2015 Personal Preps

[Watchman]

Is anyone still taking preparedness seriously? I think it is more important than ever and you shall see!

We have been concentrating on pantry, heat, and defense. The defense I will keep close to my chest and we have enough wood for two to three seasons, including kindling. Kindling has become my wife's personal quest. When we trim a bush, a tree, or find scrap wood, it ends up in our kindling boxes.

Our pantry upgrade, maintenance has been oriented towards: protein, carbohydrates, and fats. We have been picking up tons of extra-virgin olive oil and plan to supplement that with animal fat - a limited numbers of cans of animal fat shortening and lard. We save every single drop of bacon fat for short-term use. We have been testing and evaluating olive oil that is over three years old and have been unable to notice any change in flavor. Maybe we have perfect storage conditions but have not lost a drop. Since here in the dry mountain west we do not have a lot of edible wild greens we have to buy canned items - assorted (important dark leaf vegetables for vitamin A and iron): turnip greens, spinach, mustard greens, collard greens. We have home-canned just about 60 quarts of yukon gold potatoes, a like number of "survival soup" which contains carbs, protein and fat; chicken, antelope, deer, and beef. Stores of carbs (for energy) - tons of beans, both dried and canned, which are good sources of protein. PEANUT BUTTER. Homemade jams, jellies. College students will love this - more Ramen noodles than we can shake a stick at. Pasta coming out our ears - we are using pasta that is ten years old with no appreciable difference - no bugs either. Bay leaves work!

One day we were delivering a load of food to a food bank and the manager gave us roughly ten cases of powdered milk and ten cases of grapefruit juice - nobody wanted it.

It is time to get your stores in place people!

[Watchman]

Thanks to my son's keen eye we scored big on 20-lb propane bottles for our outdoor stove. I always wanted to have a couple extra on hand and a nearby Western States Natural Gas was filling bottles for $5 each.

[Watchman]

We've finished the protein and carbohydrate parts of our Joseph's Storehouse food triage. We're working on part three, fats, by getting all the olive oil we can find and afford. Remember my comment earlier this year about olive trees dying? Another alternative for fats that we haven't explored yet are dehydrated butter. Anybody have any experience with that? We have a couple of cases of real canned butter on hand. Our food program is virtually completed and we are moving on to medical next.

[knobster]

My group is concentrating on food prep (garden harvest underway) and acquiring more arms/ammo.

We are definitely going full-bore on preps with all the events that seem to be pointing to September. I'm the reloader/gunsmith/caster of the group so my time/resources are going towards ensuring the group is fully armed and ammoed. Another family has a huge garden and is canning and preserving like crazy. Two of us hunt so this fall we'll be adding plenty of venison to the larder.

[Watchman]

We fine-tuned our storehouse yesterday. Our local Smith's had a case-lot sale. Added a case of tuna, 2 cases of peanut butter, and a case of pinto beans. Some of the remaining items on our provisions list for food are: 5-gallon pail of honey, more olive oil, canning lids and rings, extra set of Berkey black filters, Life Straws. Its getting there fast. We decided that our prepping supplies are top priority now and to blazes with everything else. There won't be a second chance.

[side_job]

I'm proud to report a prep of sorts that I have been working quite hard at over the past year. In this past year, we have been able to pay off $30K worth of debt on our path to debt freedom. This really hit me one day, holding a ton of debt is no different than those that were indentured servants of old. Biggest difference between then and now is those people realized their position where we can be fooled into thinking we are free. We still have a ways to go, but we are on the path!
In other preps, I ordered a 'tri-fuel' carb kit for our generator, and plan to put a natural gas tap out at the generator tie in place so I can run on gasoline, propane, or natural gas. I also plan to add a vent-less 3 brick in our hall that will add supplemental heat to one end of the house, while the wood stove is on the other. I estimate 2 years wood in reserve, but kindling is needed. I will focus on that this fall.

[knobster]

Awesome news side_job. Being debt free is such a weight off the shoulders. My family only has a mortgage. No car loans, no college loans, credit card paid off each month, etc. It's a great feeling.

[Watchman]

side_job, knobster - congratulations. Wish I had begun thinking of debt 15 years ago. Debt is, indeed, a basic pillar of preparedness that is often overlooked. Think of it, you can't fulfill the other tenets if debt is choking your life. Debt is a manufactured condition, easily and heartily pushed by "those who hold the gold". Debt keeps us in perpetual slavery and that is just what "el govierno" wants. It is why they hate, absolutely hate, self-reliant people.

[knobster]

Yes indeed Watchman. Fed.gov can't control self-reliant people.

Back to thread: hit the forest at the 'stead and helped a buddy put up a deer stand (Will double as a watchtower eventually). Discussed plans to bury hard lines between the house and a couple of watchtowers for comms. Might be a tad challenging - may end up stringing it in the trees instead.

[Watchman]

Am finishing up our winter wood supply. Wife has put together 3 large boxes of kindling, have a super large couple of bags of shred to start the fire. There is snow on the Wind River range peaks so I estimate we will see it in about a month.

Next to the house.

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Under the garage overhang. You can't see it but there are three rows pied about head-high.

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Our emergency-supply-when-all-else-is-gone-and-have-to-split-wood-in-the dead-of-winter wood.

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In another corner of the property we have a chest-high pile of cut up pallets.

[acet7]

WINTER PREPS: Well it really doesn't that cold down here in FL. But whenever cvs or walgreens has a sale on those canned 1lb hams I buy two at a time, the cheapest I have scored was $1.75 each with coupon. My wife keeps telling me to stop buying them says we have too many, but they have an exp date of close to three years out. I have picked up two ham radios as well (can't eat them lol) Baofeng UV-5R got them for $21.50 each. I will be going to a local ham radio club next week and see if we are a fit and to learn how to use the radio and pass the test. I need to get more olive oil as well as its getting more pricier. I was blessed to be gifted lots of ammo from someone who lost their husband a few years back and had no use for it. I offered to buy it from her but she said that I have helped her over the years and she didn't want payment for it. I did buy a new katadyn combi water filter this year as my sweetwater filter was getting old. I did start experimenting this year with canning and tried out pickles, they turned out good. Now I need to start canning other stuff as well.

[knobster]

WINTER PREPS: The main thing I do when ol' man winter rolls around is to change what's in the trunk of my car. I'll add some boots, blankets, candles, gloves, etc. Basically stop and ask yourself, "If the car breaks down ten miles from home and it's -20 outside, how will I get home?"

Obviously if there is a raging blizzard then stay put, if it's dry but cold, I want to get home. I remember coming home one day after a heavy snowfall - my car got stuck as some of the back roads had not yet been plowed. I had to trudge home about 1/2 a mile in knee-deep snow in my office clothes (khakis, dress shirt, black shoes). It was m-I-s-e-r-a-b-l-e. Soaked to the bone from my waist down and it took me hours to finally warm up again. Lesson learned.

[Toepopper]

As always, my main winter prep consists of cutting and splitting firewood and this takes the brunt of my time and labor. This year I am going to try to get enough wood ready for next winter (2016-17) also and keep a year ahead stock piled to dry out and have ready to burn. My garden is just about done, picked the last pears yesterday and have apples and carrots left to pick. Dug out the snow chains and placed in my P.U. truck and checked the anti freeze in the radiator. The mass shooting at UCC yesterday sort of put a slowdown on my labor as this college is 42 miles north of my home and I was listening to scanner talk to find out what was happening, instead of splitting wood. No place is safe anymore.

[Watchman]

Our wood is done for the year. A friend of ours downed two trees last year and is keeping the wood for yours truly. By the time I get to cut and split it will be nice and dry.

On another related subject, now that I have finally learned how to use Microsoft Excel, we started on a project to inventory all our supplies. It is also a chance to check everything to make sure it is good. I wanted to put mostly basic items with not too much detail; got overruled - wife told me if it is worth doing, it is worth doing right. So each day that we work on it I then input it into our provisions inventory and sort it alphabetically. Sexy!

[side_job]

Today I worked on cleaning out gutters, got the front of the house done. I also changed the oil and filter in my truck and daughters car. I cleaned the battery terminals on both vehicles and checked antifreeze. basically a pre-winter checkup. I will be going through the trunck back packs tomorrow and refreshing the supplies in each vehicle. My son and I got the chimney swept and the wood stove is ready for a fire.

Quick note from a lesson learned today. On my truck I had a terrible time getting the oil filter off. I had a cheap china strap wrench that broke on me and even tried to use a screw driver and hammer. Finally I went to the local ranch supply and got a filter removal tool that looks like this. Worked like a champ!

news_facom_oil_filter_wrench.jpg

[Watchman]

Frio.jpg

INSULIN FRIO BAG. Keeps insulin cool without refrigeration. I just ordered this for our provisions. This one will hold 8 vials of insulin, is reusable and activated by pouring cool water on it.

[Watchman]

We're finishing up doing a pantry re-set - long overdue by about three years. It meant taking everything off the shelves and checking for any signs of spoilage. We've also been doing a complete inventory which I am putting onto an Excel spreadsheet. We'll be done in a few days but heres what we have found so far. 1 dead mouse in a sticky trap. We had 15 home-canned jars lose their seals for whatever reason. I can tell you this, that only four of them were ours and of all things, three pickles and one survival soup. The rest were apple butter given to us some years ago. In store-bought foods we had roughly ten cans, of which 6 of them were (again, of all things) bean sprouts. Two were apple juice and two wax beans. All these items began leaking at the seams on the side of the can, except one leaked from the bottom seal. Three of the home-canned items we lost were canned in a hot water bath and only one from a pressure cooker. The other items (apple butter given to us by some friends) were probably done in a steam canner, which recently has been labeled as not as safe as a boiling water bath canner.

We've pretty much decided to do this every year and not wait so long next time.

[Toepopper]

Do you know how long those store bought cans were sitting on the shelf? I have never seen a can start leaking like that, even canned tomato's which are acidic and have been known to eat the cans. Were these canned goods possibly from sheena?

[Watchman]

You know, I didn't think to look but bean sprouts are a typical import from china. They were on the shelf, maybe, six years. I normally do not pay any attention to dates but use my senses - eyes and nose - and I have been right 100% of the time. I throw them away if I am warned by the can and it's contents.

[Watchman]

We've completed our re-set of our pantry and I hope our experiences can help you about what NOT to store. Lost items were (total) about 25 cans or home-canned items. Almost all of them were confined to:

*carrots
*bean sprouts (China)
*citrus (grapefruit sections)
*tropical fruit cocktail (mixture)(China)

Although we don't throw them away, a lot of tomato products swelled up a bit but not leaked. In all likelihood the acid in the tomatoes caused this. We have used these items in cooked dishes with absolutely no ill effects. Please be advised I am not telling you they are safe for YOU to use; I'm just saying that we have never (20+ years) had any ill-effects.

Regarding severely bent cans. Never have we had an problems with these, although I would not buy them in a store unless they were very minor. When we're stocking shelves we put the bent cans in the front to use them first.

I know what I'm about to say does not guarantee safety of food but if we are faced with a choice of US grown vegetables and fruit (even though China may be cheaper) we buy the US-grown. All these efforts by America-firsters is beginning to pay off. Walmart had a 27% drop in income last quarter. Ain't life great? Farmers markets are booming too.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to buy American-made goods every time but here is my strategy:

*Buy locally-produced things (city, county, state, region, in that order). You're helping your neighbor stay solvent.

*Buy American whenever given a choice.

*Buy Canadian third.

*Buy Mexican fourth (because it keeps them south of the border).

*All others next but as a last resort.

[Watchman]

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Pantry project 2015 is done ---- finally. Here are a couple of photos taken when we checked the last items. I cannot overemphasize doing this periodically. We found a few bad items that could have spread.

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[acet7]

^^ very impressive food stockpile. I liked that you had so much home canning as well.

[Watchman]

Mi amor and I have tried very hard to keep our stockpile fresh and rotated and oriented toward the big four - protein, carbohydrates, fats (only EV olive oil) and vitamin-rich greens and fruit. About every two to three months we take all the leftovers in the freezer and make survival soup, which we home-can.

[Watchman]

SCORE OF THE DAY

In keeping with our policy of never getting low on fats (one of the big three) we consider ourselves somewhat of experts on the subject of olive oil use and also as a healthy item. We lived in Italy for five years and know olive oil. We have ideal storage conditions, dark and cool, 365 days a year. We ONLY use olive oil, peanut oil and bacon grease. Our supply of bacon grease is always minimal - except when we cook bacon. So we resort to the other two for 99% of our cooking. Peanut oil we get in a 5-gallon jug at Sam's Club and as far as extra-virgin olive oil, we wait for it to go on sale and then stock up. We have successfully used olive oil that is five years old with NO aftertaste or smell.

Today in our local Smith's (Kroger's) my wife spied 34-oz bottles of imported Italian extra-virgin olive oil marked down to $8.09 per bottle. It wasn't our intention to go shopping today but she went in to buy rolls and spied the olive oil. It normally sells for about $18.00 a bottle. She wheeled the cart up and filled it with 10 bottles and POd another woman who had intended to buy more. We saved about $80.00 and topped off our fat supply part of the triage. By the way we use the olive oil for cooking and salads but do not use it for deep-frying. Thats the job of the peanut oil.

Oh, we do keep four or five jugs of regular olive oil also.

P.S. We also use pure, creamery butter. We have plenty in the freezer but also have two cases of canned New Zealand butter. By the way, according to home canning lore, you CAN home-can butter!

[knobster]

Group has been hitting the food preps hard: we purchased half a pig from a fellow prepper and ally. We also rendered a lot of the fat and now have quite a few jars of lard stocked.

This coming deer season (first week in December) will hopefully see plenty of venison coming our way. My buddy and I hope to take at least three deer. We have stocked up on all the items needed to make sausages and sticks.

We were also hoping to improve the deer stands (add a roof) this week but the rain is keeping us away and snow is supposed to hit this Friday. We may be stuck in the elements again this year...