Posted on 03/29/2020 12:59:52 PM PDT by Libloather
RINGTOWN, Pa. - When Dan Wowak went to live alone in the wilds of Patagonia in 2016 for a chance to win a half-million dollars on reality television, he was allowed to bring 10 items. Toilet paper wasn't one of them.
Wowak, a Mahanoy City native, did bring an ax and saw, a sleeping bag and a ferro rod, which you can strike to make sparks in just about any condition. He also chose fishing line and hooks, which proved invaluable. Over 51 days, he ate nothing but fish he caught in a lake: nine of them.
"I lost 54 pounds," he said. "I know what hunger feels like."
Wowak, who worked in the juvenile justice system before becoming a full-time woodsman, left the reality show "Alone" early, choosing sanity, food and his family over the big prize. Today, at age 38, he teaches survival and outdoors classes through his company, Coal Cracker Bushcraft, giving crash courses in how to stay alive in the woods or when goods are scarce. He said he's recently gotten hundreds of emails expressing interest as America quickly went from normal to empty supermarket shelves. He's seen people making smart decisions, like social distancing, and bizarre ones, like grabbing all the toilet paper they can.
(Excerpt) Read more at postbulletin.com ...
I mostly prep enough to make for a couple weeks to maybe a couple months.
Never had an instance where i had to “survive” for more than a few days.
But i might start thinking about prepping for a six months after this insanity.
Amen.
We were completely stocked up, for MANY months, by the end of Jan/beginning of Feb.
Three freezers, canning jars, and about 40 #s of dehydrated veggies full.
Not to mention PLENTY of TP ;-)
I followed the instruction of one of the youtube prepper channels, mylar bags, oxygen absorber packs, suck the air out with a vacuum cleaner, seal the mylar bag shut with an iron, let it sit(and shrink) for a day in the bucket........then hammer the plastic lid on it.
I double/triple bag everything frozen, to avoid freezer burn.
In my YUGE prep stuff stores on the basement shelves, I’ve eaten soup, which supposedly “expired” in 1998; it was delicious. That “use by” date’s bullcrap, if the can isn’t dented or creased, or bulging. Throw those away. I don’t buy dented/creased canned goods, no matter what the sale price. And I do rotate older things out every few months.
I am one Coke into my last refrigerator twelve pack. I have the making for umpteen gallons of tea. My wife has a huge amount of her flavored sparkling waters.
That’s a lot of dehydrating if you did it all yourself!
Had to eat pommes frites with straight mayo while in Germany. Got used to it.
LOL!!!
Soon as we move the prepping is kicking into high gear.
I did and it was!
My dehydrator has 9 trays.
I think it took me about 3 - 4 days (while still doing other things :) to get most of it done.
Amazing how much it all shrinks down....everything fit into a case of qt jars +/-.
Wrapping stuff in foil helps prevent freezer burn very well.
I wrap it in plastic wrap first and then in foil.
I need to look into dehydrating.
It doesn’t seem to me that it reconstitutes to the quality of fresh as it started, but if it keeps and you are hungry enough, it’ll work.
Yeah....a can see where a move would tend to put a damper on prepping.
Trying to sort, throw out, space, etc.
You’ll have time, afterwards, to catch back up and resupply!
What did you dehydrate as far as veggies?
That’s my thought.
I mostly use for soups and casseroles.
I’m dehydrating about two bunches/6 trays of bananas, right now, that our DD dropped off. I think they messed up and doubled her delivery order...lol.
I dehydrated broccoli, cauliflower, peas and carrots, and carrots. All frozen, that I’d bought on sale. The frozen stuff is ready to go (no blanching necessary.)
They had the HUGE bags on sale, at our local grocery, back in January.
Once I got those dehydrated, that opened up a lot of space in our bigger freezer.
Lots of fruit and veggies - apples, bananas, kiwi, carrots, onions. The fruit is great eating small amounts without reconstituting. We’ll use the veggies for stews and fruit to make bread.
I knew it was only a matter of two weeks or so until the supply lines caught up.
In fact, our Costco was fully stocked this morning and NO gas lines and got gas at 1.99 per gallon !!
Since the Chicom cootie hit, we didn’t go without anything...And no, were not preppers nor panic hoarders.
We keep a few supplies on hand, but that it!
I haven’t broken into the MRE’s yet.
= = =
Mine are for the Y2K catastrophe.
Hmmmm. Are we now in the Y2K2X catastrophe?
Hope they aged, like fine wine.
My MREs are from Hurricane Harvey, so they should be good to go. Don’t really need them, yet. We are not Preppers per se but just keep stuff on hand as part of our normal lifestyle. Good on most food stuff and TP/PT. As I have posted on other threads I am out of yeast for baking (none in stores my last 2 trips in over 10 days plus) cooking stuff that takes time/prep is what I have been doing to kill some “shelter in place” time.
All my cans have big expiration dates written on them in sharpie marker. All my frozen meat has the package date in large sharpie letters and is eaten oldest first. It’s simple and it works.
I also have separate storage to experiment with going beyond shelf life. Most cans are fine a decade or more after their expiration date. I had one sauerkraut, one tomato sauce, and several canned fish go very obviously bad anywhere from two years after expiration for the fish to 5-6 years for the acidic sauerkraut and tomato cans, but no other problems even eight years after the label date.
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