Discussions
Reply to: Grid down – How to recognize it early? Posted January 17, 2023

Running around for more supplies after an emergency (of any type) has begun is not in my plans, but to answer the general question anyway: I think it’s fairly safe to assume that localized power outages will be temporary, and the larger the area effected, the longer (up to “forever”) it’s likely to last. If you (or any neighbor) can still get a cellphone signal, the internet is working, or NOAA weather channels are still transmitting, those are signs that TEOTWAWKI has not come.  When there’s a total communications outage on top of a power outage, it’s harder to tell. I don’t think there’s any single “key” to look for that would confirm that yes, this is “it” beyond a doubt.  Mostly it would be a matter of remaining calm, and waiting to see how things unfold over the coming weeks/months.

Reply to: Anyone else wondering if recent substation attacks are “white hat” efforts to accelerate/prioritize grid hardening? Posted January 4, 2023
Reply to: News for week of 2023-01-02 (all current event convos go here) Posted January 3, 2023

I saw on the news this morning that someone was killed when a falling tree knocked them off a ski lift – talk about a freak accident! 🙁 Trees are a constant danger to my house and driveway.  There’s not even any guessing about direction of fall, because most of them are perfectly straight, it all depends on wind direction.  By some miracle only two have hit the house in all the years I’ve lived here (and they were small ones that did only minor damage) but finding the driveway blocked or a fence down are such regular occurrences that we heat almost exclusively with wood cleared from the driveway and fences. But it’s worth it to live in the woods in my opinion – quality of life matters as much as safety. If I were lucky enough to own a coast redwood, I wouldn’t cut it (assuming it was still healthy) even if an arborist did determine it leaned toward the house.  It could probably stand there another thousand years, not falling until long after you and your house are gone.

Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Invincibility points Posted December 16, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 10, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 7, 2022

Another great answer – thanks! I should make a rule for myself that when I learn about an exciting new (to me) product, I wait at least a certain amount of time – say six months – before potentially purchasing it.  Funny story: I like gear so much that sometimes I’m tempted by “backups” for things I don’t have in the first place.  One time someone was talking about a battery operated hot shower for camping or power outages, and my first thought was, “That’s so cool!  I wonder how much something like that costs?” but then my second thought was, “Wait. . .  I don’t have hot running water at home under normal circumstances, so why on earth would I need it on a camping trip or during a power outage?”  On something that obvious I catch myself right away, but there are other things where I start to talk myself into ways an item could be useful under certain circumstances. . .  For example fuel efficient cooking methods are something that I’m always really drawn to (I want them all!) even though firewood is so abundant here that it’s not like we need to worry about running out of dead sticks to build ordinary campfires out of.  Plus my regular kitchen stove is propane.  Plus we have two wood stoves (one in my house and one in a guest house friends are living in) which much of the year have to be going anyway for heat. . .  Still I find myself thinking, “But if TEOTWAWKI comes, the propane tank will run out in two or three years, then in the summer when the wood stove isn’t going, I’ll be cooking outdoors.  I should really get X, Y, and Z to make that easier!”  😀

Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 6, 2022

Ah, a fellow gear enthusiast! 😀  I think I’ll incorporate your % off idea as part of my system.  Probably not for everything (if an item is cheap enough at full price) but for the more expensive items, I should list the price I found them for in an initial search, then next to it the price I want to find them for, meaning if they drop below that they shoot to the top of the list and I go ahead and buy. This is starting to feel fun now – the list itself will be like a piece of gear 🙂 I’m not sure the coin flip would be right for me – it’s really not in my nature to leave things to chance (mild OCD) but if I can’t decide for myself I could always put it to a vote among the people I share a homestead with.  None of them are really into prepping as a hobby the way I am, but I think if I asked, “Which would you rather we had in an emergency, this or this?” They would be willing to weigh in. Thanks for the great response!

Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 6, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 5, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022

I think we’re using the term friction fire differently.  I guess a ferro rod or flint and steel also use friction in a sense (as do matches now that I really think about it) but I meant wood friction from a bow drill or fireplow.  Cedar/juniper trees are rare here, which leaves basswood the best option available, and it simply doesn’t always work for me.  The problem isn’t with my tinder bundle, it’s with getting an ember in the first place.  I suppose how quickly gear can be acquired depends on the size of one’s budget, and I shouldn’t have stated that it “can’t all be acquired at once” as if that were a blanket truth for everyone.  I’m sure there are people who come to prepping quite suddenly and with a lot of money to spend, who order all the gear they can imagine in the first few months, then slowly work on acquiring skills. Personally I came from the other extreme, spending my entire childhood acquiring prepper skills (at least in the areas of wilderness survival and homesteading) without being able to afford any gear, and the first two decades of my adult life continuing to build skills while only acquiring gear very slowly as I happened to find things second hand, so I feel like I have a big head start on skills compared to gear.  Don’t get me wrong – there’s always more to learn, and I won’t be “done” learning until I’m dead – but I’m not coming at this suddenly and needing to gain thousands of new skills all at once, either.  I also work alone in the woods, mostly just patrolling for poachers, which when there aren’t any gets pretty boring – giving me lots of time to practice my bushcrafting skills.

Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 3, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 3, 2022
How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system?
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Posted December 3, 2022
Reply to: What was the catalyst that compelled you to begin prepping? Posted November 20, 2022

My family has pretty much been prepping for generations, at least back to two sets of farmer great-grandparents, and before that I’m pretty sure it was just how everyone lived.  My parents took things a step too far and bugged out somewhat prematurely in the 1970’s.  I guess you could say I got my “start” in prepping by being born on a tiny subsistence homestead hidden in the wilderness.  I’ve really never lived in a household that wasn’t prepared to survive on our own for quite a darn long time.  As I started to take advantage of some of the conveniences the modern world provides, I was conscious of how fragile that infrastructure is, and have avoided letting myself become too reliant on it.  For example, I now cut firewood with a chainsaw because it is so much faster and easier, but I still know how to use and maintain my bucksaws and two-man saws.

Reply to: Emotional support group – Lay your burdens down Posted November 13, 2022

Good for you for pushing ahead even when you find it stressful – that means you’re brave! 🙂 I can’t directly relate to the stress over acquiring gear – to me that has always been a mix of two things, depending on the type of gear. Some of it’s just a boring part of being a responsible adult, that I do automatically, without really dwelling on “why.”  Things like food, water, car kit, get replenished without a second thought in the same way as I change the battery in my smoke alarm without getting anxious about the possibility of a house fire.  And some (anything more hard core and “out there”) feel like fun new toys I can get excited about.  I look forward to trying them out, showing them off to my friends, and maybe using them on my next camping trip. However I do think I’ve had a similar reaction after taking first aid classes, especially one I remember from years ago, a pet first aid class.  I was in my teens at the time, but I still remember being unable to sleep afterward, lying awake worrying about all the horrible things that might happen to my dogs.  I should have felt good – I already knew the world was a dangerous place, and I had taken a step toward being more prepared – but instead it was a very upsetting experience, making the risk feel more “real.”  Emotional responses to things are not always logical, or what you would expect them to be. 

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How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system?
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Posted December 3, 2022
Seeking ideas for prepper related challenges/experiments
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Posted January 1, 2022
Reply to: Grid down – How to recognize it early? Posted January 17, 2023

Running around for more supplies after an emergency (of any type) has begun is not in my plans, but to answer the general question anyway: I think it’s fairly safe to assume that localized power outages will be temporary, and the larger the area effected, the longer (up to “forever”) it’s likely to last. If you (or any neighbor) can still get a cellphone signal, the internet is working, or NOAA weather channels are still transmitting, those are signs that TEOTWAWKI has not come.  When there’s a total communications outage on top of a power outage, it’s harder to tell. I don’t think there’s any single “key” to look for that would confirm that yes, this is “it” beyond a doubt.  Mostly it would be a matter of remaining calm, and waiting to see how things unfold over the coming weeks/months.

Reply to: Anyone else wondering if recent substation attacks are “white hat” efforts to accelerate/prioritize grid hardening? Posted January 4, 2023
Reply to: News for week of 2023-01-02 (all current event convos go here) Posted January 3, 2023

I saw on the news this morning that someone was killed when a falling tree knocked them off a ski lift – talk about a freak accident! 🙁 Trees are a constant danger to my house and driveway.  There’s not even any guessing about direction of fall, because most of them are perfectly straight, it all depends on wind direction.  By some miracle only two have hit the house in all the years I’ve lived here (and they were small ones that did only minor damage) but finding the driveway blocked or a fence down are such regular occurrences that we heat almost exclusively with wood cleared from the driveway and fences. But it’s worth it to live in the woods in my opinion – quality of life matters as much as safety. If I were lucky enough to own a coast redwood, I wouldn’t cut it (assuming it was still healthy) even if an arborist did determine it leaned toward the house.  It could probably stand there another thousand years, not falling until long after you and your house are gone.

Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Invincibility points Posted December 16, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 10, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 7, 2022

Another great answer – thanks! I should make a rule for myself that when I learn about an exciting new (to me) product, I wait at least a certain amount of time – say six months – before potentially purchasing it.  Funny story: I like gear so much that sometimes I’m tempted by “backups” for things I don’t have in the first place.  One time someone was talking about a battery operated hot shower for camping or power outages, and my first thought was, “That’s so cool!  I wonder how much something like that costs?” but then my second thought was, “Wait. . .  I don’t have hot running water at home under normal circumstances, so why on earth would I need it on a camping trip or during a power outage?”  On something that obvious I catch myself right away, but there are other things where I start to talk myself into ways an item could be useful under certain circumstances. . .  For example fuel efficient cooking methods are something that I’m always really drawn to (I want them all!) even though firewood is so abundant here that it’s not like we need to worry about running out of dead sticks to build ordinary campfires out of.  Plus my regular kitchen stove is propane.  Plus we have two wood stoves (one in my house and one in a guest house friends are living in) which much of the year have to be going anyway for heat. . .  Still I find myself thinking, “But if TEOTWAWKI comes, the propane tank will run out in two or three years, then in the summer when the wood stove isn’t going, I’ll be cooking outdoors.  I should really get X, Y, and Z to make that easier!”  😀

Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 6, 2022

Ah, a fellow gear enthusiast! 😀  I think I’ll incorporate your % off idea as part of my system.  Probably not for everything (if an item is cheap enough at full price) but for the more expensive items, I should list the price I found them for in an initial search, then next to it the price I want to find them for, meaning if they drop below that they shoot to the top of the list and I go ahead and buy. This is starting to feel fun now – the list itself will be like a piece of gear 🙂 I’m not sure the coin flip would be right for me – it’s really not in my nature to leave things to chance (mild OCD) but if I can’t decide for myself I could always put it to a vote among the people I share a homestead with.  None of them are really into prepping as a hobby the way I am, but I think if I asked, “Which would you rather we had in an emergency, this or this?” They would be willing to weigh in. Thanks for the great response!

Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 6, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 5, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 4, 2022

I think we’re using the term friction fire differently.  I guess a ferro rod or flint and steel also use friction in a sense (as do matches now that I really think about it) but I meant wood friction from a bow drill or fireplow.  Cedar/juniper trees are rare here, which leaves basswood the best option available, and it simply doesn’t always work for me.  The problem isn’t with my tinder bundle, it’s with getting an ember in the first place.  I suppose how quickly gear can be acquired depends on the size of one’s budget, and I shouldn’t have stated that it “can’t all be acquired at once” as if that were a blanket truth for everyone.  I’m sure there are people who come to prepping quite suddenly and with a lot of money to spend, who order all the gear they can imagine in the first few months, then slowly work on acquiring skills. Personally I came from the other extreme, spending my entire childhood acquiring prepper skills (at least in the areas of wilderness survival and homesteading) without being able to afford any gear, and the first two decades of my adult life continuing to build skills while only acquiring gear very slowly as I happened to find things second hand, so I feel like I have a big head start on skills compared to gear.  Don’t get me wrong – there’s always more to learn, and I won’t be “done” learning until I’m dead – but I’m not coming at this suddenly and needing to gain thousands of new skills all at once, either.  I also work alone in the woods, mostly just patrolling for poachers, which when there aren’t any gets pretty boring – giving me lots of time to practice my bushcrafting skills.

Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 3, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 3, 2022
Reply to: What was the catalyst that compelled you to begin prepping? Posted November 20, 2022

My family has pretty much been prepping for generations, at least back to two sets of farmer great-grandparents, and before that I’m pretty sure it was just how everyone lived.  My parents took things a step too far and bugged out somewhat prematurely in the 1970’s.  I guess you could say I got my “start” in prepping by being born on a tiny subsistence homestead hidden in the wilderness.  I’ve really never lived in a household that wasn’t prepared to survive on our own for quite a darn long time.  As I started to take advantage of some of the conveniences the modern world provides, I was conscious of how fragile that infrastructure is, and have avoided letting myself become too reliant on it.  For example, I now cut firewood with a chainsaw because it is so much faster and easier, but I still know how to use and maintain my bucksaws and two-man saws.

Reply to: Emotional support group – Lay your burdens down Posted November 13, 2022

Good for you for pushing ahead even when you find it stressful – that means you’re brave! 🙂 I can’t directly relate to the stress over acquiring gear – to me that has always been a mix of two things, depending on the type of gear. Some of it’s just a boring part of being a responsible adult, that I do automatically, without really dwelling on “why.”  Things like food, water, car kit, get replenished without a second thought in the same way as I change the battery in my smoke alarm without getting anxious about the possibility of a house fire.  And some (anything more hard core and “out there”) feel like fun new toys I can get excited about.  I look forward to trying them out, showing them off to my friends, and maybe using them on my next camping trip. However I do think I’ve had a similar reaction after taking first aid classes, especially one I remember from years ago, a pet first aid class.  I was in my teens at the time, but I still remember being unable to sleep afterward, lying awake worrying about all the horrible things that might happen to my dogs.  I should have felt good – I already knew the world was a dangerous place, and I had taken a step toward being more prepared – but instead it was a very upsetting experience, making the risk feel more “real.”  Emotional responses to things are not always logical, or what you would expect them to be. 

Reply to: Protein powder seems to be an ideal staple for prepping Posted November 13, 2022

Your catfish alone could probably feed an army, even without the “spam spam spam, spam eggs and spam” but most people’s food preps will never be as well rounded as yours.  Just to clarify, I was in no way knocking beans and rice as a major dietary staple – they’re cheap, store well, and are a great source of carbs with some protein.  I just don’t think it’s really fair to compare the price of protein powder to the price of beans and rice.  The powders are a much more concentrated form of protein, making them more of a replacement for meat, where one could have beans and rice plus a protein shake.  So I think the question should be how does it compare in price to canned meats (probably still not favorably, but not so drastically unfavorably as when you compare it to beans and rice.)  Another factor to consider is that not everyone eats meat, and while I suspect most would in an emergency, it’s not really fair to expect someone who’s vegan or vegetarian for ethical reasons and doesn’t want to support animal agriculture, to stockpile canned meats “just in case.”  For them, a high quality vegan protein powder would definitely have it’s place in prepping.  

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