Biweekly-ish Prepping Thread

I was going to do a monthly prepping thread but after looking through my external hard drive and thinking about how things are going in the nation and world, I figured time's a wastin' so I'm going to try and do them a little more often, maybe biweekly. I'm going to make some downloads available that come from that external hard drive as we go. I think a good place to start is with nw_arizona_granny's content that I copied from another forum where I knew her as AZ Granny. It has to be the same person because the chances of two different Grannies in AZ, both having a huge wealth of prepper knowledge and being prolific forum posters with that similar of a forum name is pretty slim.

AZ Granny's thread on that other forum was a thread with a series of posts and somewhere in the middle, comments from other people started rolling in. I went through dozens and dozens of pages and extracted only her info. I then organized it by subject a little better and created 75 html files with the first one being an index and the other 74 having a link back to the index at the top of each. That makes it very quick to go through and find what you need and then jump back to the index. All the html files are in a single folder and must stay that way for the links to work properly. A link to the index and a link to the zipped folder with all html files are below.

Simply download the zip file and unzip it wherever you want on your computer. That will leave you with a folder called AZ_Granny that has all 75 html files in it. The index is stor01.html just like the link above. Open that in a web browser and you'll be able to navigate through all 75 of them. stor02.html through stor75.html all have a link at the top of the page named HOME that takes you back to stor01.html

If you're into prepping and want to have the above and other resources available when there's no electricity, I recommend getting a monochrome laser jet printer. For around $100 you can get one and it will come with enough starter toner to print 1-2,000 pages. The cost after that for toner will be 2-3 cents per page compared to 30-40 cents for ink jet. Even if you refill your inkjet cartridges, it won't be as cheap as 2-3 cents per page. If you already have an inkjet with a black cartridge that you already refill, it might be cheaper than buying another printer, depending on how many pages you want to print. Get a three hole punch and some three hole binders or three ring folder binders. Print punch and assemble.

This is what I use and it's possible that the front and back covers used to be attached with expandable folds but I needed more thickness than that allowed for our cookbook. I like these because pages are less apt to get ripped out then a regular three ring binder and they also take up less room and are even thickness and no thicker than needed.

Just looked at the rainwater harvesting pdf files I have(which the above Water_Collection.zip was made from) and Hawaii is not one of them. I know I had it at one time. Here's a link to it. Seems I recall Hawaii's version being more thorough then others, However, the TX version is 84 pages while HI is 52 so who knows.

https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/hawaiirain/Library/Guides&Manuals/HI_Guidelines_2010.pdf

Near the beginning, it says that 30-60,000 people in Hawaii rely on rainwater so that might be where I got the idea that they all used it. It's been well over ten years since I collected my prepper files. While looking for the above guide, I also ran across a four page pdf on four rainwater harvesting systems run but the State. Maybe I read about that back in the day too. It's probably just not practical to get well drilling equipment to the smaller islands.https://health.hawaii.gov/sdwb/files/2019/07/GUIDELINES-FOR-REGULATED-RAIN-CATCHMENT-SYSTEMS-IN-HAWAII.pdf

Keep in mind that rainwater is much like distilled water in that it has no minerals so you'll need a supplemental source of minerals. Vitamins and tree nuts are the two I can think of off the top of my head.

One thing that hasn't been addresses is areas with little rain or very seasonal rain like the SW USA. I've got a folder called 'reuse' in my 'water' folder but there's only one 3 page pdf file, Laundry to Landscape and there's plenty of info to be found on the web for that; https://search.brave.com/search?q=Laundry+to+Landscape

All grey water can be reused for certain things but you don't want the chemicals in soaps building up in your veggie garden soils. Of course your first water need will be for drinking and if you have no water to drink, you won't be worrying about laundry or even bathing. As per AZ Granny, a gallon per day per person is needed just for survival which would be 16, 8oz servings. I'm sure a person could and many people have done with less but the gallon might also cover any food that needs water added.

If you wanted to store a year's supply, 6 - 55 gallon drums would be 330 gallons and IBC Totes come in sizes based on 55 gallons with 220, 275 and 330 gallon sizes being common.

Both plastic 55 gal drums and IBC totes can be purchased used most anywhere in the country but you'll need to make sure they contained food based products and not chemical. Some food based products are highly concentrated food grade chemicals and flavorings. I can get some IBC totes nearby right now that had Soy Lecithin in them. I once had some 55 gallon drums that had mocha flavoring and even after washing out with soap, they smelled like mocha/cocoa/coffee for a long time.

For free/cheap 1 gallon containers, these are the best.

I also drilled small holes in the Hawaiian Punch lids and used them for rinse bottles. It's amazing how many times those bottles can be squeezed without cracking. Unlike high density polyethylene that most 1 gal drinking water comes in, the PET holds up to UV rays and flexing very well and screw on lids are better than snap on. I've had them last for several years and always keep some on hand. When we lived off grid, this is what we used to tote water up from the creek and with the handles, four of them are easy to grip. I made it even easier by carving a slot at each end of some 1"x6" hunks of a branch so that I had a nice grip handle with a gallon hanging from each end. My wife and I would each carry four and the kids would each carry two which made it 10 gallons per trip. When laundry day was coming up, we'd make multiple trips but after doing laundry by hand a few times, the quaintness wore off so we started going to the laundry mat. I'd say laundry by hand was the most miserable job we ever did off grid and the clothes never really did get clean. I saw an article once about how the Seabees made wind powered clothes washers out of mostly wood. We've got a wringer washer now which I'm sure I could rig up to be wind powered. Not much wind in July/Aug when you could use it the most of course.

I've never lived or had a desire to live where there isn't water easily available. I grew up with a little spring nearby and then spent 25 years in Ctrl FL where you could drive a well by hand and put a hand pump on it because the water table is so high and then we moved to the rural Ozarks where we're surrounded by springs and also get 40 inches of rain a year.

That’s amazing that they’ve lasted nine months! The butternut squash I grew which was 9 hybrid only lasted until about April in the basement. After that they started softening up. The basement was also getting warmer about that time.

What temperature is your basement at? At the old house and now at the new house is never a constant number. At the old house some of the air conditioning and heating leaked into the basement oh, so summer was actually quite to cool down there. And the new house it’s the opposite, there’s no venting down there but we do have a garage door that lets in a lot of heat.

I thought about digging a dairy. That’s what they call the cave structures that people in the past dug and they would put a little door on them. They’re all over the place and so cute. That’s where they would store their butter and milk and eggs. And produce apparently. The terrain of the new house is all hills. So there’s plenty of spots to dig a dairy at least. Even though it’s a pain trying to walk around.

I planted some black Arkansas apple trees at the old house, I want to put some more in here as well. Along with their pollinators. I never got to have one of the apples but they should be producing this year for the new owners. They don’t taste that great off the tree, I’ve read, but they store a long long time. And they get sweeter the longer they store. And they have a dark-skinned. Something about all that appeals to me.

So the same kind of idea as your squash. We should make a list of the long keeping produce, the good prepping garden plants.

Where did you get your seeds for your squash?

I have no idea what temperature the basement is here. I know that walking up the stairs it feels like there’s a wall of heat, so probably in the 60-ish range, possibly upper 50’s?

The “Bigger Better Butternut” was given to me by someone on the Permies.com forum. The variety was originally developed by Carol Deppe, but she introduced it at about the same time she stopped filling orders! The only people who were able to get hold of the seeds were the few who had managed to buy them during an in-person appearance at a gardening conference. Fortunately, one of them had a big enough crop that she was willing to share the seeds. Last year was the first year I grew them, and I’ve been impressed. They produced well under less-than-ideal conditions, keep well without special treatment, and the flavor is excellent.

“Great Lakes Shark Fin” is actually sold by greatlakesstapleseeds.com under the name “Pastella”, but since “Pastella” is really just the generic name for C. ficifolia, also known as “Shark Fin Squash”, I decided to give it a more specific variety name. Shark Fin Squash are hard to find in the US, and then last year I suddenly found two sources at the same time. I ordered seeds from both, but when the seeds arrived it was obvious that they were different enough that they needed to be treated as different varieties. The ones from the other source died shortly after sprouting, while the ones from Great Lakes were strong and vigorous, so that was the variety I decided to keep as a regular.

Shark Fin squash are unlike any squash I’ve ever encountered before. The fruits are as un-squash-like as they could get. From the outside, they actually look more like watermelons. If you take a ripe one and try to slice it open, you’ll encounter the first unexpected trait: those shells are like freaking granite! And they do NOT soften after cooking, in fact I’m pretty sure they get harder. (I suspect the shell could be used as a cooking vessel if you needed one, and would hold up better than gourd vessels do.) If you only eat one once in a great while, you can use a wood saw to get through, the shell is less than 1/4 inch thick. If you decide to grow a lot, you may want to invest in a stainless steel bone saw, the kind used by surgeons. You can get those on Amazon for fairly cheap.

They can also be used as a summer squash, and are easier to cut open then, but won’t have as long a shelf life.

After cutting it open, you’ll see the second odd trait. There is no hollow seed cavity inside. Instead, the seeds are interspersed with the meat, which runs solidly through the whole fruit, and looks a lot like a white-fleshed watermelon.

When you scoop some of that flesh out, you’ll find it falls naturally into strings, much like a spaghetti squash does. If cooked, those strands supposedly look and taste like shredded shark fin in a shark fin soup. (Hence, the name.) Personally, I’ve never eaten an actual shark’s fin, so I have no frame of reference for it. I think the cooked squash looks like rice noodles. The texture is firmer than rice noodles, and the taste tends to reflect how it was prepared, so it goes well in a lot of recipes. My Mom likes using this squash in her omelets every morning.

If you decide to try this squash raw instead of cooked, you’ll find it mildly sweet, with a pleasant crunch. Again, like it’s trying to be a watermelon but didn’t know how.

I’m told the seeds from a shark fin squash can be ground up and used in their own recipes, but I have no experience or recipes to share for that.

The one downside I’ve noticed with growing shark fin is that it can be day-length sensitive. If you have other squash that were planted at the same time that are flowering, but this one isn’t, there are ways to encourage it to bloom. The easiest is to take a single leaf per plant, and bend the leafstalk just enough to bruise it. This signals the plant that it might be in danger, and kicks the flowering process into gear.
(I’m hoping to test this on other day-length sensitive species, but that research is on the “some day” list.)

“Calabasas de las Aguas” is a C. mixta squash, from Native Seeds Search. This one was not labelled as being a good keeper, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it holds up as well as the others. It’s not as sweet as most squash I grow, but it’s not as bland as the other C. mixtas I’ve tried.

Be aware that this one is a climber. I have photos of it taking over a bean trellis. It also has been a shy seed-producer, at least for me. Of the fruits I’ve cut open, one had no seeds, and 2 only had one seed each! Yet the fruits were full-sized and nicely round, which means there’s a chance this one can fruit without pollination. More testing needed in that regard.

This one has historical value. It was originally developed by the Tarahumara tribe in what is now Mexico. The name comes from the fact that planting was timed to coincide with the rainy season.

There was another Carol Deppe variety I grew that might have kept just as long, but I only had a few fruits of that kind, and I wanted to get at the seeds. That was the “Sweet Meat - Oregon Homestead” variety. Ms. Deppe had noticed that the “Sweet Meat” squash that’s widely available was nothing at all like it had been when she was a child, so she set out to reclaim the variety she remembered. The “Sweet Meat-OH” had the thickest walls I have ever seen on a squash before. One squash the size of a basketball, had a seed cavity the size of a golf ball! This makes it harder to produce large quantities of seed, but easier to produce large quantities of food.

This turned out way longer than I thought it would be! I’d better stop here.

Thanks for the ping Pollard. Took some time off from FR yesterday, so I’m just now getting back to this thread.

Air and Water - we can survive about 3 weeks without food. But air and water- 3 minutes and 3 days.

When my dad was on oxygen 24/7/365 and living with me, we had a storm one August day and were without electricity for 2 weeks. We had back up oxygen tanks that would only last for about 2 days. The ER room and health clinics were soon full of people who needed oxygen and tanks ran out.

Fortunately, we had portable generators for hubby’s business that he rigged up to keep the O2 compressor going. Running heavy duty extension cords, we also kept the refrigerator, freezers, tv, and a window air conditioner going for him.

My TV room is in the basement, and I was fine with my battery operated fan. We also have a solar generator, but it actually is pretty good for electronics - wouldn’t last long for a O2 compressor.

And anyone who lives in an area likely to suffer from fires, likely needs some sort of filter to wear to improve the air quality.

My next post, I’ll have some thoughts on water.

The airtight container is important. I had my calcium hypochlorite in the original container, inside a plastic container stored in the basement. Was checking on it every six months.

One day, I went to check on it, and somehow it had absorbed water from the air - it was like damp sand - and even though it was still in the container, some nearby metal was massively rusted.

Also, the pool shock often has other chemicals, so check the label to make sure the only active ingredient is the Calcium hypochlorite. For planning, there’s a base to make-1/8 tsp to 1 pint of water will purify 12.5 gallons of water.

We are on a well, and we always keep between 30-45 gallons of water in the containers similar to the primo water containers you get from Walmart. When electricity goes out, the well pump won’t work.

Hubby assures me that he can quickly wire up the generator to run the well pump. But I can’t do that, so I want something else - preferably a permanent standby generator.

And I’d also like the option to be able to manually pump it. They also make “rocket” buckets that are narrow enough to use along side the existing mechanisms.

In the meantime, we have an above ground pool collecting water from the roof to use on the garden. That is going to be replaced with a commercial Cistern of 1500 gallons.

Filtering is also a good thing to be able to do.

We have a lot of extra coffee filters for the big stuff. And a Big Berkey with filters that also filter out radiation. And we have extra filters to last 4 people for 3 years(or our extended family for 1 year).

We have 2 portable Seychelle Filter bottles with the advanced filter to take care of the nasties and radiation. Extra filters there also to take care of 300 gallons each. In case we aren’t at home or have to evacuate.

In addition to boiling, Glass containers placed in the sun for 6 hrs.(put some foil underneath) will sanitize.

Make sure the water heater is lashed to the wall, and you have a way to turn on the valve and use the water if you need it to drink or cook.

There are Bath Tub bobs that are designed to allow your bath tub to be a holding tank (in case you know beforehand and can fill them up). We would just use 5 gallon buckets with lids.

We also have Potable Aqua Chlorine Dioxide water purification tablets for our backpack/camping/bug out bags.

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Biweekly Prepper Thread #1