2019 Personal Preps

[Watchman]

The time to prepare is now.

[Watchman]

We keep a Big Berkey and bottle our own water from the municipal supply. We use glass, reusable bottles. We also keep 25 cases of bottled water for SHTF situations. Once a year we consume the bottled water and rotate it with 25 new cases. Today we absolutely hit the jackpot at our local Smith's store. We've been buying 24-bottle cases for [roughly] four cases for $12. Today they were on sale at $1.99 a case - but wait! These were 32-bottle cases. We wiped out their floor display and were short a case to make 25. They gave us two 24-bottle cases for $1.99 - not each, but for both. We got 5 32-bottle cases of water for what we normally would have paid for 4 24-bottle cases. Thank you Jesus!

[Watchman]

FALL RITUAL: Drained and wound hoses; cut a load of flat wood for good fire startng; de-gassed lawnmower; gassed, oiled and ran snowblower (just in case).

Had to buy a new wood stove insert. The other was so old that parts were no longer available. This is the one we bought.....

[Toepopper]

Nice looking stove. We have had a fire going since Sept 5th., a full month earlier than usual.

[Watchman]

Bought and paid for but I cannot tell a lie. It won't be installed until November 7th. The contractor is that booked up. This one is going to require some major improvements to our chimney but they told me it still could be done in a couple of hours. Stainless steel liner for one. Since this is on subject, my neighbor is an oilfield worker and his boss let him take a BIG load of 2x4 and 2x8 UNTREATED wood. He used some to rebuild his front porch. He gave the rest to us and we cut it up for starter wood. I have a full refrigerator box of kindling and shred about two bags of paper a week. We already had three cords of pine from last fall so we're set. I cut the flatwood up into 12 and 16-inch pieces and have been having fun with a hatchet splitting it into smaller pieces. Did I mention that the flatwood is fir, not pine.

[Watchman]

Installed Thursday without a hitch. Boy, did we ever get what we paid for! The stove is a Blaze King Princess. A new stainless steel 18-ft flue for the chimney and a "sealed system" stove with a catalytic converter. In actuality very little is released into the air because of the converter. It is even able to burn up any accumulated soot instead of it going outside. The installer did disappoint me on one small thing. Over the years we had been shredding financial and personal records and using the shred to start fires in the stove. He said because this is a sealed system that colored paper or even the tiniest piece of a window envelope is very bad in that gum will eventually build up and could [possibly] create a problem. He said that after we became proficient in it's operation we could put about 40 pounds of wood in it in the morning and it would last well into the evening. The door is vacuum sealed. When I close it I have to force the handle between two very tight fork tines that create the vacuum. I'd like to say the stove is American-made but it is made in Canada with American HQ in Walla Walla.

We're taking baby steps with a test drive this afternoon.



P.S. The contractor told me that he is booked up with one installation or another all the way up to January 21st, 2020. He does one a day.

[Toepopper]

Blaze King makes one of the best stoves out there. Mine will slow burn for 4 days and still have glowing coals to restart new wood. Last spring I ran out of firewood but this year I have stock piled 9 full cords to make sure we have enough. Still working 2 hours a day on cutting and splitting more madrone during this nice weather. You can never have too much firewood.

[Watchman]

You know, wifey and I have not been faithful to shopping at one of the best prepper stores around - Dollar Tree. Yesterday we 'dropped in' and came home with $75 worth of 'Joseph's Storehouse' items at a dollar each: 12 cans of lobster bisque condensed soup, 6 cans of sweetened condensed milk (normally $3 each at Smith's), 8-oz bags of coffee, 6 bags (6-oz) Puerto Rican espresso coffee, and the biggest bargain of the day, 6 jars of Mrs. Smith's mayonnaise (15-oz jars). One 30-oz jar of mayo in a grocery store runs $3 or more. I am a mayo addict and I immediately opened one jar to see how it compared. GREAT! Assorted dry onionsoup, BBQ sauce, Heinz tabasco catsup, and lots of cleaning products.