Sun Yeti - Member - The Prepared

Reply to: Thorn bushes for fencing Posted 2 weeks ago

Apparently, giant ground sloths thought it was delicious. You can still still the footprints of that extinct animal (probably hunted to extinction) in fruits like osage orange, pawpaw, and avocado. I’ve read that the seeds of the osage orange are edible, the flesh of the fruit is not, so if you want to eat it, you have to remove the seeds, clean the flesh off them, and cook them. Seems like a lot of work, but I’m going to try it this season.

Reply to: Learn about scissors and why they are important prepping tools Posted 3 weeks ago

Those do look nice, but a less than $20 pair of electrician’s scissors can do basically the same stuff.

Reply to: Preppers and climate change Posted 1 month ago

I was aware of that in generalities, but the specifics are actually quite helpful, as this is a road my wife and I may be going down in a few years. Thanks!

Reply to: The prepping items that we regret buying and why Posted 2 months ago

Cold steel ‘Bushman’ knife. I had just started prepping, and I thought how versatile it was that the knife had a hollow handle and could be made into a spear. Previously, I’d only used cooking knives. As I gradually learned a bit more about ‘woodsy’ skills, and practiced a little (I’m still not very good), I found that the Bushman knife was wildly impractical; too heavy, weighted weirdly, hard to store (I made a sheath, it kept cutting it’s way out of it because of the curve). Now I keep a couple of Mora knives around instead; they have rubberized grip and don’t slide out of your hands, the shape of the handle keeps your hand from sliding up over the blade, they are light and well-balanced, easy to sharpen, and come with a great, lightweight, durable, well-fitted plastic sheath. The other one that comes to mind was also a knife. I had read how great the British hacking knife (used in construction) was because it has a soft spine and can be safety used to baton, wood, also hefty enough to serve as a sort of a hatchet. Well, I practiced with it, removing invasive vines and brush, and I almost cut my thumb off! Admittedly, I was chopping too close to my other hand, but with a chopper that small, I had to do so in order to get any force. After that scare, walking home blood dripping from the gash in my thumbnail, I later tested the other thing it was ‘great’ at and found that the spine was so soft it deformed if you used it to baton wood. I recycled that POS and bought a few folding saws until I found one that fit my hands nicely (Bahco Laplander). Not totally satisfied with that one, but even if you’re exhausted and getting sloppy, it’s hard to hurt yourself more than a minor cut. And, with a 7″ blade, if you’re patient enough and have the grip strength, you can cut though 6.5″ branches!

Reply to: Preppers and climate change Posted 3 months ago

I should clarify I’m not saying you’re one of those people, I just encounter a lot of performative or very tiny impact environmentalism from people I know.

Reply to: Preppers and climate change Posted 3 months ago

For some reason, it’s very difficult to find newer information on American per-capita carbon footprint than circa 2010. That being said, I think the (unfortunately stale) data backs me up: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/cooler-smarter-geek-out-data https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/when-it-comes-carbon-footprints-location-and-lifestyle-matter If you take a look at the Union of Concerned Scientists article, of the 28% chunk of per-capita emissions they call ‘transportation’, it’s 92% car, 8% plane. If you add up driving and home energy use, you’re already at almost 60% of total per-capita emissions. Drastically reduce both of those things and you’ve cut your personal emissions by about half. On the other hand, even if you stopped flying entirely, that’s a rounding error, unless you are an extreme outlier who takes hundreds of flights per year for work or something. Of course, in practice, we should do everything we can to reduce our emissions on all fronts, but start with the low-hanging fruit. I will also admit that I’m getting pretty frustrated with people who buy recycled paper towels and shut the taps off when they brush their teeth, then dust off their hands and say ‘well, I’m doing my part’, while ignoring the elephants in the room. I agree that in the long run our lifestyles will have to radically change, but if we can at least make a good start now, it may help us change in a more smooth and gradual way rather that the sudden sharp stops we survivalists worry about.

Reply to: Preppers and climate change Posted 3 months ago

Your are referring to EROI; Energy Returned on (energy) Invested. This is an important and often overlooked statistic for any energy source. One of the reasons ethanol fueled cars are not a great solution is that the EROI is close to 1; it takes about as much energy to grow and process the ethanol as you get from burning it. Back in the bad old days, shallow well light sweet crude oil might have had an EROI of more like 100. Wind and solar are more around 10 or 20 which is often better than the last-ditch low quality resources they are scraping oil out of these days, such as tar sands, deepwater offshore drilling etc. Considered in terms of payback period for a solar power system, it’s just a couple of years; here’s a reference for that: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/03/solar-power-can-pay-easily/ I don’t know what the energy payback period is on using batteries vs. burning gas. I’m not even sure how to calculate that, honestly. Nonetheless, when you consider the truly massive emissions drop from switching from a gas car to EV, there’s a lot of space there in your energy/carbon budget for batteries; I can’t imagine that the additional energy to add batteries to the car takes very long to pay off.

Reply to: Preppers and climate change Posted 3 months ago

For most middle class Americans, the following are the three largest and most impactful ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint: 1. Get solar for your house: This basically knocks out your carbon footprint from personal electricity use. Yes, I know there is an energy cost to solar panels ect, but switching to all-renewable power eliminates the large majority of emissions from your electricity use. Note that it’s often better to set up solar in your yard or build a solar carport etc. vs. putting the panels over your roof where they are harder to access for maintenance and have to be moved when you repair your roof. If you are in one of the very few parts of the country with insufficient insolation for practical solar power (Alaska?) consider small-scale wind or hydro. If you add a battery system to your solar, you also got a fantastic prep for grid outages. 2. Get an electric car: Many people don’t realize how much of their energy budget (and carbon footprint) goes to moving a several thousand pound metal box 30+ miles a day. Even if you plug your car into the grid, it will still be lower emissions than a gas car. Combine it with your solar system and it’s entirely renewably powered. Again, this is a great prep since you can keep driving even if there’s no gas and/or the grid is down. 3. Don’t have kids: Yup, I just grabbed the third rail of environmentalism. There’s no denying the math though; our civilization’s footprint is the per-capita footprint times the number of people. Fewer, people means less impact. So, in addition to reducing the per-capita footprint, we need to think about reducing the number of people. Instead of bringing more kids into an overpopulated world, consider fostering, adopting, or just helping your (harried, overloaded, trying to balance kids and a career) friends and relatives take care of theirs. If you really must have your own biological children, have one instead of two or three. Other actions like recycling, eating less meat, re-using containers etc. are good, but they have a much smaller impact. For a typical middle-class American, solar plus an electric car can cut your carbon footprint by something like half, without effecting your lifestyle much. Do those other things if you can, but they’re not primary. If you can’t afford home solar and an electric car, you can get almost as much impact while saving money; live in a small apartment/condo (which will use something like 1/5 as much electricity as a single family home), and use a bike/ebike/electric scooter instead of a car.

Reply to: My BOB is heavy and not even fully stocked Posted December 20, 2020

So I don’t have much room to talk, as my BOB is almost 40 lbs. But if I were you, I’d cut the paratinder. That’s an object that’s trying to be two different things, and probably isn’t very good at either. You could also probably cut some weight by replacing cotton shirt etc. with lightweight hiking type clothes that are just as warm or warmer. Echoing what others have said, I would also definitely cut out the book and replace the tarp with a lighter, stronger nylon one. Between all those things, you could probably save 3 or 4 lbs, which would be enough for a warm sleeping bag to put under your tarp at night (do you need a tent if you have a tarp?). If possible, I highly suggest taking your gear camping to get some real-world testing. Also, take it on a road trip (after Covid is done), since you would likely be bugging out to a hotel or stay with family etc. That may reveal that some gear is much less useful/necessary than you thought. Two other suggestions: 1. De-prioritize some items in advance. I know if I have to go a long ways on foot with my bag, I will drop about 3 lbs of tools and other gear right off the bat. If you bag is very well organized, it not only makes it easy to find things to use, it makes it easy to find the irrelevant items for this particular situation and get rid of them. 2. A bugout that involves having to hike the AT for 300 miles is pretty unlikely. So don’t beat yourself up too much about how heavy your bag is.

Reply to: A giant waxed cheese wheel is the apocalypse prep you didn’t know you needed Posted October 22, 2020

Great article, and you’ve got me half convinced already I should buy a giant cheese wheel. But what about TVP (textured vegetable protein)? That’s cheap, and comes basically freeze-dried. Shelf life 20+ years. Sure, it has essentially no flavor of it’s own, but that’s what spices are for. It’s certainly not as dense as cheese, but it’s also way less fussy to store. Here you can buy a 45 lb bag for $72: https://www.clnf.org/tvp-chunks-no-flavor-or-color

Reply to: Fats are a key part of your food preps, but shelf-life is tricky Posted October 12, 2020

I buy large containers of oils (olive, avocado, toasted sesame) that live in the back of my fridge. I have small (maybe 10 oz?) pourers in the cupboard that I refill as necessary from the ones in the fridge. This allows me to have liquid oils on hand, while keeping my edible oils cool, dry, and dark until a few weeks at most before I use them. Also saves money buying oils in large bottles. It’s not a perfect system; it’s a pain in the butt to wash out the pourers, but it’s the best compromise I’ve been able to come up with. I can’t figure out a way to add fats to my emergency supplies without essentially setting money on fire, since I wouldn’t use them before they went bad.

Reply to: BIke Trailers Posted September 20, 2020

I did a little digging this evening, and I found this: https://wicycle.com/products/bike-trailers/extra-large-special-trailer It’s blisteringly expensive, but it’s a bike trailer designed to hold an adult (and the only one I’ve found). Not an adult as heavy/tall as me though, and forget about additional cargo. I’m beginning to wonder if what I want doesn’t exist because it’s not practical. Maybe even with an electric assist, I just can’t pull 250+ lbs of cargo, or perhaps it would be too unwieldy to ride (unstable?). And that’s something I have given some though; I can ride on some pretty gnarly, potholed paved trails on my ebike, or even on a muddy dirt trail if I have to, but the bike trailer might be limited to really smooth, well maintained roads. If that’s the case, why are we bugging out on bikes instead of driving? So, perhaps this is a fool’s errand.

BIke Trailers

AdviceGear 4

15

Posted September 11, 2020

Reply to: Not Sure What to Do Next Posted September 11, 2020

I agree with many of the comments to the effect of 1. you should breath a little easier due to what you’ve already accomplished, and 2. the next priorities are probably skills. When you get the solar panels installed, is it possible you can get a battery (such as tesla powerwall or equivalent) incorporated in the system? Without it, although your solar panels will still help fight climate change, they won’t be much use if the grid goes down.

Reply to: School Ventilation Posted September 11, 2020

Another teacher here – are there currently available models of CO2 monitors you consider reliable? The one you linked is completely out of stock on Amazon.

Reply to: Perpetual gear finds thread Posted September 11, 2020

I ended up buying a pair. I sealed the vents with silicone (so I could reverse it later if I wanted to), and by pulling the straps tight, I believe they would probably keep tear gas out? Not really sure. The anti-fog coating on the inside is getting a little hazy after a few wears around the neighborhood to test. I might just wash it out and use liquid soap as a homebrew anti-fog coating instead. The lenses seem very thick and sturdy, so hopefully the awesome impact rating is accurate.

Reply to: Perpetual gear finds thread Posted August 3, 2020

That appears to be a 2x cost rebrand of the Pyramix I-Force which I have been considering; I mentioned it in a thread about ‘goggles for protesting’ a couple of weeks ago. Main disatvantage in my mind is that it’s probably not airtight enough to keep tear gas or other eye irritants out.

Reply to: Perpetual gear finds thread Posted August 3, 2020

The Knipex bolt cutters look nice (and I love Knipex), but Felco C7’s are about the same size and can go through 7 mm diameter of mild steel (as the name implies). I could be wrong, but I suspect you would find that they offer a significantly better capability-to-weight ratio.

Reply to: Safety Goggles for Protesting Posted July 23, 2020

That’s an interesting idea. I would normally use Vaseline to help equipment seal against skin, but I’ve read that oil-based substances can trap the tear gas on your skin; for that reason people are advised to avoid oil-based sunscreens etc.

Reply to: Safety Goggles for Protesting Posted July 23, 2020

Cool! I’d be very interested to hear what you think of them when you get them. Especially whether it’s possible to cinch the second one against your head tightly enough to make a seal.

BIke Trailers

BIke Trailers

Safety Goggles for Protesting

Knowing who has what skills