You can see from all the dirt that it's had LOTS of use in closets, crawl spaces, attics, garages, sheds, etc. I picked it up on a whim at our local Ace HW store.
Posted on 11/20/2015 10:28:09 AM PST by William of Barsoom
Micro-Prepping: Final Call. If you're reading these pages, you know it's coming. You probably also think it's close -- very close.
I am so screwed.
propane outdoor BBQ, get a spare tank and keep it in a cool area indoors
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People, please don’t keep a propane tank indoors.
I keep about five spares, in a shed detached from the living quarters.
Go to Amazon and pick up a fire piston or two. they will reliably start a fire after all your fire starting equipment is used up.
They have been in use for many years and work well.
Your suggestions regarding heat are really valuable, depending on where you live, but aren’t the sort of thing that can be done in an hour. For half the year up here (Ontario, and not close to any body of water that makes the climate more favourable), heat is definitely more important than light or news, probably more important than food, and if you have heat, you can always melt snow.
In Oregon, very close to the Pacific, things were very different. Having lived up here, I now could get by where I grew up without any heat if push came to shove. Once you have tangled with -40, other things look different.
Preppers’ PING!!
Hat tip to Old Sarge for the heads up!
I am micro-screwed.
An excellent post, thank you. I’ll bet you set a bunch of people in motion to be better able to survive whats coming.
Good, sensible, timely post.
I keep this in mind regarding essential survival considerations:
3 min without air
3 hours exposure below 50F
3 days without water
3 weeks without food
Related suggestions:
Food - be sure to include purchase of high energy density balanced nutrition, that’s low in volume, and has a two year shelf life, ie: >100 calories per 28gram ounce, 20+% protein, 70% carb, 10% fat.
Namely, Trail bars.
Probars are The Best meal bar I’ve had yet to date.
Very popular with backpackers long distance backpackers.
Hardly any diet fatigue. $2 - 3 for each 3 Oz 340 cal bar.
Note, you may need to carry days worth of food in case of relocation. Therefore, count on provisioning at least 2000 calories per day of food that doesn’t take up much room, weigh much, and provides good nutrition.
Also, if you need to carry a corresponding amount of water, understand that 2 liters (per day weighs 4 lbs (1 liter / quart = 2 lbs). 3 days of water weighs 12 lbs! Not fun.
Be sure to get a Sawyer mini filter water filter. They’re very small, weigh 2oz, and can filter thousands of gallons of water. $22.
Get a very small Grundig shortwave radio to be able to get broader access to news. Print off small chart of useful alt-news frequencies and their broadcast times. <$100
Don’t plan on viably carrying more than 30 lbs or more than 1/5th your weight.
Get a lightweight nylon camo poncho that approximates your anticipated terrain in case you or your stash of gear needs to be concealed.
And most of all:
Stay out of the FEMA camps, ‘specially if you’re red-listed as a un-reeducatable conservative crank who frequents FR! ;n)
/johnny
I currently use this one at the link. It was a gift, or I may never have tried it. Uses 3 AAA batteries, and on the lower setting, lasts for many hours. The company is part of the Leatherman Group, so the quality is good. Since acquiring it, I’ve bought a couple other lights from them and they’re just as good. The headlamp gets used almost every night, mainly during the growing season so I can work in the garden without the blazing summer sun and heat here in New Mexico. If I need to ever replace this headlamp, I think I’d look for one that offered either a blue or red beam option to retain night vision, but like I said, this one was a gift.
http://www.ledlenserusa.com/seo-5-323.html#start=9
This light goes into my pocket every evening:
http://www.ledlenserusa.com/f1-163.html#srule=product-name-ascending&sz=36&start=3
LOL!
We keep 4-5 filled propane bottles in the garage at all times.
Water is mega important. If the tap goes off and you don’t have a well you will be drinking roof runoff and if you don’t have a good gravity water filter you will get very sick. We have three 55 gallon blue water barrels filled in our garage Plus a Big Berkey water filter and a homemade back up water filter from a kit you can buy on line and hook it all up to two 5 gallon food grade buckets from Lowes.
We also have a rocket stove that can be placed in the fireplace and can be used to cook so the neighbors don’t know you are cooking. Again you can make a rocket stove yourself out of a #10 can and a vegetable can with a little quickcrete and some vermiculite. Very simple to assemble. Mr. GG2 has made a water filter kit and a rocket stove for everyone in our family. Its not costly.
Go to the health food store and get a couple of bottles of 250 ppm colloidal silver to keep on hand and a small bottle of oil of oregano. If something bad happens you will likely not be able to get antibiotics. Both of these are anti viral. Mr. GG2 has built a silver generator so he strong antimicrobials and the oil of oregano is also an makes it for us now.
Canned food lasts a long time. Rice, beans and pasta from the store last a long time. Packets of Idahoan mashed potatoes and packaged soup mixes last a long time. It does not have to be freeze dried. Peanut butter has a lot of fat and is very nutritional. It lasts a long time. Honey never goes bad.
Due to EPA regulations, a LOT of the woodburning stoves on the market will have to be withdrawn from public sale in 2016.
You've still got about a month left if you want/need one. Even if you don't need it yet, get it now, and worrying about installing it when the power goes out and the propane runs low.
A small one goes for just a bit over a hundred bucks at my local farm supply store. They're closing them out, for obvious reasons.
We just got one of the 300LM ultrafire flashlights. They are great!
With LED flashlights, the more intense the light, the faster it will drain the battery. There are lights with a low-power/dim and high-power/bright setting, so you can trade off depending on what you currently need.
You can see from all the dirt that it's had LOTS of use in closets, crawl spaces, attics, garages, sheds, etc. I picked it up on a whim at our local Ace HW store.
My dog is an indoor dog, as are my cats. [Yes, they get along fine.] Nevertheless, I do have a largish doghouse outside.
The roof is hinged. It's where I keep my 20-pound LP tanks.
We will be moving after we sell the house. Most likely we will have our things in storage in a POD until we find a long term rental.
How should I dispose of my white gas or Coleman gas, that I was storing as part of my preps for my Coleman stove. The gas is years old. (Ordinarily, I would use for camping but that won’t be happening until after our move.)Should I pour them in my car? Don’t have a lawn mover or any other thing that uses gas.
And I also stored those little chafing dish fuel cells. Can they be safely transported?
I also have butane fuel for portable stoves. Should I move those, too.
As you can see, I was preparing to cook after a disaster and did not want to use a charcoal fire.
Thanks in advance everyone.
I’d love to see the plans for his rocket stove, if you have a link. There’s been quite a few great designs for them and I’m always interested in seeing more.
Canned food on sale is a great micro-prep.
I got canned pineapple (Dole) on sale four years ago, at ten for a dollar, and canned peaches (Del Monte) almost as cheap a few months later. The pineapple “expired” 30 months ago. I just had another can this week, and it was good. The kids didn’t notice any difference. I noticed a very faint hint of a metallic taste. Canned food is good long after its expiration date - and I’ve been experimenting with that over the past few years, especially for fruit. No one seems to notice when canned pears/peaches/pineapple is a couple years past the date. I’ve taken to keeping enough in the house to always have 200 small cans, and eating two cans a week. We’ll have two year’s worth of a little fruit a couple times each week if anything goes wrong.
Whenever there’s a great sale, I get more.
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