Active New Top (30 days) Compact Card Preppers and climate change Jonnie PekelnyContributor - July 18, 2022 I want to raise a question about what a prepping mindset means for prevention, especially in the area of climate change, which is driving so many emergencies and disasters. I realize we have diverse folks here and I really don’t want to start a political fight. To me climate change is an issue that should actually unite all of us, but I realize that some people feel otherwise. If you’re reading this and you don’t believe in climate change or don’t believe that it’s caused by human factors, I would like to respectfully ask you to please just skip this thread. I’m in California and my prepping has been very heavily driven by the radical increase of catastrophic wildfires in the last few years. It’s no secret that climate change is a major cause of these. In general I’ve been feeling a great deal of urgency about arresting climate change along with all the related issues like large scale species extinction. It seems like the stakes couldn’t be higher and time is very short. I don’t see that our government is moving nearly fast enough to deal with this crisis. Lately, tired of feeling helpless and anxious, I’ve started wondering what the average citizen can do to help reverse this problem. Of course we can recycle and all that, but truly these individual actions make a very limited impact on climate change. Individuals aren’t the main drivers of the changing climate. In addition to not knowing what I can do to make a greater impact, I, personally, am not much of a conventional activist — meaning I personally get de-energized and turned off by marches, slogans, petitions and all that. (I’m not saying these aren’t necessary, it just doesn’t match my temperment.) So, I’m looking for other ways to get involved. It suddenly occurred to me that here we have a community of folks who are more aware than the average person of the dangers we are facing and I thought I would ask if any of you are also thinking about how to arrest and reverse the problems we are facing, rather than just prepare to deal with them when they come down the pike. It all seems to be part of one holistic outlook to me. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Read More 23 44 Scenarios AC Apocalypse. Whatcha gonna do? Pops - July 16, 2022 20+ year old a/c unit, 90-100º forecast for days… need I say what happened over the weekend? I’ve been around for a while, namely since before a/c was common. Boy, how quickly we forget how pampered is our rich-world life. On a related note, I saw Texas Reliability forecast blackouts down there and urged folks to turn off the AC, riiight. So just a thread to think about heat related actions if not preps. According to Wiki in most years, more people succumb to excessive heat than any other weather related cause. Obviously GW is causing anomalous heat waves (like in the PNW last year) and especially prolonged heat events are dangerous because warm nights prevent the cooling respite more fragile bodies need. Just a few random things: If you are in a dry climate, evaporating water, however you can get that to happen, is the natural solution. Water changing from liquid to vapor absorbs heat, cooling it’s surrounding. But in humid climes you need other plans. We live in Missouri now, dry in the winter and wet—er in the summer. Here a summer breeze is as likely as not to be so saturated that not only is your efforts to evaporate water for cooling inefficient but your own perspiration is much less effective. Be especially cautious when the dew point is high, 65º ot higher because your natural cooling is less effective. Warmer air holds more water, to a point. The dew point is the temperature at which the air is saturated, below that temperature the moisture in the air condenses—forms dew. Think of a cold drink glass with beads of water on the outside, the glass is colder than the dew point so moisture from the air condenses on it. But on the flip side, with a high dew point the air is already near-saturation and perspiration or a wet kerchief is less effective as cooling because water won’t evaporate into near-saturated air so won’t absorb heat in changing phase. So, getting out of those weeds, we live in an old house 150 years maybe. Old houses had lots of cooling strategies we can implement in an emergency. Our house s 12′ ceilings and windows that go up almost to 10′. Open down the top sash and open up the bottom at night and automatically a convection current sweeps out the hot air at the top, pulling in cool air at the bottom—even with no breeze. That is if the air cools off at night. The US SE may not be uninhabitable in a warmed future because humidity holds heat, preventing night time cooling. Houses once employed breezeways to, you know, catch the prevailing breeze. Also they did pay attention ot orientation. Here in SW MO the prevailing wind is from the NW in winter but the summer breeze usually comes from West or SW. So the old houses keep their backs to the NW and their sitting porch to the SW—to catch the summer breeze and shade the summer evening sun that is WNW about now. Of course you can’t reorient your house in an A/C apocalypse but you can think about those natural angles. Say leaving the drapes closed on the East in the morning and west/north in the afternoon. In the evening, open the windows and go outside as soon as outside is cooler, the SE side will have been in the shade longest at 9P so will be coolest, everything else equal. Anyway long enough rant for now. I fixed the AC so gotta go enjoy it. What strategies do you have for dealing with AC Apocalypse? Read More 13 16 Remove rust off your gear and tools with vinegar or ketchup Gideon ParkerStaff - July 15, 2022 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 12 7 GearSkills See you later Alligator! – How to avoid and survive an attack Alisa Felix - July 15, 2022 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 13 7 AdviceScenarios A review of NextDNS. Stop unwanted content from ever reaching your internet connected device Supersonic - July 14, 2022 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 15 5 Drop, cover, and hold on? Maybe not— esp. if you’re in the PNW! pnwsarahContributor - July 13, 2022 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 12 5 Scenarios Mental health preps Matt Black - July 11, 2022 A lot of prepping is focused on our physical readiness to respond in time of crisis. Much of our time, energy, and money are spent amassing gear, equipment, and supplies; monitoring stock levels and expiration dates; reviewing and practicing potential courses of action; and getting ourselves in physical shape – all so that we have some sense of readiness for dire moments that we hope will never come. Over the years, I’ve come to think of prepping like a giant puzzle. As all the right pieces click into place, we get one step closer to realizing the bigger picture of our own readiness. I put to you, my fellow preppers, that this puzzle isn’t complete without some form mental preparedness and having coping preps at the ready. After all, you can have years of food and water, medical supplies, ammo, and all the comforts you could possibly want and need to physically survive a crisis, but none of that is worth it if you can’t mentally cope with the challenges that arise from the chaos you’re attempting to survive. DISCLOSURE Before I go any further: I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, or trained counselor -not by any stretch of the imagination. I do, however, have experience in receiving mental health services and it is the entirety of that experience that I’m calling upon to share these thoughts with you. As you read, please keep in mind that this is my subjective experience. At no point in time should you consider this mental health advice to be acted upon without the guidance of a trained and certified professional. If at any point in time you find yourself in crisis, I urge you to reach out to crisis services in your state, city, or region to seek immediate help. BACKGROUND As someone with a diagnosed history of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, prepping can sometimes be a challenge for me. If I’m not careful, my prepping can easily break free from its reins and run wild. If I’m not vigilant and mindful, that is, if I’m not present and thinking about my thinking, I suddenly find that my thoughts have raced very far afield. The result, for me, manifests in feelings ranging from overwhelming anxiety and hopelessness to extreme hyper-vigilance, and catastrophism. The experience is somewhat similar to what you might have felt as your started your own journey into prepping, perhaps before you found The Prepared (or similar communities) -and yet, for me, it’s a very different kind of anxiety. If I’m not mindful, I can find myself feeling anxious to the point of overwhelming paralysis and that is completely counterproductive to my own efforts. MENTAL HEALTH & STIGMA Let’s be really honest with ourselves and each other for a few moments. There exists, even now in the 21st century [at the apex of the information age!] a continued stigma centered around mental health and those that suffer from a myriad issues. Sure, we’ve come a long way as a society, but not far enough -not if (for example) upon reading my “background” paragraph, you might have found yourself cringing slightly or knee-jerking in response. If that’s the case, then my point has been made and that’s part of the topic I want to address here, the stigma. -And, look, that kind of response is okay. I’m cool with it. It’s understandable and forgivable because I understand myself and, perhaps more importantly, I understand the human instinct to fear the unknown or unknowable. That said, it should come as no surprise that myself and those who suffer and live with mental health issues are often perceived as being strange, scary, weak, damaged, flawed or in desperate need of repair. At the individual level, issues that go unaddressed (because of the stigmas we impose on each other and the topic mental health) can’t or won’t seek help, much less admit they need help. Worse still, they – I – don’t want to be perceived by others as weak, not manly enough, “crazy”, or whatever. -Even then, even if you might perceive your own mental health as a weakness, wouldn’t you want to strengthen that weakness rather than shaming it or ignoring it? Wouldn’t addressing that lead you to being more prepared to face other important challenges? FACING REALITY & POSSIBILITIES It is an undeniable fact of life that there will be injury, illness, and death. Everyone acknowledges this (to one degree or other). This is, after all, why we prep our first aid kits, familiarize ourselves with important things like field dressings, suturing, administering CPR, etc. Some of us have even had (or will seek) formal training of some kind in order to prepare for these and other situations. DIG DEEP, A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT [!TRIGGER WARNING!] What follows are the kinds of questions I often ask myself -and that I’m asking of you, right now -and they go something like this: What are you mentally and emotionally prepared to deal with? Are you truly prepared to face blood and gore, the onset of illness and disease, fatigue, famine, or utter exhaustion? Are you mentally ready to face the possibly of an unknown or uncertain future? Sure, it’s easy to say that you are, but dig a little deeper! How will you potentially deal with, for example, losing some portion (or all!) of your hunker down preps because you had to bug out or suddenly found your stash area(s) unreachable or off limits? How prepared are you, truly, to face death, to potentially bury a friend or loved one, if need be? How will you cope with that loss? How are you coping with the loss of life right now, during the pandemic? What about widespread destruction, you ready for that? How might you cope with hours, days, weeks, or even months of ceaseless silence, of being alone, lonely, or left with your own thoughts? On the other end of that spectrum, how prepared are you to cope the ceaselessness chaos and destruction due to civil unrest or ongoing, active armed conflict? I’m not really trying to drill my point home or to put too find a point on this. The last thing I want is to make anyone’s day crappy by throwing out these gruesome ideas and leave your ruminating. It’s just that… it’s one thing to have some vague, blurry idea of the possible things one might face, especially if you don’t have any frame of reference or practical experience. It’s one thing to have a relatively secure faith in humanity and in the fact that the vast majority of people will work together toward a common good. And, yet, it’s another thing entirely to face down the possibility of things going horribly, horribly wrong. There are, undoubtedly, those among us here that have never experienced these sorts of things (and my personal hope is, they never will!). Fortunate are those who’ve never experienced combat or a natural disaster firsthand. There are, without a doubt, some preppers who might not have any frame of reference for what these truly traumatic experiences are like -the sights, sounds, smells and the impact those things can have on your psyche and it is to that that I’m calling for- and advising- a few preps. Experienced or not, these kinds of thoughts and questions are really overwhelming, I know. Nevertheless, I offer to you that these are the kinds of questions each of us should take time to stop and truly, deeply consider. I propose that we must also mentally and emotionally prepare (or, for some, prepare to re-experience) the kinds of situations we physically already prep to face. And as we consider these things and explore some of the ways we can prep our mental health and stability for times of uncertainty and crisis, we might suddenly find that we have added yet another tool to our preps. WE NEED MENTAL HEALTH PREPS Nothing is going to be a suitable substitute for a trained, certified professional, counseling, or medications. Nothing. Professionals -whether psychologists, psychiatrists, or social workers of every degree and stripe- invest years of their lives learning, studying, researching, and practicing [to the extent of our most current understanding of-] how the human brain works, how our thinking informs our decisions, and how what we experience can impact us in ways that might not be obvious to ourselves or others. In the absence of a professional -perhaps in any number of the scenarios we might imagine, or in a world gone horribly wrong- what can we do for ourselves and each other to keep cool, collected, and organized in our thinking. How can we attain and maintain our emotional stability and health? What can we do to prepare or triage these issues until mental help arrives? MINDFULNESS Chances are, you’ve probably heard the term or seen it floating around somewhere by now. If you’ve spent a little too much time in your bunker or if you aren’t already familiar, mindfulness is a practice, an exercise to train your brain to turn your attention inward. At the heart of mindfulness is noticing and noticing that you’re noticing. Think of it as a kind of self-diagnostic mode. Mindfulness practices (also called meditations) vary. Some variants include awareness of breathing (to find a place a clam), body scanning (noticing places of tension), or focusing your awareness on the senses. Some guided mindfulness routines dive deep into topics like emotional discomfort and building compassion (toward both yourself and others). At its heart, mindfulness is all about you and providing you a means of directing your attention to things, events, or experiences you may not have realized are impacting you and your well being. TRADITIONAL MEDITATION Although the aforementioned mindfulness practices are a form of meditation, I’ve separated what I call traditional meditation from mindfulness because this form of practice is all about, well, nothing. Contrasted with mindfulness, one of the major ways traditional meditation practice differs is that it focuses on not having thoughts at all. As one begins this practice, one must first learn that that the mind is like a wild horse. It wants to run free! As you become more experienced and more disciplined in your practice, you learn to brush aside and let go of these spontaneous and wandering thoughts. Thoughts are a forgivable intrusion into this mind space and the goal is to seek calm, quiet, unperturbed peacefulness, a place of respite. MOBILE APPS FOR MINDFULNESS & MEDITATION Depending on your individual needs and your individual use- and threat models, there are no shortage of apps available to help you on the path to mindfulness and meditation. Some I’ve personally used and have found useful (on the Android platform) are as follows: Calm https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.calm.android Mindfulness Coach https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.va.mobilehealth.ncptsd.mindfulnesscoach MOBILE APPS FOR SOOTHING CALMING SOUNDS & WHITE NOISE Naturespace https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.naturespace.naturespace Binaural Beats https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.productions.dz.brainwaver White Noise Pro https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tmsoft.whitenoise.pro Noice [Note! This app is available via F-Droid. For those not familiar, F-Droid is an alternative Android repository for Free, Libre, Open-Source Software] https://f-droid.org/app/com.github.ashutoshgngwr.noice FEEDBACK? I welcome any feedback you might have and would welcome any constructive thoughts or personal anecdotes that might help each of us add more tools to our mental health preps. Thank you for reading! Be well. Be safe. Stay healthy. Edits for spelling and grammar. Lots of edits. OMG, so many edits. Read More 28 20 Advice Solar power options for a home brekke - July 9, 2022 I’ve started looking into a solar system for home and I’m getting a bit confused/overwhelmed with trying to understand how it all works and if it is even worth it. Hoping someone in the forum can help shed some light on the topic for me. I’m in Oregon. We have a lot of cloudy days, but also a lot of sunny days. We have occasional short-term power outages, but the longest for us has been 12-hours. From a preparedness aspect, our most likely need for solar would be to mitigate energy costs as prices rise or for potential long-term need in the event of a Cascadia EQ event. We have a generator and fuel for short term 1-2 week needs. My confusion comes from how they work with the power company and batteries. One person that responded to a quote request said he doesn’t do battery set-ups because outages are so rare here. So, without a battery set-up, does that just mean the sole purpose of my panels would be to sell the power to the power company, thereby reducing our monthly costs (after the panel system is paid for)? Or would it provide power to my home during sunlight hours, even if the power company’s line goes down? It seems the overall expense, even with rebates and tax credits, would not be worth it without the battery backup option from a preparedness standpoint and that we would be better off investing in a generator switch to power essentials in the event of an emergency. Read More 13 15 The basic model my family uses for planning to Shelter in place vs Bug out Rick Ryder - July 8, 2022 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 20 10 Scenarios Community Discord/Slack Arlinn - July 8, 2022 Does a Discord or Slack server exist for the community? I like forums since they’re asynchronous communication, but real time discussion has its perks too. Read More 19 29 Meta An introduction to lightweight backpacking Chance - July 7, 2022 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 20 21 Minor prepping victory: Perennial Fruit! brownfox-ffContributor - July 6, 2022 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 21 30 DIY Project: Rain barrel water collector brownfox-ffContributor - July 3, 2022 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 21 17 New affordable online pharmacy saves people thousands on life saving medicine rebecca - July 2, 2022 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 10 4 News Best modular bag for car? Don - July 2, 2022 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 14 18 Gear 4th of July safety tips Henry Tubbs - July 1, 2022 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 14 12 Does anyone have experience sprouting seeds to eat? Peter 44 - June 28, 2022 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 Barb LeeContributor - June 27, 2022 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 8 6 Year old eggs stored in whole in shell with water and pickling lime – A GREAT easy way to store eggs! Sharon - June 25, 2022 I Read More 9 6 I Wine for the apocalypse July LewisContributor - June 24, 2022 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 Controlling cooking food odors whether SIP or Bug Out conditions UbiqueContributor - June 23, 2022 Controlling food odors would be an important consideration for anyone living in the city close to others or even in a rural area if hungry people are searching for food. I’m not sure, but it seems possible that very hungry people would have a heightened sense of smell. I ran a test on how much and how far food odors wafted from my home some years ago as part of scenario prepping. There was no exhaust fan used to blow the odor outside. The item I cooked on top of the stove was dried red kidney beans. There was nothing added to the beans and water. It was to cook them only before making chili later. While the beans simmered, I took a walk outdoors and was shocked by the smell outside my house. I never thought that plain, unseasoned beans would give off that much smell. More shocking was how far the smell travelled on a day with low wind conditions. I wondered what the result would have been had I used an exhaust fan and blew more of the smell outside. This led me to think that smell has to be considered in prepping. I am still trying to figure out how to control odors while cooking. Food can be eaten cold out of the can, but in an emergency of long duration, it will be necessary to cook food. Even bugged out, food odors from an outdoor meal could be a problem. One last part, I have also considered food odors on my hands from preparing food. In times of scarcity, looking well fed and smelling of garlic might tip off people that you have preps. Lemon juice can neutralize the garlic and baggy clothes can hide a lack of weight loss, but I am still trying to find a solution to reducing or eliminating food odors. Has anyone considered this and if so, any thoughts on how to deal with this issue? Thanks in advance Read More 15 35 AdviceScenarios How to survive this nasty heat wave of 110+ degrees Peter 44 - June 23, 2022 Although I don’t live in the Pacific North West PNW, I am hearing a lot of chatter from people about the extreme heat that they are suffering through. I wanted to offer my help through this forum by sharing some thoughts and ideas on how to stay cool and get through this. Feel free to pitch in your tips and tricks as well if you have some. If we have any PNW members of this forum, I’d love to hear how things are going for ya. -Move to a smaller room at the center of your house. It is easier to cool a small room versus the entire house. -Add tin foil or cardboard on windows to act as extra insulation and repel the heat of the sun. Look at installing solar screens on your windows for a cleaner look. -Get a battery operated fan that will run off of the same batteries that your power tools will. If power goes out, this can keep you cool. Mist yourself with some water and then sit in front of the fan for extreme cooling. -Keep curtains closed -Drink tons of water. Keep up electrolytes. -Hang out in the basement if you have one -Use patio umbrellas or storm shutters to shade your windows -Rinse off your arms, hands, and face with cool water whenever you go to the bathroom. Take a full cool shower if at home for a quick cool down. -Stock up on fans, AC units, etc during the fall because during the summer they will be all sold out and at full price -Freeze different juices into improvised popsicles. Eating frozen grapes and berries -Keep an eye on the weather forecast and if you see hot weather coming, make extra ice cubes a head of time. -You may have to adjust the temperature to a colder setting on your fridge/freezer. Some people are having to add frozen bottles of water to their fridge to cool things down because their fridge can’t keep things cool enough. -If you need to cook foods, use the oven or stove in the early morning or late afternoon as to not add too much more heat to your house -Place your clothes in the freezer for the next day, then when you put them on they will keep you cool for a couple minutes. -Cool your feet in a bath or kiddie pool -Don’t go outside during the hottest times of the day -Feed pets refrigerated wet food. Make them popsicles by freezing tuna water or beef broth in ice cube molds. -If you can’t hold your hand on the asphalt for 10 seconds, then it’s too hot for your dog to walk on. -For chickens, give them ice chips to peck at or frozen peas Read More 19 31 Becoming hysterical during an emergency Molly N. 😆 - June 23, 2022 I have a confession to make… I love watching police body cam footage and other videos online of disasters, emergencies, and horrible events. They are so fascinating and intriguing. I tell myself that it’s for educational purposes to teach myself about what can happen. A common thing that I’ve noticed in many of the videos is the random lady in the background going absolutely hysterical. It could be a video of a gunman going through a mall or police arresting her boyfriend and most of the time there is some lady just screaming. 😱 Nothing is happening to her, the gun shots may be at the other end of the building, but she is still freaking out. Guys aren’t excluded from this, but they usually manifest it in shouting profanity. This made me think about when I might be in a bad situation, will I react the same way? What causes someone to freak out like this? Is it from not feeling prepared, lack of mental coping, or is that just what some people do? I laugh a little at how they react but then tell myself that I might do the same thing if put in that situation. I can’t judge them from the comfort of my safe couch at home when they are seeing horrible things happen right before their eyes. If there is a way to train myself to not get into this mental and emotional state and understand what causes it though, I think I will be better for it. First off, screaming exposes your location and draws the gunman to yourself. Second, someone that is freaking out that bad isn’t thinking clearly and that leads to mistakes and even more danger. What are your thoughts on all of this? Read More 21 48 < Prev 1 2 3 … 18 19 20 … 57 58 59 Next > Recently Active Has anybody blood tested the Oroweat keto tortillas? - 3 days agoNews for the Week 2024-04-22 - 3 days agoNews for the Week 2024-04-15 - 5 days agoWhat is the best camp stove for an emergency power outage or camping? - 6 days agoChickens for preppers: Important considerations - 7 days 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

Preppers and climate change

Jonnie PekelnyContributor - July 18, 2022

I want to raise a question about what a prepping mindset means for prevention, especially in the area of climate change, which is driving so many emergencies and disasters. I realize we have diverse folks here and I really don’t want to start a political fight. To me climate change is an issue that should actually unite all of us, but I realize that some people feel otherwise. If you’re reading this and you don’t believe in climate change or don’t believe that it’s caused by human factors, I would like to respectfully ask you to please just skip this thread.

I’m in California and my prepping has been very heavily driven by the radical increase of catastrophic wildfires in the last few years. It’s no secret that climate change is a major cause of these. In general I’ve been feeling a great deal of urgency about arresting climate change along with all the related issues like large scale species extinction. It seems like the stakes couldn’t be higher and time is very short. I don’t see that our government is moving nearly fast enough to deal with this crisis.

Lately, tired of feeling helpless and anxious, I’ve started wondering what the average citizen can do to help reverse this problem. Of course we can recycle and all that, but truly these individual actions make a very limited impact on climate change. Individuals aren’t the main drivers of the changing climate.  In addition to not knowing what I can do to make a greater impact, I, personally, am not much of a conventional activist —  meaning I personally get de-energized and turned off by marches, slogans, petitions and all that. (I’m not saying these aren’t necessary, it just doesn’t match my temperment.) So, I’m looking for other ways to get involved.

It suddenly occurred to me that here we have a community of folks who are more aware than the average person of the dangers we are facing and I thought I would ask if any of you are also thinking about how to arrest and reverse the problems we are facing, rather than just prepare to deal with them when they come down the pike. It all seems to be part of one holistic outlook to me. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

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Scenarios

AC Apocalypse. Whatcha gonna do?

Pops - July 16, 2022

20+ year old a/c unit, 90-100º forecast for days… need I say what happened over the weekend? I’ve been around for a while, namely since before a/c was common. Boy, how quickly we forget how pampered is our rich-world life.

On a related note, I saw Texas Reliability forecast blackouts down there and urged folks to turn off the AC, riiight.

So just a thread to think about heat related actions if not preps. According to Wiki in most years, more people succumb to excessive heat than any other weather related cause. Obviously GW is causing anomalous heat waves (like in the PNW last year) and especially prolonged heat events are dangerous because warm nights prevent the cooling respite more fragile bodies need.

Just a few random things:

If you are in a dry climate, evaporating water, however you can get that to happen, is the natural solution. Water changing from liquid to vapor absorbs heat, cooling it’s surrounding. But in humid climes you need other plans. We live in Missouri now, dry in the winter and wet—er in the summer. Here a summer breeze is as likely as not to be so saturated that not only is your efforts to evaporate water for cooling inefficient but your own perspiration is much less effective. Be especially cautious when the dew point is high, 65º ot higher because your natural cooling is less effective.

Warmer air holds more water, to a point. The dew point is the temperature at which the air is saturated, below that temperature the moisture in the air condenses—forms dew. Think of a cold drink glass with beads of water on the outside, the glass is colder than the dew point so moisture from the air condenses on it. But on the flip side, with a high dew point the air is already near-saturation and perspiration or a wet kerchief is less effective as cooling because water won’t evaporate into near-saturated air so won’t absorb heat in changing phase.

So, getting out of those weeds, we live in an old house 150 years maybe. Old houses had lots of cooling strategies we can implement in an emergency. Our house s 12′ ceilings and windows that go up almost to 10′. Open down the top sash and open up the bottom at night and automatically a convection current sweeps out the hot air at the top, pulling in cool air at the bottom—even with no breeze. That is if the air cools off at night. The US SE may not be uninhabitable in a warmed future because humidity holds heat, preventing night time cooling. 

Houses once employed breezeways to, you know, catch the prevailing breeze. Also they did pay attention ot orientation. Here in SW MO the prevailing wind is from the NW in winter but the summer breeze usually comes from West or SW. So the old houses keep their backs to the NW and their sitting porch to the SW—to catch the summer breeze and shade the summer evening sun that is WNW about now. 

Of course you can’t reorient your house in an A/C apocalypse but you can think about those natural angles. Say leaving the drapes closed on the East in the morning and west/north in the afternoon. In the evening, open the windows and go outside as soon as outside is cooler, the SE side will have been in the shade longest at 9P so will be coolest, everything else equal.

Anyway long enough rant for now. I fixed the AC so gotta go enjoy it. What strategies do you have for dealing with AC Apocalypse? 

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Remove rust off your gear and tools with vinegar or ketchup

Gideon ParkerStaff - July 15, 2022

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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GearSkills

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

Alisa Felix - July 15, 2022

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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AdviceScenarios

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

Supersonic - July 14, 2022

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

pnwsarahContributor - July 13, 2022

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

Mental health preps

Matt Black - July 11, 2022

A lot of prepping is focused on our physical readiness to respond in time of crisis. Much of our time, energy, and money are spent amassing gear, equipment, and supplies; monitoring stock levels and expiration dates; reviewing and practicing potential courses of action; and getting ourselves in physical shape – all so that we have some sense of readiness for dire moments that we hope will never come.

Over the years, I’ve come to think of prepping like a giant puzzle. As all the right pieces click into place, we get one step closer to realizing the bigger picture of our own readiness.

I put to you, my fellow preppers, that this puzzle isn’t complete without some form mental preparedness and having coping preps at the ready. After all, you can have years of food and water, medical supplies, ammo, and all the comforts you could possibly want and need to physically survive a crisis, but none of that is worth it if you can’t mentally cope with the challenges that arise from the chaos you’re attempting to survive.

DISCLOSURE
Before I go any further: I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, or trained counselor -not by any stretch of the imagination. I do, however, have experience in receiving mental health services and it is the entirety of that experience that I’m calling upon to share these thoughts with you.

As you read, please keep in mind that this is my subjective experience. At no point in time should you consider this mental health advice to be acted upon without the guidance of a trained and certified professional.

If at any point in time you find yourself in crisis, I urge you to reach out to crisis services in your state, city, or region to seek immediate help.

BACKGROUND
As someone with a diagnosed history of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, prepping can sometimes be a challenge for me. If I’m not careful, my prepping can easily break free from its reins and run wild. If I’m not vigilant and mindful, that is, if I’m not present and thinking about my thinking, I suddenly find that my thoughts have raced very far afield. The result, for me, manifests in feelings ranging from overwhelming anxiety and hopelessness to extreme hyper-vigilance, and catastrophism.

The experience is somewhat similar to what you might have felt as your started your own journey into prepping, perhaps before you found The Prepared (or similar communities) -and yet, for me, it’s a very different kind of anxiety. If I’m not mindful, I can find myself feeling anxious to the point of overwhelming paralysis and that is completely counterproductive to my own efforts.

MENTAL HEALTH & STIGMA
Let’s be really honest with ourselves and each other for a few moments. There exists, even now in the 21st century [at the apex of the information age!] a continued stigma centered around mental health and those that suffer from a myriad issues. Sure, we’ve come a long way as a society, but not far enough -not if (for example) upon reading my “background” paragraph, you might have found yourself cringing slightly or knee-jerking in response. If that’s the case, then my point has been made and that’s part of the topic I want to address here, the stigma. -And, look, that kind of response is okay. I’m cool with it. It’s understandable and forgivable because I understand myself and, perhaps more importantly, I understand the human instinct to fear the unknown or unknowable.

That said, it should come as no surprise that myself and those who suffer and live with mental health issues are often perceived as being strange, scary, weak, damaged, flawed or in desperate need of repair. At the individual level, issues that go unaddressed (because of the stigmas we impose on each other and the topic mental health) can’t or won’t seek help, much less admit they need help. Worse still, they – I – don’t want to be perceived by others as weak, not manly enough, “crazy”, or whatever. -Even then, even if you might perceive your own mental health as a weakness, wouldn’t you want to strengthen that weakness rather than shaming it or ignoring it? Wouldn’t addressing that lead you to being more prepared to face other important challenges?

FACING REALITY & POSSIBILITIES
It is an undeniable fact of life that there will be injury, illness, and death. Everyone acknowledges this (to one degree or other). This is, after all, why we prep our first aid kits, familiarize ourselves with important things like field dressings, suturing, administering CPR, etc. Some of us have even had (or will seek) formal training of some kind in order to prepare for these and other situations.

DIG DEEP, A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
[!TRIGGER WARNING!]

What follows are the kinds of questions I often ask myself -and that I’m asking of you, right now -and they go something like this:

What are you mentally and emotionally prepared to deal with? Are you truly prepared to face blood and gore, the onset of illness and disease, fatigue, famine, or utter exhaustion? Are you mentally ready to face the possibly of an unknown or uncertain future?

Sure, it’s easy to say that you are, but dig a little deeper! How will you potentially deal with, for example, losing some portion (or all!) of your hunker down preps because you had to bug out or suddenly found your stash area(s) unreachable or off limits? How prepared are you, truly, to face death, to potentially bury a friend or loved one, if need be? How will you cope with that loss? How are you coping with the loss of life right now, during the pandemic? What about widespread destruction, you ready for that? How might you cope with hours, days, weeks, or even months of ceaseless silence, of being alone, lonely, or left with your own thoughts? On the other end of that spectrum, how prepared are you to cope the ceaselessness chaos and destruction due to civil unrest or ongoing, active armed conflict?

I’m not really trying to drill my point home or to put too find a point on this. The last thing I want is to make anyone’s day crappy by throwing out these gruesome ideas and leave your ruminating. It’s just that… it’s one thing to have some vague, blurry idea of the possible things one might face, especially if you don’t have any frame of reference or practical experience. It’s one thing to have a relatively secure faith in humanity and in the fact that the vast majority of people will work together toward a common good. And, yet, it’s another thing entirely to face down the possibility of things going horribly, horribly wrong.

There are, undoubtedly, those among us here that have never experienced these sorts of things (and my personal hope is, they never will!). Fortunate are those who’ve never experienced combat or a natural disaster firsthand. There are, without a doubt, some preppers who might not have any frame of reference for what these truly traumatic experiences are like -the sights, sounds, smells and the impact those things can have on your psyche and it is to that that I’m calling for- and advising- a few preps.

Experienced or not, these kinds of thoughts and questions are really overwhelming, I know. Nevertheless, I offer to you that these are the kinds of questions each of us should take time to stop and truly, deeply consider. I propose that we must also mentally and emotionally prepare (or, for some, prepare to re-experience) the kinds of situations we physically already prep to face.

And as we consider these things and explore some of the ways we can prep our mental health and stability for times of uncertainty and crisis, we might suddenly find that we have added yet another tool to our preps.

WE NEED MENTAL HEALTH PREPS
Nothing is going to be a suitable substitute for a trained, certified professional, counseling, or medications. Nothing. Professionals -whether psychologists, psychiatrists, or social workers of every degree and stripe- invest years of their lives learning, studying, researching, and practicing [to the extent of our most current understanding of-] how the human brain works, how our thinking informs our decisions, and how what we experience can impact us in ways that might not be obvious to ourselves or others.

In the absence of a professional -perhaps in any number of the scenarios we might imagine, or in a world gone horribly wrong- what can we do for ourselves and each other to keep cool, collected, and organized in our thinking. How can we attain and maintain our emotional stability and health? What can we do to prepare or triage these issues until mental help arrives?

MINDFULNESS
Chances are, you’ve probably heard the term or seen it floating around somewhere by now. If you’ve spent a little too much time in your bunker or if you aren’t already familiar, mindfulness is a practice, an exercise to train your brain to turn your attention inward. At the heart of mindfulness is noticing and noticing that you’re noticing. Think of it as a kind of self-diagnostic mode.

Mindfulness practices (also called meditations) vary. Some variants include awareness of breathing (to find a place a clam), body scanning (noticing places of tension), or focusing your awareness on the senses. Some guided mindfulness routines dive deep into topics like emotional discomfort and building compassion (toward both yourself and others). At its heart, mindfulness is all about you and providing you a means of directing your attention to things, events, or experiences you may not have realized are impacting you and your well being.

TRADITIONAL MEDITATION
Although the aforementioned mindfulness practices are a form of meditation, I’ve separated what I call traditional meditation from mindfulness because this form of practice is all about, well, nothing.

Contrasted with mindfulness, one of the major ways traditional meditation practice differs is that it focuses on not having thoughts at all. As one begins this practice, one must first learn that that the mind is like a wild horse. It wants to run free! As you become more experienced and more disciplined in your practice, you learn to brush aside and let go of these spontaneous and wandering thoughts. Thoughts are a forgivable intrusion into this mind space and the goal is to seek calm, quiet, unperturbed peacefulness, a place of respite.

MOBILE APPS FOR MINDFULNESS & MEDITATION
Depending on your individual needs and your individual use- and threat models, there are no shortage of apps available to help you on the path to mindfulness and meditation. Some I’ve personally used and have found useful (on the Android platform) are as follows:

Calm
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.calm.android

Mindfulness Coach
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.va.mobilehealth.ncptsd.mindfulnesscoach

MOBILE APPS FOR SOOTHING CALMING SOUNDS & WHITE NOISE

Naturespace
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.naturespace.naturespace

Binaural Beats
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.productions.dz.brainwaver

White Noise Pro
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tmsoft.whitenoise.pro

Noice
[Note! This app is available via F-Droid. For those not familiar, F-Droid is an alternative Android repository for Free, Libre, Open-Source Software] https://f-droid.org/app/com.github.ashutoshgngwr.noice

FEEDBACK?

I welcome any feedback you might have and would welcome any constructive thoughts or personal anecdotes that might help each of us add more tools to our mental health preps.

Thank you for reading!

Be well. Be safe. Stay healthy.

Edits for spelling and grammar. Lots of edits. OMG, so many edits.

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Advice

Solar power options for a home

brekke - July 9, 2022

I’ve started looking into a solar system for home and I’m getting a bit confused/overwhelmed with trying to understand how it all works and if it is even worth it. Hoping someone in the forum can help shed some light on the topic for me. 

I’m in Oregon. We have a lot of cloudy days, but also a lot of sunny days. We have occasional short-term power outages, but the longest for us has been 12-hours. From a preparedness aspect, our most likely need for solar would be to mitigate energy costs as prices rise or for potential long-term need in the event of a Cascadia EQ event. We have a generator and fuel for short term 1-2 week needs. 

My confusion comes from how they work with the power company and batteries. One person that responded to a quote request said he doesn’t do battery set-ups because outages are so rare here. So, without a battery set-up, does that just mean the sole purpose of my panels would be to sell the power to the power company, thereby reducing our monthly costs (after the panel system is paid for)? Or would it provide power to my home during sunlight hours, even if the power company’s line goes down? 

It seems the overall expense, even with rebates and tax credits, would not be worth it without the battery backup option from a preparedness standpoint and that we would be better off investing in a generator switch to power essentials in the event of an emergency. 

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

Rick Ryder - July 8, 2022

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

Community Discord/Slack

Arlinn - July 8, 2022

Does a Discord or Slack server exist for the community? I like forums since they’re asynchronous communication, but real time discussion has its perks too.

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Meta

An introduction to lightweight backpacking

Chance - July 7, 2022

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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21

Minor prepping victory: Perennial Fruit!

brownfox-ffContributor - July 6, 2022

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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DIY Project: Rain barrel water collector

brownfox-ffContributor - July 3, 2022

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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New affordable online pharmacy saves people thousands on life saving medicine

rebecca - July 2, 2022

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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News

Best modular bag for car?

Don - July 2, 2022

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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Gear

4th of July safety tips

Henry Tubbs - July 1, 2022

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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Does anyone have experience sprouting seeds to eat?

Peter 44 - June 28, 2022

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

Barb LeeContributor - June 27, 2022

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

Sharon - June 25, 2022

I

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Wine for the apocalypse

July LewisContributor - June 24, 2022

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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Advice

Controlling cooking food odors whether SIP or Bug Out conditions

UbiqueContributor - June 23, 2022

Controlling food odors would be an important consideration for anyone living in the city close to others or even in a rural area if hungry people are searching for food. I’m not sure, but it seems possible that very hungry people would have a heightened sense of smell. 

I ran a test on how much and how far food odors wafted from my home some years ago as part of scenario prepping.

There was no exhaust fan used to blow the odor outside. The item I cooked on top of the stove was dried red kidney beans. There was nothing added to the beans and water. It was to cook them only before making chili later.

While the beans simmered, I took a walk outdoors and was shocked by the smell outside my house. I never thought that plain, unseasoned beans would give off that much smell. More shocking was how far the smell travelled on a day with low wind conditions.

I wondered what the result would have been had I used an exhaust fan and blew more of the smell outside.

This led me to think that smell has to be considered in prepping. I am still trying to figure out how to control odors while cooking. Food can be eaten cold out of the can, but in an emergency of long duration, it will be necessary to cook food. Even bugged out, food odors from an outdoor meal could be a problem.

One last part, I have also considered food odors on my hands from preparing food. In times of scarcity, looking well fed and smelling of garlic might tip off people that you have preps. Lemon juice can neutralize the garlic and baggy clothes can hide a lack of weight loss, but I am still trying to find a solution to reducing or eliminating food odors.

Has anyone considered this and if so, any thoughts on how to deal with this issue?

Thanks in advance

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AdviceScenarios

How to survive this nasty heat wave of 110+ degrees

Peter 44 - June 23, 2022

Although I don’t live in the Pacific North West PNW, I am hearing a lot of chatter from people about the extreme heat that they are suffering through. I wanted to offer my help through this forum by sharing some  thoughts and ideas on how to stay cool and get through this. Feel free to pitch in your tips and tricks as well if you have some.

If we have any PNW members of this forum, I’d love to hear how things are going for ya.

-Move to a smaller room at the center of your house. It is easier to cool a small room versus the entire house.

-Add tin foil or cardboard on windows to act as extra insulation and repel the heat of the sun. Look at installing solar screens on your windows for a cleaner look.

-Get a battery operated fan that will run off of the same batteries that your power tools will. If power goes out, this can keep you cool. Mist yourself with some water and then sit in front of the fan for extreme cooling.

-Keep curtains closed

-Drink tons of water. Keep up electrolytes.

-Hang out in the basement if you have one

-Use patio umbrellas or storm shutters to shade your windows

-Rinse off your arms, hands, and face with cool water whenever you go to the bathroom. Take a full cool shower if at home for a quick cool down.

-Stock up on fans, AC units, etc during the fall because during the summer they will be all sold out and at full price

-Freeze different juices into improvised popsicles. Eating frozen grapes and berries

-Keep an eye on the weather forecast and if you see hot weather coming, make extra ice cubes a head of time.

-You may have to adjust the temperature to a colder setting on your fridge/freezer. Some people are having to add frozen bottles of water to their fridge to cool things down because their fridge can’t keep things cool enough.

-If you need to cook foods, use the oven or stove in the early morning or late afternoon as to not add too much more heat to your house

-Place your clothes in the freezer for the next day, then when you put them on they will keep you cool for a couple minutes.

-Cool your feet in a bath or kiddie pool

-Don’t go outside during the hottest times of the day

-Feed pets refrigerated wet food. Make them popsicles by freezing tuna water or beef broth in ice cube molds.

-If you can’t hold your hand on the asphalt for 10 seconds, then it’s too hot for your dog to walk on.

-For chickens, give them ice chips to peck at or frozen peas

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Becoming hysterical during an emergency

Molly N. 😆 - June 23, 2022

I have a confession to make… I love watching police body cam footage and other videos online of disasters, emergencies, and horrible events. They are so fascinating and intriguing. I tell myself that it’s for educational purposes to teach myself about what can happen.

A common thing that I’ve noticed in many of the videos is the random lady in the background going absolutely hysterical. It could be a video of a gunman going through a mall or police arresting her boyfriend and most of the time there is some lady just screaming. 😱 Nothing is happening to her, the gun shots may be at the other end of the building, but she is still freaking out. Guys aren’t excluded from this, but they usually manifest it in shouting profanity.

This made me think about when I might be in a bad situation, will I react the same way? What causes someone to freak out like this? Is it from not feeling prepared, lack of mental coping, or is that just what some people do?

I laugh a little at how they react but then tell myself that I might do the same thing if put in that situation. I can’t judge them from the comfort of my safe couch at home when they are seeing horrible things happen right before their eyes.

If there is a way to train myself to not get into this mental and emotional state and understand what causes it though, I think I will be better for it. First off, screaming exposes your location and draws the gunman to yourself. Second, someone that is freaking out that bad isn’t thinking clearly and that leads to mistakes and even more danger.

What are your thoughts on all of this?

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