The Preparedness Articles Category
Teotwawki fishing gear
The past 2 days have been spent working on my truck, and working on some jug lines for an upcoming camping trip. When I started thinking about how much time and effort I put into getting the juglines ready, I was a little set back.
After talking to my wife, I probably put 6 – 8 hours into redoing, and working on the juglines. The lines had not been used since June 2011. I changed the lines out, added some PVC pipe to the noodles and replaced the J-hooks with circle hooks. When I started cutting the PVC pipe, I was using a hacksaw. After cutting a few pipe, I dug the skilsaw out and started using the saw instead of the hacksaw.
For the sake of discussion lets say this happened after a SHTF / teotwawki event. I would have had to use a hacksaw to cut the PVC pipe. But then again, its doubtful I would have had any PVC laying around. To make the noodles for this weekend I used some 3/4 inch PVC I had in the shed.
Without PVC pipe I would have threaded the line through the middle of the noodle.
Related forum thread – Fishing With Juglines
Organizing preparedness plans
Your SHTF survival plans can be organized in a couple of ways. The plans can be written down on pieces of paper, tossed into a hat and drawn at random. The plans could be ideas jotted down in a notebook or a blog. Or the plans could be well organized. Once the plans are organized, then what? Do you just look over the plans and say “yep, that looks good to me”? Personally, I do not think that is good enough.
Lets take stockpiling ammunition for SHTF for example. I do not think its enough to buy ammunition at random. You buy a box here, buy a box there, after awhile you know you have ammo, but how much “exactly” do you have? The same thing can be said about soap, soap dispensers, first aid supplies, spare blankets,,,, and so on.
When you are looking at your food shelves, and the racks are in plain view, it should be easy to tell what can goods you are short on and which ones you need to buy. When I look at my shelving units, I can tell right off the bat when a can of ravioli has been taken, or when my wife and I need to buy some more beans or corn.
The problem lies in things that are rarely seen, such as ammo kept in an ammo cans – out of sight, out of mind.
For the stuff that stays out of sight, its important to pull the stuff out and take a look every once in awhile. A couple of months ago I pulled out my ammo cans and took inventory:
223, check
7.62×39, check
30-30, check
308, check
#4 shot 12 gauge for small game, well I needed some more of it so I picked up a couple of boxes a few days later.
22 long rifle, well crap, why do I have so little 22 long rifle?
For non-survivalist, having a couple of boxes of 22 long rifle might be ok. But for people that are planning for a long term SHTF survival situation, the more the merrier.
Doom and gloom in the survival community
Why are so many people in the survivalist community obsessed with doom and gloom?
Awhile back I posted a question to the SurvivalistBoards facebook page about the occupy wall street movement, some of the first replies were about violence.
The question was not about survivalist having to use any kind of lethal force to defend their families and homes. All that was asked was if people were ready for some kind of civil unrest. From there the topic instantly turned to violence.
I have never understood “why” a lot of people in the survivalist community dwell on lethal force and the use of violence? Maybe they think life is like an action movie, and they are missing out on their starring roll. Maybe they want to be some kind of hero?
Life during a disaster is nothing like what you see in the movies. From my experience, the good comes out in the majority of the people. There are those that will try to steal and take advantage of others, but its not like what happens in the movies.
When Hurricane Ike was passing through, I filmed footage with a couple of cameras. The footage was later combined into a video.
Stockpiling Ammo at the Bug Out Location
This past weekend I decided it was time to organize the ammunition at the Bug Out Location. We had ammo stored in 3,,, 4 different locations, which made taking inventory a pain in the rear end.
My wife cleared off a wire shelf so I could bring it to the camp and organize the ammo stockpile. The idea was to get all of the ammo together, see what we have and go from there.
Ammunition at the Bug Out Location is your “oh crap, the S has seriously HTF.” If you have to rely on the ammunition stockpile that you BOL, something really bad has happened – you and your family have had to leave your home, friends and family are probably knocking on your door asking for help,,, things have gone from bad to worse.
Because I look at BOL ammo as a last resort, I only stockpile what I normally shoot in my rifles. This is ammunition that has been tried, tested and proven to work in my rifle and on the game animals in my area. Why use a certain type of ammunition during hunting season, and stockpile a different type of ammo at the Bug Out Location? While this applies to hunting ammo, I look at defensive ammo in a different light.
As for defensive ammo, I stockpile one type, and its something that preforms well in my rifles. The goal of defensive ammo is to poke holes in the target.
Stockpiling food for SHTF and teotwawki
While browsing the forum this morning, I came across a thread about stockpiling food. After looking through the thread, and after installing some new can rotation systems, I started thinking about some off the issues with keeping our food stocks rotated.
My opinion, one of the biggest issues facing preppers and survivalist are keeping our food stocks rotated. When my wife and I went through our canned goods and started sorting them, we realized that we had over bought certain foods, and did not buy enough of other foods.
There are 3 things we do not need to buy anymore of – corn, tomato soup, tomatoes for chili and spaghetti, pickles,,,.
Related article – teotwawki survival gear storage
Take honey for example, we have 4 or 5 jars of honey, but 12 – 13 jars of peanut butter.
There are lots of can good rotation systems on the market, such as the Cansolidator storage unit, or use something like a can rotation system designed for 12 ounce soda cans.
My wife and I had been storing a lot of our can goods in the pantry with no real rotation system. Well, a couple of months ago I decided it was time to get with the program and get our can foods organized.
While walking through the local china-mart, my wife and I found some wire racks that are designed for keeping 12 ounce soda cans in the fridge. the racks are designed to hold a 12 pack of 12 ounce cans. Besides soda cans, the wire racks hold all types of soups, pasta, and peanut butter just fine.
Safe drinking water
For most of the developed world, safe drinking water is something we take for granted. We turn on the faucet and nice clean water comes out. We have fresh water to brush out teeth, to take a shower, to wash our hair,,, and our other everyday needs.
Then along comes SHTF / TEOTWAWKI, and guess what, no more nice clean water.
Over the years I have read a lot of articles taking about the most important survival gear items. the list usually ranges from antibiotics to water filters. To me, and my personal opinion, the most important thing during a survival situation is safe drinking water.
Without safe drinking water, life as we know it can not exist.
Lets talk about 3, 4 or even 5 days after the city water gets turned off, people will be drinking out of rivers, creeks, ditches, streams, ponds, lakes,,,,, anywhere they can find water.
Most the most part, people will try to purify the water by boiling it, or using a water filter, or running the water through a shirt or cloth to remove the heavy particles,,,. I guess a major problem lies in urban dwellers who have limited access to fuel for fires to boil water.
Safe drinking water after teotwawki
Lets talk about safe drinking water during a long term SHTF / teotwawki situation. When it comes to water, there is a saying I like to use, “without safe drinking water, life as we know it can not exist.”
During a long term SHTF / teotwawki situation, people will be taking water from creeks, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes,, whatever they can find and trying to make it safe to drink. Its important to know the most common types of infections, and how to remove / kill the organisms.
In this article we will be looking at the most common waterborne infections, their cause, and how to prevent becoming infected.
Common waterborne infections
Campylobacter / Campylobacteriosis
Cholerae
Cryptosporidium / Cryptosporidiosis
Giardia / Giardiasis
Hepatitis A
Legionella / Legionellosis
Salmonella / Salmonellosis
Shigella
Typhoid Fever
Some cause short term discomfort, some cause death, some cause life long illnesses.
Related forum thread – Using a Berkey Water filter at the Bug Out Location
US society not prepared
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went to Sams Club in Beaumont Texas. One of the main things I wanted to pick up was some freeze dried foods in #10 cans. The food is listed on the Sams Club website, so I thought the store would have some in stock. Guess what, the store did not have any freeze dried food in #10 cans. After walking up-and-down the isles, I finally decided to stop and ask an employee. I was told that the store had not got any emergency type food in a couple of years.
For those of you that do not know, Beaumont sits just a few miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. In the past few years Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike have made landfall close to Beaumont. Why wouldn’t a major outlet store sell some kind of emergency food in a Hurricane prone area? I think its a lack of forward thinking, and maybe even a lack of demand.
A couple of nights ago my wife and I went to Lowes in Jasper Texas, we were looking for some kind of can rotation system. Wal-mart in Jasper sells a wire rack for rotating soda cans, but a regular sized chili or soup can will fit in the rack. So my wife and I have been buying the wire-racks and setting up a can rotation system on a set of shelves.
What really surprised me was the Lowes store in Jasper does not carry any type of can rotation system. Why wouldn’t a hardware store that sells cabinets sell some kind of system to keep can goods organized?
Light after teotwawki
Some kind of SHTF/teotwawki situation has happened, society has broken down, and the power has finally gone off. Or, some kind of natural disaster has happened, power has been cut off and my not be restored for several days to several weeks. After Hurricane Rita, my family and I spent 18 days without power. So…
Food shortages high prices and riots
Remember hearing something about a drought across parts of the US this year? If you buy anything with peanuts, you’re about to see the effects of a low harvest caused by the drought. Get ready for some high food prices, they are on their way.
Normally I do not subscribe to the doom-and-gloom predictions, but I am seeing it first hand.
Drought
Farmers here in Texas are losing crops, and having to sell their cattle because grass is not growing. Texas and Louisiana agreed to allow wide loads of hay to be transported between the 2 states. Here in Jasper County Texas, I see trailers loaded down with rolls of hay going through the city on a regular basis. Importing hay from Louisiana is one of the few options cattlemen have right now.
Because of farmers selling off their cattle herds, the price of beef might be artificially low right now. If the sale of cattle starts to slow down, we might see the price of beef jump.
Young and old trees are turning brown and dying. Back in February of 2011 my kids and I planted some oak trees at the Bug Out Location. Due to the lack of rain fall, and not being able to make regular trips to the camp to water the trees, the leaves have turned brown and the baby trees might die.
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