might be helpful to share my personal version of our plans.

Lately I’ve been sleeping (somewhat) better, because I’m using the pandemic as a driver to review and update Go-Bags for the three adults living in our home. In addition to straight “physical survival” I’m giving a nod to Maslow and building in some “psychological comfort” as I work my way through this exercise. Staying grounded and sane can be critical during an emergency, and also go a long way toward helping you recover after one.

During an emergency our “Primary Plan” is to shelter-in-place in our home. We’re well equipped and prepared to stay in place for weeks. But we know we can’t count on that option, and we might have to leave in a hurry. So we have an “Alternate Plan” and that’s where the Go-Bags are essential. (We also have “Contingency” and “Survival” plans, but that discussion is for another time.)

Planning for an emergency is a vital step in stocking a Go-Bag that will fit your personal needs. I’ve found it’s a big plus to think about “what might happen? what am I preparing for?” When you’re planning, think of the ASSUMPTIONS you’re making (“I’ll be able to drive my car 30 miles to get out of the city and reach my brother’s home”) and CONTINGENCIES (“I might have to spend the next 12 hours in my car because the highway is blocked”).

To help you develop your personal plan (and your Go-Bags), I talk about my family and the scenarios that we’re working to prepare for, with a focus on the “Alternate Plan.” For the most part, I’m NOT going to tell you what to put in your bag; solid info on that subject is available on this site. 

My goal in being prepared is to help reduce the impact of an emergency on my family, friends, and neighbors. What kind of emergency? Well, that’s where my “scenarios” help me out, and that’s the focus of this post. 

Another thing to keep in mind is your location: mine is the Pacific Northwest. We’ve had a few earthquakes (and a volcano eruption) since I moved here so I know “seismic shift” is a risk for us; if you live in the Midwest you may focus your prepping on tornadoes; if you live near water you may need to prep for floods; and if you live in the SE USA naturally you’ll think about hurricanes.

Here are the possible situations that I think about when I’m prepping. They’re in descending order from “most likely and simplest to prepare for.” I live in a house that I own; in an apartment or a condo you may need different solutions.

Scenario #1: Shelter in place (“minor crisis”)

Our family typically experience one or more of these scenarios every year.

There are significant challenges in your region: a weather event or minor earthquake causes a power-outage or conditions that threaten the supply chain. After evaluating the situation, you conclude your best option is to stay home. You will need food, water, heat, meds, and a plan for self-defense. You may want to draw on your Go Bags to sustain you – or you may choose to keep them intact in case you need to GO.

A generator & fuel, a well-stocked pantry, cash in smaller denomination bills, a back-up source of heat in cooler months, and accessible tools will directly make a difference on your level of comfort and safety. Plan for at least two weeks. Try to keep a low profile while you shelter in place; anticipate that people who did NOT plan ahead will be in your neighborhood.

Scenario #2: Short time away from home with indoor shelter available (“significant crisis”)

We’ve only had a few of these scenarios in 40 years.

You need to leave your home because a minor earthquake makes it uninhabitable, or a local environmental issue pushes you out, or you need to go the ER and can’t be sure when you’ll return. You might shelter with a member of your family, or in a public shelter, or in a hospital.

This is a situation where you expect to travel in your own vehicle or walk a short distance to get a ride, spend most of your time INDOORS, be SECURE from harm, and have support from others including water, food, blankets, and a place to sleep. This is NOT about extended travel by foot or for outdoor-living survival situations. Wear comfortable clothing: scrub pants, long sleeve top, a zip-up fleece hoodie, and a baseball hat (to shield eyes).

Important: If communication channels are not working, leave a written message in a previously-agreed-to onsite secure location that will tell family/friends where you plan to go.

Keep in mind that when you are in public spaces, like a shelter, anything you have may become lost, contaminated, or taken from you. Firearms might not be allowed either.

For this scenario, I make sure that our go-bags have copies of all important documents; for all three of my family-members I carry scans on a thumb-drive AND hard-copy: medical info, family and friends contact info, driver’s license, passport, veteran’s ID and VA ID, Medicare card, a list of passwords, bank & insurance info – you take it from here.

We each also have earbuds (connect to phone for music), “quiet headphones” (earmuffs) to screen out noisy surroundings, and eyeshades (to screen out light – some places may have lights on both day and night, and basic PPE: nitrile gloves, N95 masks, and goggles.

Scenario #3: Extended time away from home (“recoverable emergency”)

Only once so far: a major wildfire complex came within miles of our family home, and we were put into a “mandatory evacuation” classification.

You need to leave your home and circumstances suggest that the infrastructure will NOT recover in a reasonable amount of time – say, two weeks. Think: pandemic, major earthquake or environmental disaster, and/or the prospect of civil disorder; the grid is down or at-risk. Assume you decide to go early in the cycle, the roads are drivable, and your destination is more distant. You do not know when you will return.

Scenario #4: You may never return home (“major disaster”)

In my opinion this is both the “least likely” scenario, and the most critical. The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic exposed us all to a hint of what might be on the horizon. If this hits, your family’s life may depend on how well you prepared.

This is worst-case: imagine news reports of major displacements like Chernobyl, or war-time chaos and refugees. Take everything you believe you need to survive: food, water, clothing, firearms, AND high-value items including all your cash. Take any/all Go Bags. Load up your vehicle but don’t overload it; secure your load and do your best to keep a low profile as you implement your plan. Use your situational awareness skills. Stay safe: use extra caution if entering your house/apartment after an earthquake or other natural disaster!

If you read this far – thank you! I hope you found something that will help you prepare for the adventures life brings your way. Stay Safe, Stay Sane.

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Scenarios

How are you doing? Times are stressful, keep an eye on how you are handling things

Alisa Felix - 4 days ago

How are you doing? No seriously… think about it. Take a moment of reflection of how you are feeling. Put things on scale of 1-10 if that will help you. Think about the various areas of your life, finances, physical fitness, job, family life, hobbies, etc… Are you living balanced or is one area out of wack? It’s important to be in tune with your body and mind, we often get so busy and overwhelmed that the ship might be sinking underneath us (our mental or physical health), but we are so focused on the horizon.

I’ve been struggling lately with everything just being so expensive and there isn’t really any end in sight. It’s making it even harder to save money for the future and my “fun money” for hobbies and recreation is smaller than ever. So I guess my main worry is the economy. 

We are all strangers here, feel free to open up and vent to others here on how you are doing. I’m at least here to listen to you if you need it.

Being prepared brings comfort and reassurance. Guess I just need to prepare more. If I had lots of gas and food stored, I might not be as worried about all the rising costs of everything, 

Looking back on old forum posts I came across this one with some good advice: Philosophies for good mental health

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Advice

Does anyone have experience sprouting seeds to eat?

Peter 44 - 4 days ago

In the spirit of trying to eat more healthy, I want to consume more vegetables. There are many vegetables though that I just do not like or don’t sit well with me, and I get sick of the others pretty quickly. I’ve also heard that the same head of lettuce today is less nutritionally dense than that my grandparents ate because soil is losing it’s minerals. The idea of sprouting my own seeds and eating those may be the way I can eat as little vegetables as possible but still get the nutrition I need. Don’t sprouts have a ton of nutrition per ounce compared to a full grown vegetable?

I’ve seen them talked about with survival groups often as a way to get fresh veggies without having to go outside, have sunlight, or even put in much work. Could be a good SHTF nutrition supply.

Does anyone have experience sprouting their own seeds? I see there are two methods, using trays or in a mason jar with a mesh lid. 

Also, where are cheap places to buy spouting seeds?

Thank you all!

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Advice

FIFO can racks for the pantry

Dogpatch - 5 days ago

I took a chance on these little racks I found on Amazon, bought two, and quickly decided to outfit the whole shelf with them.  They are literally shoe-horned into the shelf, but they fit, wall to wall.  I’ll never go back to boxes for regular size cans again.  I will be gradually adding more.

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Drop, cover, and hold on? Maybe not— esp. if you’re in the PNW!

pnwsarahContributor - 6 days ago

I almost never read an article about earthquakes and feel like I learned a substantial new thing that will change my approach to preparedness, but this one, sent to me by a geologist friend this afternoon, was an exception. Also cool because it vindicates the generally-useful-for-preppers idea of “situational awareness”. 

https://temblor.net/earthquake-insights/opinion-when-the-next-cascadia-megaquake-strikes-heres-what-ill-do-13866/ 

Citation: Goldfinger, G., 2022, Opinion: When the next Cascadia megaquake strikes, here’s what I’ll do, Temblor, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.242

Chris Goldfinger is a professor at OSU and one of the leading authorities on the Cascadia Subduction Zone— he did some of the research that demonstrated that it has unleashed megaquakes in the past (and will do so in the future)— so I take his thoughts seriously!

Summary:

The conventional wisdom on what to do when you feel ground shaking is “drop, cover, and hold on.” This makes sense in places that don’t have an earthquake early warning system, where earthquakes tend to be smaller (M5-7 instead of M8-9), and where most of the buildings are engineered to withstand that magnitude of quake. Given virtually no warning and low likelihood that the building you’re in will collapse, it’s smart to get under the nearest table, as fast as you can, and protect yourself from objects rocketing off walls and shelves. If you try to get outside, you’ll probably be thrown to the ground by the force of the quake or fall on the stairs, and if you do make it outside, then you’re exposed to falling bricks and signs, shattering glass, etc.

BUT in a big subduction zone earthquake, if you’re decently far away from the rupture (which you’ll likely be, because the rupture happens offshore), the faster but weaker P-waves will arrive significantly (i.e., maybe 45-60 seconds!) in advance of the stronger surface waves, which means you get a warning in the form of lighter shaking. Throw an early warning system (which the West Coast now has) on top of that and you might have 2-3 minutes of notice before the really violent shaking starts— enough to get out of the building you’re in, if you’re on one of the lower floors.

The article describes how, in some places— especially those with big earthquakes, buildings prone to collapse in them, and early warning systems, e.g., Mexico City— this understanding has been incorporated into earthquake preparedness for a long time, and in lieu of a simplistic “Drop cover and hold on” directive (which in the U.S. may be more of a cultural holdover from Cold War nuclear strike drills than anything else— to the extent that it’s efficacy in earthquakes is backed by data, they seem to be the wrong data!), preparedness advice is more contingent on the setting.

Goldfinger advocates a “situational awareness” approach, in which the messaging is more nuanced and reflective of the reality that the best thing to do depends on where you are. While this lacks the simplicity (and ease of recall) of DCHO, more and more entities, including the government of Israel and a school district in the Portland suburbs, seem to be moving away from one size fits all directives toward this model.

My thoughts:

“Situational awareness” seems like the best approach for organizations that are housed in one building: You still give your employees/attendees/students one directive, but it’s tailored to the structure. Downside is that saying, “In case of an earthquake, evacuate,” is essentially the same as saying, “This building is crap”— especially to a public that is used to hearing these differing directions and will increasingly understand why they differ. Without accompanying policy change (and it would have to be well-designed policy), we might see messaging that is more about preserving the users’ sense of safety in the building (and desire to return to it) than it is about informing people of hazards.

Situational awareness will also be much harder for individuals to implement than organizations. After all, we go in and out of buildings all the time without knowing their construction and retrofit history. Most people won’t pay attention or care, and those of us who do care will still be making educated guesses. That said, I’ve been making educated guesses about the seismic resilience of buildings for years— I just didn’t have anything to do with the information (unless you count being more or less nervous about going to this doctor’s appointment or that meeting as “doing something”). Now when I go into a building that I don’t like the look of, I can scan the exterior for fall hazards and pay attention to how long it takes me to get to where I’m going within the building from the entry, and have a sense of whether or not to run when the P-waves hit.

Hope others find it as interesting as I did!!

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Scenarios

Games that teach survival skills

Eric - 1 week ago

What games have you found that teach survival skills in a fun way? I’ll include some of my favorites as comments and encourage others to do the same.

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ScenariosSkills

A review of NextDNS. Stop unwanted content from ever reaching your internet connected device

Supersonic - 1 week ago

Summary: This post goes over how to speed up your internet and stop unwanted content from ever reaching your device for free. It’s very easy and can be done in less than 15 minutes.

What is DNS?

In simple terms, it’s like a phone book of the internet. If you type https://theprepared.com into your web browser, that request is sent over to a DNS which converts that to the IP address (172.66.43.161) which computers can understand. This all takes a fraction of a second, but those fractions of a second can add up over time.

What DNS do I have?

Most devices by default are setup to query your internet service provider’s DNS registry. This not only gives your ISP more in-depth data on which sites you visit on the internet (so they can sell that valuable data and make more money on you by targeting you with ads), but it is often quite slow compared to other options. A faster option is using Google’s public DNS, full instructions here. While it is fast, many may not like Google having even more info on them because Google is not known to be the most privacy conscious company out there. Would you like an even better option though? The fastest DNS resolver out there, and one that doesn’t sell your data to advertisers is Cloudflare. You see in the below chart how your default internet service provider might have a query speed of 70ms, Google has one of 34ms, and Cloudflare is 14ms.

Another benefit of Cloudflare is that there are some optional malware and adult content blocking options. Click here for full instructions on how to set Cloudflare as your DNS resolver and/or enabling these minor blocking capabilities.

While it may not be as fast as Cloudflare, I’ve been playing around with a different DNS called NextDNS. The reason you might want to try this one out is because it has a free, stylish, and easy to use interface that allows you to add many more layers of filtering. By doing this, you will have even more control to stop the bad stuff of the internet from ever getting to your device. If you aren’t tech savvy at all, don’t worry there are some simple toggles you can click to set it and leave it. If you want to dive deeper and have more control though, you can.

How do I get started with NextDNS?

It’s super easy to get started, go to https://nextdns.io/ and click “Try it now”. No signup is required to try it out for a week and you have full control right out of the gate without any account creation necessary. If you do like it, create a free account and have control over things for longer.

Next, scroll down on the page and see step-by-step instructions on how to set it up on practically any device.

The next tab on top of the page, is security.

Each option you have to toggle on/off has an easy to understand description underneath so you know if that is something you want or not.

On the Privacy tab, there aren’t as many options, but instead you can add individual blocklists.

Don’t go all crazy and add every block list possible, just pick a few that call to you. I’d at least do “Energized Ultimate and NextDNS Ads & Trackers Blocklist”

These filters are very impressive and are updated very regularly. For example, some of the privacy filters I have enabled were updated 10 minutes ago, 4 days ago, and 3 hours ago.

On the Parental Control tab, you can set up specific times in which certain sites such as Facebook, Netflix, or Snapchat are blocked, like after 10pm so your kid will get to sleep.

You can also block entire categories of sites such as pornography, gambling, or social media websites.

The Denylist and Allowlist tabs are if you want to copy and paste specific websites to either block or allow them. Maybe a site you like is getting caught up in one of the filters, you can allow that particular site instead of disabling the entire filter.

The Analytics tab is fun because that shows a summary of how many queries were made and what percentage were blocked.

The Logs tab goes into more detail on which site was accessed. If you see repeated calls to Adobe for example, you can copy and paste that and add it to the denylist if you don’t want that ever happening again.

On the last tab, Settings, you can disable logging, change how long logs are kept for, download logs, or clear them.

This first test run of NextDNS works for a week and then you need to create a free account to save your settings and access them in the future. The free tier of NextDNS gives you 300,000 queries per month per device, which should be enough for most of us, but you can pay for more if you need it.

Overall I am quite happy with this service in the few days I’ve been testing it. I’ve set up a Raspberry Pi powered pihole DNS blocker before, which is similar to this but attached to your network, and I prefer this easy, quick, and free way over that.

Setting this all up takes only a few minutes and can be reversed in seconds if it’s not for you.

Why this is relevant to this crowd

Be prepared against security and privacy threats by stopping it from ever getting to your device. If the website is totally blocked, no tracking or malicious software can even bother you. This can help you kick a bad habit of gambling or spending too much time on social media, or block unreliable news sources you may come across.

I am in no way an expert on DNS, but if you need help troubleshooting things let me know and I’ll see if I can help.

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Year old eggs stored in whole in shell with water and pickling lime – A GREAT easy way to store eggs!

Sharon - 1 week ago

I

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Cooking in a haybox – a fuel efficient way to slow-cook your meals

Dogpatch - 1 week ago

This has been discussed a little before, but I’ve got a “new” resource to share in the form of a 1909 online booklet:  https://archive.org/details/firelesscookbook00mitc/page/n7/mode/2up  “The Fireless Cookbook”.  The Haybox is a type of thermal cooker that only requires fuel for the initial boiling of the food.  The container of boiling food is placed inside a box filled with hay or other insulating material and allowed to slow-cook for a few hours.  I’m just about ready to give it a try.  Bought an excellent heavy duty box from the UPS store and have a supply of hay.  Just need the time to get all set up.  I’ll start with some dry beans, which are notorious for their long cooking time/fuel consumption.

I’m pretty interested in this method because most of our power outages occur in foul weather and my cooking resources would otherwise all be mainly outdoors.

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GearSkills

Wine for the apocalypse

July LewisContributor - 1 week ago

So my husband bought a wine rack for the basement this winter and has been having fun picking out moderately priced wines and filling it up. I didn’t think to add it to my emergency food spreadsheet until just now! I have a formula in the spreadsheet that calculates how many days worth of calories we have, and this gave my supplies a nice boost. 

This will be a part of our rotating pantry so hopefully we won’t have any wine go bad. But I’m seeing confusing info on the shelf life of wine. Fine wines are supposed to last 20-30 years when stored properly, while other wines are good for 2-3 years. What’s the difference?? These are not fine wines and many have screw tops. Our storage conditions are not ideal – no temperature extremes but also not the ideal 55 F degrees. Maybe 65 in the winter, 75 in summer. 

Anyone have any insight/experience in wine storage?

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