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Reply to: Minor prepping victory: Perennial Fruit! Posted 19 hours ago

That sounds like an easy way to protect yourself. Powdered sulfur doesn’t seem to be that expensive on Amazon either.

Reply to: Let’s make the ultimate emergency reference guide for a bug out bag Posted 2 weeks ago

Thanks for the compliment! It’s good to learn about each technique and practice many times beforehand and then use this guide as a refresher of “Oh ya! That’s how you do it”. I for example have tied all the knots in the reference guide many many times, but since I don’t do that every day I forget it. But just a quick glance at the diagram reminds me and I’ll be able to do it again.

Reply to: Let’s make the ultimate emergency reference guide for a bug out bag Posted 2 weeks ago

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Here is a link to our first rough draft of the 1/2 sheet reference chart. (Thanks to TP for hosting the file on their Google Drive). It is easily editable so you can remove or add whatever you want. Maybe you don’t care for the section on important phone numbers or how to make an emergency toilet. Change it then and make it your own. I left two little blank sections so you can add whatever you want in there. If you want a more comprehensive multi-page reference guide this YouTube video contains a link for a very comprehensive multi-page guide. I think there is too much information in there, some useless stuff, and some things that 100% need training on beforehand and isn’t something you are just going to be able to pick up by looking at the guide. Still, it’s a good guide and I stole a few of the pictures from it for our 1/2 sheet guide. Be honest, tell me what you like and dislike and we can add additional info on the second page that people can then copy and past onto the main page.

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, Jun 10, 2022 Posted 3 weeks ago

If you look at animals, or even our early ancestors you will see that they built their shelter and then for the majority of the day all of their efforts were spent on gathering food. Right now, I spend 14% of my income on food, 25% of shelter, 3% on gasoline, a whopping 6% on this dog, etc… As long as most of my income (my version of hunting and gathering) isn’t being spent on food, then I feel that we are doing okay and are not just “surviving”.

Reply to: Light weight backpacking gear and techniques Posted 3 weeks ago

That’s a great idea and something I will work on getting to you. I need some help on ideas of what to put in the reference guide though. I started another forum thread to have people pitch in their ideas.

Reply to: Light weight backpacking gear and techniques Posted 3 weeks ago

Many bug out bags and bug out bag guides (including The Prepared’s) include a survival guide book. An emergency is not the time to break out the survival guide and learn what to do. The time to learn what to do is now so that when the emergency comes, it is second nature and you can just act. If you really do need a reference though, condense that entire heavy guide book onto a small 1/2 sheet of paper and laminate it. With small font and front and back, you can fit anything you need in there.

Reply to: Share YOUR social media page/account on prepping/homesteading Posted 4 weeks ago

I agree with both of you Joker and Trace. OpSec is important and not paint a target on your head of where people can go for supplies, but after reading The Prepared’s article on why you should share your prepping, I have lightened up and have been more open with sharing some of my knowledge with others. If we all keep preparedness to ourselves, then we are doing a disservice to us and our fellow human beings. It is important to build a community. If we share prepping with everyone and everyone is just that more prepared, then they won’t be coming to your house for supplies or a free handout, because they will have their own supplies and preps. You can tell people that they are camping supplies if they ever ask and you don’t trust them yet. That way you can still talk about the camp stove, solar panel, or food storage you have and educate people, but aren’t giving off the vibe of “I’m a prepper with a ton of supplies” if you want to be cautious. Great job to Trace, his wife, and everyone else who makes these social media accounts, talks on this forum, or chats up someone in the grocery store line about prepping. We need more of it out there and it will only do good the more people who are prepared. You can create social media accounts and share your prepping ideas and never give out your name, address, amount of supplies, or even show your face. Doing product reviews on YouTube for example is a great way to educate people on what items work and where they fall short. That’s the beauty of the internet. Heck, no one here knows my name or where I’m from but I’m able to chat all day about prepping and make the world a little bit of a better place but can still keep my operational security in check.

Reply to: How to survive an active shooter Posted 1 month ago

You say: “Also, playing dead isn’t a great strategy because shooters will re-shoot bodies. It might work until the shooter leaves the room the first time (and has saved people’s lives when they were shot in the leg before), but you still need to try leaving ASAP.” I agree with you and my first thought is to leave ASAP, but it is interesting to see that a 11 year old girl in the Uvalde shooting did survive by putting blood on herself and playing dead. I wonder where she got an idea like that. Something that hasn’t been mentioned is to seek counseling after a disaster like this, even if you feel like you are okay. Especially if your 11 year old daughter had to resort to putting the blood of her dead classmate on her body in order to survive, that has got to cause permanent mental scarring for life, get the help after the fact.

Reply to: How to survive an active shooter Posted 1 month ago

It’s a very sad website, but https://massshootingtracker.site/ tells of many mass shootings that never make the news. Did you know there was another shooting the day after the elementary school in Texas that wounded four? And there have been 253 shootings in 2022 so far?

Reply to: Demonstration: hatchet Posted 1 month ago

That “also” does make it a bit confusing doesn’t it? I didn’t see a pocket stone and knife video but the technique for a knife would be the same as it is with an axe of bringing the stone to the axe/knife and not the axe/knife to the pocket stone because of it’s size.

Reply to: Cook your food in water instead of over a fire during a survival situation for the most nutrition Posted 1 month ago

I’ve read Hatchet but not any of his other ones. Do you recommend them?

Reply to: Cook your food in water instead of over a fire during a survival situation for the most nutrition Posted 1 month ago

Sorry but those aren’t my pictures and are just stock images I pulled off a Google search. It looks to be just a 2 quart camp pot though. Maybe something like this:

Reply to: 80/20 Rule for Emergency Radios Posted 2 months ago

I’ve seen people recommend to get a satellite phone over ham radio but that is a good point that many of those can be reliant on ground based systems that may be offline during a disaster.

Reply to: Cook your food in water instead of over a fire during a survival situation for the most nutrition Posted 2 months ago

Most rocket stoves I have seen just concentrate the flame on the underside of the pan like on a stovetop. The efficient design that I liked on yours is the heat is channeled up along the sides of the pot as well.

Reply to: Cook your food in water instead of over a fire during a survival situation for the most nutrition Posted 2 months ago

A large pot would be a great neighborhood prep to set up some sort of community soup kitchen after a disaster. Have you made soup in your cast iron before? I’ve heard that it is not recommended to make very watery soups, stews, or even boiling beans because the amount of boiling water will cause the seasoning to flake off and get your food all black. Not sure I believe in that because that was the go to method of cooking such meals 200 years ago.

Reply to: Best portable survival water filters Posted 2 months ago

The SolarBag certainly is impressive with it’s large list of things it has been tested on, multiple pages worth on that PDF! I like how there are no moving parts, extremely lightweight, and dead simple to use. That’s great you have been putting yours to use. I’ve been thinking about the bag all day since you introduced me to it and I’ve been very interested in it.

Reply to: Best portable survival water filters Posted 2 months ago

I know the sun can sanitize water left in something as simple as a disposable water bottle or ziplock bag so at first I thought this wasn’t anything special and just a plastic bag with a cap. But when you mentioned that it gets rid of heavy metals, I looked into it more and there is a lining inside the bag that reacts to the sun and breaks down those heavy metals and other chemicals. The bag says it only lasts 500 uses or after 7 years, so that lining seems to break down over time but if the bag stays in tact, it should still be able to kill viruses and bacteria. Cool product. At $60 though and the 7 year shelf life, I would almost want a manual filter that lasts indefinitely on the shelf and filters much quicker than the 3-6 hours this takes to clean 3 liters. Sorry if I’m being dismissive, but just seems like a lot of money for a plastic bag. Do you have one and have used it before?

Reply to: Do you really need small portable solar power? Posted 2 months ago

Looks like you have a good loadout now. My recommendation now is to try living off of just that panel and/or batteries for a week. Practice and trial is where you will really learn if it was a good buy for you, how long things take to charge, best times of day to charge, etc…

Reply to: Share YOUR social media page/account on prepping/homesteading Posted 2 months ago

I don’t have a social media page, but did watch a few of your videos. Sorry to hear you lost your bees during the winter, hope this next batch does better. Tell your wife great job on the content so far and I look forward to watching what she puts out from time to time.

Reply to: How long would white flour last? Posted 2 months ago

Redneck is right that wheat berries are the way to go for 1-25 year storage. Some options with that, Costco big bag and then mylar bag them yourself with moisture absorbers for extra long storage, many people here buy off of Azure Standard, or you can buy precanned wheat berries that require no work from somewhere like the LDS church cannery. Question to you Redneck, how long would a large 50lb bag of wheat berries from Costco last without any preservation techniques applied? Just throwing the bag in the cupboard and forgetting.

Let’s make the ultimate emergency reference guide for a bug out bag

Cook your food in water instead of over a fire during a survival situation for the most nutrition

Let’s make the ultimate emergency reference guide for a bug out bag

Cook your food in water instead of over a fire during a survival situation for the most nutrition

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