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Bug in or out your response times matter.

Bug In or out , your response times matter.

Think about it, we nearly all have well sorted INCH, BOB or GHBs and plans on what to do it the balloon goes up, but have you considered your RESPONSE times in relation to Getting Out Of Town / Getting home/ Evacuating in the context of what everyone else is doing at the same time.

Lets consider a few examples of thev worst kind first before looking at more likely issues.

1 Cascadia / San Andreas. If you live close to the coast you could have as little as five minutes to react to a tsunami hitting places like Coastal Oregon / Washington and an average of roughly 12 to 25 minutes in So Cal. But remember the footage from Anchorage in the 60s when the same fault let rip, the first thing that went out was the bridges and roads as huge landslides blocked roads, bridges collapsed and in places roads split and rose or fell by 30 meters so you need to explore all options including such things as heading to the upper floors of tower blocks and Multi story Car Parks insead of joining the masses running away from the sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake

2 Depending where you live if the Volcano on Gran Canaria erupted and that huge chunk of mountainside fell into the ocean you could have up to 3 hours to get out to safety in Northern Europe and FIVE hours on the East Coast of the US, but consider the blind panic as New York, Boston etc Galveston, New Orleans, Miami and the Keys etc all tried to get inland in five hours ?. 

During H Andrew when the target area had DAYS of warning many left it late to move to safer ground inland, Gridlock ensued and one well documented Prepper families efforts were for nothing. They left 12 hours before the storm was due to hit in a fully prepped BOV with full tanks and extra jerry cans, But because of the huge volume of traffic they found themselves crawling along at 5 MPH for 14 hours and ran out of fuel in the middle of nowheresville Georgia. Imagine all of the lowlanders of SE England trying to head west and north in a blind panic with the news that the tsunami is only 3 hours away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Andrew

3 Slipping down the scale of dramitic effect a bit if we had another perfect storm of the type that caused so much damage to the UK east coast in 1953 where nearly 3000 Brits and Dutch drowned often in their homes. Today sea levels are higher, population density is FAR higher today and only certain key coastal and riverine defences like the Thames barrier are fully maintained. Another storm like the 1953 storm if it broke through the defences could kill upwards of 50,000 people and deluge much of London and the area arounds the Thames Delta. Can you imagine 9.3 million Londoners trying to leave the area in a hurry and most would not try to get out until the barriers started to fail. Only ONE van leaking diesel in the Blackhall tunnel recently during rush hour caused traffic jams over 10 miles long and delays of up to 5 hours across a huge area, so a couple of minor crashes, people running out of fuel etc and hundreds of thousands will be stranded with no room for manouvre. Oh and in 1953 we still have a huge CIVIL DEFENCE program of eqiupment and staff to help rescue efforts ALL now long disbanded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953

I wrote this BEFORE the Covid Outbreak of 2020.

4 So imagine a Spanish flu outbreal like the one in 1918 hitting London, crippling essential services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic or an EMP or Carrington event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 hitting the country and suddenly the power is gone, not only have your cities lost their electricity but their street lights, traffic lights, cell phones, land lines, refrigeration, tube trains, trams, water , gas and sewage supplies, check out tills and credit card readers, cash points, lifts, flood barriers power to houses and shops. Imagine the Carrington event happening in a bad winter?

5 The HUGE firestorms that raced across both California and Australia in the last few years, that in some cases the fires were reported to travel faster than a speeding vehicle..

6 Mass urban civil unrest and rioting looting and arson in the US in 2020, often the law enforcement agencies stood aside and did nothing. Think about people living OVER or NEXT to shops and businesses being looted. OR Imagine living along a route between shopping centers and business districts.

It could even be the arrival of MILLIONS of desperate migrants overwhelming the authorities and pouring into the country in huge numbers collapsing our entire social welfare infrastructure and looting, stealing and rioting. The EU has found itself totally unable to stop 2 million migrants from surging across Europe, And in the US Trumps wall looks likely to be abandon because of a change in the administration. 

Imagine any given scenario where you need to get home QUICK or bug out QUICK I am sure most if not all of us have our plans in place regardless of how minor, melodramatic or massive they are, but have you considered all the potential obsticles in your way from blocked roads, refugees, road blocks, strikers, terrorist activity, riots by migrants creating no go areas, collapsed bridges, traffic jams, YOUR vehicle breaking down AND the realisation that your alloted times for getting out of town turn out to be far shorter than you planned for. Consider Alternative routes, Consider alternative responses, Consider the suitability of your current kit to deal with varying situatons and far shorter reaction times. Consider ensuring you have TV and Radios with the ability to switch to breaking news broadcasts if something happens.

Oh and never forget its the preppers who are best informed who can react quickly to take advantage of the various APPS and Tickers you can get for your PCs and Cell phones that instantly send breaking news to you as it happens.

PreWARNED is as good as being prePARED.

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House buying for preppers (suggested positive attributes to look for)

House buying for preppers suggested positive attributes to look for (UK)

In older article I refer in various chapters and sections to modifying your home or adding prepper specific requirements to your selection criteria, in this short article I thought I would just make a check list of desirable options if you are looking to move.

1. Rural or Suburban location away from major conurbations, city centers and industrial developments, and not on the way to shops, malls, town centers, city limits. IE OUT OF THE WAY

2. A south to south west facing position in order to get maximum natural light for food production and to drive a solar panel array.

3. Legally permitted to have double glazing, cavity wall insulation, PV panels fitted, conservatories built etc without have to get special planning permits passed because the building is listed or close to an SSSI or National Park

4. Large enough gardens to provide a reasonable percentage of your own food

5. Reasonable access to as many natural resources as possible EG woodland for firewood, healthy local water ways for fishing and obtaining water if necessary, access to open cast coal deposits, access to the coast etc one is good, any two is great, three and you are rocking.

6. A kitchen suitable for retro fitting with wood/coal/charcoal powered cookers and water heaters, preferably with a nice cool larder room or cellar.

7. Concealed or obscured veg gardens, garage and outhouses where stockpiles of timber, coal, fuel and B O Vehicles can be stored / loaded / unloaded without being viewed from the road outside.

8. Suitable out houses, lean-to’s and sheds away from the main house in good order for storing diesel, gas bottles, coal, timber etc safely.

9. Well above all known flood risks and far away from known land slip areas.

10. Not along any route, highway or track that may end up being an escape route from the city for refugees

11. A documented record of having a decent air flow most of the year that could drive a wind turbine for making electricity or lifting water from well / stream

12. Perhaps a passing stream that can be made to drop 2 meters at one spot to power an Archimedes screw hydro-electric unit.

13. Reasonable access to pasture and allotments for keeping food small breed food animals and extra growing space for crops

14. Multiple routes along various compass bearing that you can bug out along if necessary.

15. Local village has facilities of the type required by your family, IE small friendly school, local mechanics garage, blacksmiths forge, petrol station, hardware shop, extra garages for rental, sub post office, working train station etc

16. Neighbours who clearly are “into” growing their own crops and animals

17. Low reported crime figures

18. No annual or regular events that could expose you to risk such as living next door to a farm that holds 5 day Rock Concerts, No “travellers” regular stop off points etc.

19. Good radio signal reception not in a radio blind spot

20. Not near electricity pylons, gas pipe distribution pipes etc.

21. Being NOT to far away from a wind farm or PV farm COULD be beneficial in the long term as could being not to far from a workable open cast coal mine.

Add your own requirements to list list and good luck with your home buying plans.

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Interview with Bill Gates on what we should prepare for next

Great video picking the brain of one of the smartest men in the world. Bill Gates is such an interesting man and really puts so much of his time and money into good causes. He doesn’t just donate money to causes, but reads 50 books a year, and looks for new solutions to issues we face today and ones that are coming down the road.

What are your thoughts on what Bill Gates says? What do you think the next thing we should prepare for individually and as a society/human race should be?

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Fire! Heh! Heh. Fire’s cool.

Other than baiting you here to relive the glory that was Beavis and Butthead, I also wanted to share another tip:

Balls o’ Fire

Supplies:

gloves petroleum jelly cotton balls (or dryer lint) container

Method 1

Mash vaseline into cottonball (or gathered dryer lint). Store in container (zip loc, old prescription bottle, etc). Bits of paper in the dryer lint help inflammability.

Method 2

Ever melted chocolate in a double-boiler? No? Place one pan on the stove, add water. Place a smaller pan in the water. Put on low heat. Add $ingredient (stir occassionally) until melted. In this case, petroleum jelly. Once the jelly has melted, allow to cool enough that you can drop a cottonball into it and remove it. Set the cottonball aside to cool completely.

Using Method 1, the cottonballs burned for approx. 6 minutes.

Using Method 2, the cottonballs burned for approx. 10 minutes.

In either case, these can come in pretty handy in a BOB or for camping.

You could also consider incorporating excelsior, also known as wood wool (a product made of wood slivers used in packaging, for cooling pads in home evaporative cooling systems), into your fire preps (or cottonball recipes).

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lintballs_o_fire

Scenario: Crime and break-ins are increasing in your neighborhood. What do you do to really lock down your assets and preps?

Through multiple sources of friends, social media, and new reports you realize that household break-ins have just exploded in your area. They are happening at all times of the day, happen when people are there or not, and there isn’t any pattern to things that are taken. Even your neighbors with the top of the line home security system, cameras, and beefed up door lock has had their homes broken into. This band of thieves just really doesn’t care, and it looks like there is no stopping them. And the worst thing about this all is that since there has been so many break-ins in your area, all insurance companies have stopped covering burglary claims to your area! So you really are on your own to keep your stuff safe.

You talk it over with your family and they are extremely concerned about it as well and want you to go full out and go Fort Knox on your house. (for those unfamiliar, this is known as one of the most secure US Army forts)

Really place yourself in this situation. What are the steps you would take to deter people from even entering your property, prevent them from getting into your house, and how to hide items from people if they do manage to get in? 

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N95 availability, as discussed in the NYT.

Fascinating story out of the NYT today: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/health/covid-masks-china-united-states.html

Headline: “Can’t Find an N95 Mask? This Company Has 30 Million That It Can’t Sell.”

Some takeaways below.

The big one: you can buy N95s! These manufacturers are legit, NIOSH-approved, the masks are American-made. You can buy them at the various providers linked directly in the article; not linking them directly myself because I’m not sure if it falls within the rules.

There are a number of American manufacturers who invested a lot of money into both the infrastructure and the NIOSH approval necessary to manufacture N95s, but who haven’t been able to penetrate the distribution systems for hospitals. They’re sitting on millions of N95s, but they’re struggling to stay open and to even keep their workers employed. Our systems simply aren’t built to get those masks from manufacturers to individuals. Yet another indication that the country’s infrastructure hasn’t been able to flex to meet the needs of the pandemic. I’m sure everyone is tired of hearing it, but it’s just so terrible that we’ve been unable to widely distribute N95s to control spread. Will we learn any lessons from this into the future? We’re a year in and businesses aren’t seeing returns on investments into making necessary equipment. If we get hit by another similar pandemic 10 years into the future, businesses will need much stronger assurances to even bother investing into the relevant equipment or a ramping up of production. A year ago, if you asked me if my small stockpile of N95s was enough to carry me through, I would’ve said “sure, if I’m forced to re-use.” In fact, I remember having this conversation, and I literally said “well, production will ramp back up over time, so I just need to hold out till then!” Remarkable how even my most cynical assumptions from back then have proven insufficient. Read More
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Alternate navigation to phone

Hey All,

My partner and I have been working on our preps (seriously, anyway) for a little over a year now. She recently took on a new job where she travels up to 2 hours from home a day. She is a hospice social worker and her routes and clients change. Furthermore, all routes are incredibly rural. Some towns have as little as 50-100 people and even then, many of her clients live on farm roads or rural routes.

We have made sure she has downloaded maps from our Garmin Explorer + and that she has a power bank to charge her phone; however, I have always been a fan of paper maps. The problem that I am running into is that without carrying a bunch of maps it is hard to get one as detailed as we need for alternative roads, etc. 

The biggest hazards I believe she would face would be weather related or vehicle related. Ice storms and snow in the winter, severe thunderstorms with flash floods and tornadoes in the spring/summer/fall. And obviously any mechanical issue that can happen to a vehicle. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for paper maps or something similar that would be effective? And does anyone else have a job where their route changes constantly and brings them into areas where they aren’t familiar (or have spouses whose jobs require those things)? Any insights would be appreciated and questions are always welcome.

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In favor of bright colors

In many discussion on this and similar forums, advice is to avoid bright colors.  “Blend in.  Don’t stand out.  Be thee grey man (or gal).”  This can make sense in situations of civil unrest – riots, etc. but this is only a fraction of the total range of survival situations.  In many of these other situations, prominent visibility is critical.  A good way to achieve this is through brightly colored gear and clothing.

I have lost track of the many hours I have spent searching for victims  wearing faded denim and tan T shirts.  If they would have had a red bandanna, it would have been a big help.

With backpacks, the important qualities are proper fitting, capacity, and weight distribution.  Color should be a minor consideration.  Unless you are literally in a combat situation, bright colors are often useful.   Back in the 1950’s, you could only obtain mil surp packs or civvie packs made with dull colors.  Doing field work at the time, we resorted to fastening bright ribbons to our packs so we could find them easily enough in thick brush.  Bright blue packs were a godsend.

Conditions may change radically, even during the same incident, so the best course is to have a variety of colors available, as well as the usual signaling devices – mirror and flashlight – even a bright red bandanna can be useful, although bigger is better.

One of the most useful clothing items I ever had was a reversible down jacket -dark green on one side and international orange of the other.  I wish I had more stuff like that.  My current go to pack is a bright red, though I have others less brightly colored.  If the mob is after you, they will want the goodies they think are in your pack, regardless of its color or “tactical” webbing.

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Family emergency plans?

I just finished reading a new preparedness book* that, like all preparedness how-to books, talks about family emergency plans— you know, the whole, “Have a meeting place outside the neighborhood” advice. And you know what? I’ve never done that prep. Moreover, I don’t get it. Maybe it’s because my household is small (fewer people to scatter), or because my house is very small (it’s not like we’d flee a structure fire from separate wings and then lose one another on the expansive grounds, ffs), or because Covid has broken my brain (“We are always together. There is nothing other than together.”), but I just can’t envision a meet-up plan that is simple enough to actually remember but also versatile enough to serve 80% of scenarios in which we would need it. In the most likely 80% of scenarios, we are bugging in, so the house is our meeting place. In any case where we have to bug out, well, which direction we go and how far we can go depends entirely on the nature of the threat. 

Can anyone articulate for me how they’ve approached or operationalized this (presumably good) guidance? What does your family emergency plan look like? Which scenarios do you use it for? Do I not get it because of where I live and the kinds of things it makes sense to prep for here? For example, if you live in the WUI in the Western U.S., it seems clear to me that you should figure out multiple driving and walking routes out of your neighborhood in the event of a wildfire; there are probably limited options, memorizing all of them is both possible and sensible, and it makes sense to come up with a place out of harm’s way to which all routes lead. But I live in the middle of a city, the odds of a wildfire sweeping through are vanishingly small, and there are literally a gazillion ways out of the neighborhood. If you live in hurricane country I can see trying to figure out a way out of your neighborhood that doesn’t direct your through low-lying, flood-prone areas, but our big disaster threat here is an earthquake, and I don’t really see an analog there.

Anyway, any thoughts or anecdotes to help me make this practice make sense for my household would be much appreciated.

* The book was David Pogue’s How to Prepare for Climate Change, and I really only skimmed it, since I’ve read a lot about both preparedness and climate change. Most of the information wasn’t new to me, but it was really interesting to have see those two subjects woven together. The book seems like a particularly valuable resource for anyone in flood-, hurricane-, or wildfire-prone areas, since it goes into how to understand your insurance policy and get assistance from your insurer and the federal government post-disaster— a very unsexy, bureaucratic side of prepping that probably characterizes the reality of post-disaster life better than what we see in apocalypse and survival movies!

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Community rules, moderation policies, and FAQ

This forum is a place for anyone to talk about prepping — not for preppers to talk about anything.

This forum is heavily moderated. We wish that wasn’t necessary and we’ve fought to protect free speech. But the internet can be an unkind place, especially when dealing with topics that touch survival, politics, firearms, and so on.

To create the best space for the most people, we actively enforce these policies and ask for your help in creating a place you’re proud to be a part of — because everyone benefits from stronger, more prepared communities.

Community rules:

Be civil and kind. Follow the Golden Rule or think about “would this get me fired from my job?” Content must be directly related to preparedness. Everyone is welcome here regardless of color, orientation, nationality, and so on. That means no bigotry or other slang used to divide people. Avoid topics like politics and religion that just tend to cause worthless bickering and flame wars. No unfounded conspiracy theories or fake news. Debate is encouraged, but do it constructively, cite your facts, and debate ideas, not people. No sales or links to sales of legally-controlled items (eg. firearms). Do not advocate violence. Discussing self defense is fine. Do not out other people, post other’s private information, doxx, etc. No copyright violations, blog spam, no-value self promotion, etc.

Please don’t make these kinds of repetitive posts:

“I’m new here, what do I do?” “Thanks for the add!” “Are there any preppers in [state]?” “What are you prepping for?” Personal introductions without value to the community / teaching

No politics

Most people understand the goal: There’s plenty of other places to argue about stuff like politics, and it just distracts from why we’re all here, so let’s avoid it.

But the details get tricky. Many of the risks in our world are in some way related to politics, so it’s hard to talk about preparedness without in some way referencing government and laws.

For example, some local laws don’t allow people to collect rain water on their property. That’s directly related to prepping and worth talking about in the right way.

Let’s look at some examples:

“The US federal government didn’t handle COVID as well as other developed countries.”

That’s fine because it’s factually correct and isn’t worded in a way to attack someone or their supporters. And it ties to preparedness because knowing what our government can or can’t do in an emergency is relevant.

“tRrump made COVID worse.”

That’s not okay. It’s a worthy debate to have in the public arena — in the way holding all of our leaders is appropriate — but it’s too subjective, likely to cause bickering, and will just distract from the prepping conversation. And leave the silly names like “Nobama” and “tRump” at the door.

“I think California made a lot of bad decisions over the last decades when it comes to mitigating wildfires.”

That’s fine. Even though it’s an opinion, it would ideally have some supporting evidence for the claim, and it’s worded in a way that can allow a civil debate.

“Those Commiefornian libtards need to go rake some more forests if they want to have fewer wildfires.” 

Not okay, and would likely result in a ban.

Avoiding fake news, conspiracies, and other disinformation

There’s plenty of actual problems in the world — we don’t need to make it worse by adding unfounded or fake problems on top. And we certainly don’t want to aid our enemies who try to pour fuel on these fires to create even more problems within our society.

We’re just as distrustful of institutions like the media and government as you are. But that doesn’t mean the tin-foil-hat person yelling in a Youtube video is correct.

Sandy Hook was real. 9/11 was not an inside job. Fluoride in water is not used for mind control. FEMA is not tapping your computer to find out what supplies you have. And the Illuminati have your best interests in mind — they promise! 😉

The more outlandish a claim, the more we’ll judge if there is any dependable evidence for it. For example:

“The Chinese engineered COVID-19 in a lab with strains of HIV so they could attack the West.”

Maybe that’s true. We don’t know and neither do you. But we do know there is a lot of evidence against that being true, and vice versa, no real evidence supporting it is true. So until there is credible evidence — at which point we would stand alongside you and say “we should talk about this” — that’s not okay to say here.

Remember folks: “Science” is not an opinion or point of view that somehow conflicts with your world-view. Science is just the search for verifiable truth.

We won’t always get it right — but we will always try

Feel free to ask questions or give feedback below about these policies and how we can make them better over time.

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A bug out bag that is constantly in use…looking for organization tips

Hello, I am new here.  Hopefully I can organize my thoughts well.  I live in California and have a bag that reflects that, but I also carry it when we travel.  We are divers and travel to, shall we say, many destinations that are not exactly developed, usually in Asia and the South Pacific.  So I have a bag that is very overbuilt with regard to specialized first aid (I carry liquid prednisone and tons of things for respiratory illness because my son is a severe asthmatic and tons of things for emergencies when diving), as well as water filtration (we’ve visited a few islands where the water isn’t safe to drink). We take about three fairly long overseas trips per year.  

I also carry a fairly robust hygiene kit and my own 2p big Agnes tent and a bivy for when that tool shed of an airport in Fiji cancels our flight and we are stuck overnight (We have slept in a tent in a terminal in the Bangkok airport) I’m also taking the bag on 5-15 flights per trip where I have to remove all of the tools and some liquids and place them in my checked bag.

 I’m thinking about just taking all of the disparate items I can’t take in a carry on, like my knife, multi tool, handsaw and liquids and placing them in their own ziploc I can just place in my checked luggage (which means they’d be in their own ziplock in the emergency bag I guess?).  I also don’t necessarily need all of the first aid items I’d carry on a dive trip in my bag at home when we go in our RV.  

does anyone have a good system for rotating items in and out as needed?  I’m afraid an emergency will occur at home and I’ll be stuck without my knife or my gravity bag. 

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How to survive bad air and heat from summer wildfires

I’ve started a couple of threads on related topics in the last year, but I thought I’d bring it all together in a larger discussion. I live in Northern California where our primary disaster scenario has been with wildfires, which are getting quite extreme now. For the past several years every summer and/or fall large areas of the state have had to deal with terrible air when we are told to keep our windows and doors closed and avoid going outside if possible. Usually, during this time it’s also hot and sometime, in some neighborhoods, our power company turns off the electricity to prevent further fires from igniting because of downed power lines.

I’ve haven’t had my electricity turned off yet, but I still dread these days or weeks of lockdown with closed windows and heat. I don’t tolerate heat well and I always have to have a draft. Last summer I just couldn’t stand it and started opening doors and windows anyway, even though the air was in the red zone. Now I’m trying to prepare for next summer. Wondering what folks in similar circumstances are doing to prep. Here’s what I’ve done.

– I’ve gotten three air purifiers for my house. I have to admit sometimes I run them when the window or door is open, which is counterproductive, but better than nothing, I guess.

-I have two OPOLAR little fans I bought on Amazon. I love these fans. They are handheld and very versatile. About $13 each. They’re good for travel and all sorts of other activities and they don’t draw a lot of power. I don’t know if they’ll really be enough to keep me cool though in a heatwave scenario with closed windows, especially.

-I bought a MERV 13 filter, which I plan to put in one of my windows and combine with a fan, to suck in filtered air even when the air is bad. It’s a little bit of a DIY project because I need to figure out how to cover the rest of the open window with cardboard and tape so unfiltered air doesn’t leak. The amount of air that enters that way is very low though. Probably enough to replace the oxygen but not enough to feel a breeze. I also don’t know if I should have another window where the air is being pumped out to keep it circulating.

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Stand ‘n Plant Seeder – an easy way to plant your garden

I love to garden, but due to a bad back & arthritic knees, I don’t get up & down so well anymore.  This is especially a factor when I plant my garden seed.  When I do so, I plant many extra seed, so as opposed to planting say the recommended 6-8″ apart, I plant seed every 2-3 ” apart.  That gives me a safety net if some don’t germinate.  It is easy to thin once they have grown a bit plus if I have a section where few plants don’t come up, I can transplant from one section to the bare section… using my Hori-Hori knife.  That is a lot of up & down, so a few years ago I purchased the Stand ‘n Plant seeder, which costs $55 and it is worth every penny.  It is simple but effective.  https://www.standnplant.com/index.php/seeder

Here is a pic of it standing in my corn bed.  Notice I run a string to keep the rows straight.

To operate, you plunge it into the ground, drop a seed into the top, squeeze the handle to open up the bottom & release the seed, lift up, cover the hole with your foot… and repeat.  I find it easier on the mechanism to pull the unit out of the ground a bit before squeezing the handle.  That way there is less tension on the strap, as it doesn’t have to push aside the soil.

Drop the seed into the top.

Here is the squeeze handle.  Not really a handle, as you are just squeezing the strap.

When you squeeze, it opens the hinged bottom.  Note, you can also put in small plants as opposed to just seed.

Here is a video from their website

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sweet-corn-planting

Minor emergencies build experience

We have been plagued this year with intentional power outages, which, while inconvenient,  are much better than the raging wildfires that result when the power is left on  We usually have advance notifications.  Still, going a day or so with no electricity is a good way to use and adjust your emergency gear.

We already had a decent stock of lanterns and a few power banks.  One thing I acquired as a result of the power outages was an adapter that allowed me to use cordless tool batteries as power banks.  Basically they provide a USB outlet.  We were able to keep our phones fully charged and functional

This provided light, but no ability to cook.  Here we put our camping gear to use providing the vital cups of coffee to start the day. And so on.  Basically we had to adapt an change – for real  good experience for  more serious event – like thee dreaded Big One which will shake our region one of these days.

I am going to explore ways to use our Prius to generate enough electricity to at least power our fridge.  Any feedback on that subject is welcome.

Learn all you can from life’s minor bumps.  The knowledge and experience will come in handy .

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Map of Doom – video of various prepper scenarios

https://youtu.be/Htf0XR6W9WQ

A 20 minute video on YouTube discussing the types of things Preppers try to be ready for with an emphasis on putting disasters on a scale of severity vs. likelihood… released about a week ago.

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People who have taken a course from the prepared, was it worth it?

I’ve been eyeing the courses that The Prepared has been putting out and am interested in taking them. But before I do, I want to make sure it is worth the money.

Has anyone taken the knife sharpening or water course?

Did you learn something new that you didn’t know before or was it things that most people know about?

Do you feel like you got your money’s worth?

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How to start a fire

My parents burned wood throughout my childhood and I’ve heated with wood most of my adult life. I use about one box of matches per year. So from age 20 to age 80 (that’s where I am today) is 60 years. And 60 years @ 1 box = 60 boxes. And 60 boxes @ 250 matches = 15,000 fires. Not sure how precise that estimate is but how many thousands of fires have you started?

Here’s what it’s come down to. If I need to start a new fire from scratch, I skip the kindling wood and newspaper and all that, stack up my wood, and insert a cloth soaked in kerosene into the stack. One match and I have a fire.

Here’s a link to the “Azerbaijani Lady” (with 3 million views) cooking outside. At 4:08 to 5:08 she is shown starting a campfire with one match sans kindling or newspaper. Gee, I wonder how she does that? The Azerbaijani Lady does all her cooking outside and has dozens if not hundreds of videos showing either herself or her husband lighting a fire in similar fashion. Sometimes you can glimpse the kero rag but mostly they hide it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOfhIny0pi4

My other fire-starting scenario is where, in this morning’s ashes, I have some glowing coals left over from yesterday. In general terms, I gather the coals together, put some kindling on top, and blow some air on the coals using bellows.

To gather the coals together I use a 6-inch stainless steel strainer. I scoop up some glowing red coals mixed with ashes, shake the strainer to get rid of the ashes, and dump the coals in a little pile of their own. Leather gloves give my hands better traction. The handle of the strainer is a bit slippery.

For bellows, I don’t use old-fashioned blacksmith bellows. I use a BBQ Fan that runs on one D-cell battery. Try it. You’ll like it. And that’s what you search for on eBay: “BBQ Fan.”

One of the more amusing things I’ve ever had happen to me is to be camping with friends at a provincial park in Canada and have a 15-year-old boy kneel down next to me at the fireside and ask (with a touch of awe in his voice), “How do you know so much about fires?”  It takes a lot to impress a 15-year-old.

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strainer + bbq fan

KN95 mask recommendations?

Hello all, if you are like me you are both overwhelmed and a bit suspicious of all the KN95 masks on the market.  And every time one seems to be proven legit, it sells out quickly and is never found again.  Is there any consensus on which KN95 masks are good?  And where are you finding your information?

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Cool form of passive indoor lighting during the day

I was browsing on Facebook when I came across this YouTube video of how people used old soda bottles and turned them into a bright light source for their homes.

You cut a hole in a galvanized steel roof and slide in a water bottle completely filled with water and bleach. (I imagine the bleach will prevent algae growth) They then seal up the area around the bottle to keep the roof water tight.

This method provides the equivalent of a 50W incandescent light bulb and doesn’t use any electricity. The team, Liter of Light, have installed 350,000 of these light bulb water bottles in 15 countries.

I thought this was incredibly cool. If I had a little shed with a steel roof I would like to try this and see how long the bottle and water lasts before needing to be replaced. I find passive forms of energy use so interesting.

Another form of passive energy use that I thought was genius is the soup can solar heater. You take a bunch of old soup cans and spray paint them black to attract as much heat from the sun as you can. Place these in a box and the sun will heat up all the air inside. The air is then pumped out using a small computer fan and reaches temperatures of 140 degrees. Another super smart idea to add to a shed or something like a greenhouse. I imagine it would keep a shed from dropping below freezing and you could run the computer fan off a $10 solar panel. 

I think it is smart to know about things like this and even build and try them so if something like an EMP hits and we lose power for years, we still have ways to recycle trash into light and heat. But like I said above, these could be great ways to provide light and heat to an off-grid shed or greenhouse even during good times.

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bottlelight-828x428

What is the most hassle free way to get your ham radio license remotely during covid?

I’m getting ready to take the test for my technician ham radio license. Since, obviously, every test is currently online, I’ve checked out three recommended sites for online testing. They all have really intense and intricate requirements as far as the physical setup of the test environment, etc. to make sure people don’t cheat while taking the test remotely. Each site has different requirements for calculators, for example and of course I have the wrong type of calculator. Some of the sites require two cameras, which isn’t easy to set up in my case.

I know I can jump through the necessary hoops if I need to, but I’m just wondering if folks have any recommendations for places to take the online test that aren’t so high maintenance.

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