As Labor Day approaches, this marks a good time to reflect over the past summer. Overall, the summer of 2010 was a great summer – my dad gave me a boat a few months ago, so a lot of time was spent on the river fishing and camping. My wife and I got to go fishing a couple of times. Being sick for the first 2 weeks in August was no fun, but I’am felling a lot better now – except for a slight residual headache. With all Texas summers, the heat has terrible.
Labor day plans include a bar-b-q with a brisket, maybe some ribs, chicken, sausage, ranch style beans and whatever else I can fit on the grill.
After Labor Day focus is going to shift a little more towards hunting. My kids and I might head out to the deer lease to check the stands and feeders out.
This hunting season there is a certain creek bottom that I want to put a ladder stand up. Every year a buck goes through the creek bottom marking his territory. The stand is on the top of a hill, so I never get to see him. This year is going to be different, I’am planning on setting up at least 1 ladder stand 50 – 75 feet from where that buck makes his marks every year.
There is always “something” that is skipped over during summer, and this year it was taking my son to Lake Sam Rayburn to go fishing. Fishing on the river is nice, but I wanted to launch the boat at Mill Creek Park and go across the lake to Bear Creek and do some bass fishing over there. Maybe we can do that before the cold fronts start moving through and the bad weather sets in?
Some of my new favorite pieces of gear include a large MOLLE pack, and a Vargo Hexagon wood stove from readypro.org.
After some debate, I decided it was time to move away from the medium and large ALICE pack and get with the times. I have seen people on youtube talking about the MOLLE packs, so I decided it was time to get one.
I even made a video comparing 2 different MOLLE packs and a medium ALICE pack. For the full review, check out this link – MOLLE pack VS ALICE pack.
Overall, I like my new large MOLLE pack, I just wish it had more outside pockets and the internal radio pouch.
After testing the Vargo hexagon wood stove in my yard, I took it on a few camping trips – and it did a great job. Instead of using wood like the stove was designed to use, I used a can of sterno. In about 10 minutes I was able to cook noodles.
Here is a video about the Vargo Hexagon wood stove while I was testing it in my yard.
Labor Day is fast approaching, which means we only have about 1 more month of warm weather to go fishing and camping.
My wife and I have been wanting to go camping at Martin Dies State Park, which is at Dam B, but the weather has been so hot, we would have been miserable. So we are going to wait until the weather cools off just a little bit – maybe until the night time temps drop into the 60s.
We also want to take the kids camping before the weather gets too cold. But here in East Texas, sometimes its still hot all the way into early November.
So summer is not fully over yet, nor is Labor Day the “official” end to my summer plans. Its more like a mile marker saying “whatever you want to do, you better go ahead and get it done.”
As I look back over the summer of 2010, it was a good summer. It was one that will not be forgotten very soon.
Its a pretty simple question, what is life? Is it as simple as a heart beat? As long as the heart is beating we have life? Surely there is more to it then that.
Where does love and relationships fall into the picture of life? Without love, friends, family and relationships, is life worth living? Would you “really” want to be stuck on a desert island all by yourself forever? Some people might say “sure, why not?” But after awhile your going to start missing other people.
People are social animals, we like to mix, mingle and herd up into groups. Just look at sports events where 100,000 people might be in a stadium. Look at music concerts where people share a similar interest.
Back in June (2010) my 14 year old daughter called and told me she wanted to spend the summer at her mothers house. Knowing that kids need their room and space, I said ok and acted like nothing was wrong. Regardless of what I showed on the outside, I was heart broken on the inside. To get ready for summer vacation, I had built my daughter a new computer – dual core AMD 245, 2 gigs of pc800 memory, 160 gig SATA drive. It was not exactly top of the line, but it was a lot better then the single core Pentium 4 she was using. I had laid a book on my daughters bed for her to read – “The Raven: a Biography of Sam Houston”. My daughter has always shown interest in our families history, and a little interest in Texas history. And then she had a brand new game on her computer desk to play on her new system. Everything had been laid out of her, and she did not come of the summer. After getting the news she wanted to stay at her moms house, I walked into her bed room, looked around, and felt like crying. The tears were held back, but only for a little while.
My 16 year old son came to my house for the summer – and we had a great time. A few months ago my dad gave me his old aluminum boat. My son were out on the Angelina river fishing, camping, swimming. My nephew, my son and I went on a camping trip in July – the heat was terrible, but the fishing was good. On another fishing trip my son and I spotted some gators, it was the first time my son and seen gators in the wild like that. Having grown up in Bridge City Texas and spending a lot of time on Cow Bayou swimming and hyrdo-sliding, seeing gators was no big deal to me.
So what is life? Its an odd mix of love, heartbreak, relationships, friends, family,,,, and everything else we go through in our daily lives.
Out of all your survival gear items, which 10 are the most important? This list is going to change on your geographical location and any special needs. So consider this food for thought.
1. Home based water filter – an example of this is the Berkey Light or the Royal Berkey. Why is a water filter the first item? Because water is used so much in our daily lives. You do not need to be brushing your teeth with water contaminated with E. Coli, shigella or cryptosporidium.
2. Peanut butter and honey – High calorie food (peanut butter) mixed with honey – which has trace minerals – makes a meal that is difficult to beat. Unlike dried foods, no water is required to cook peanut butter or the honey. After opening, neither one needs to be kept cold. Honey can be stored for years without fear of spoiling and it makes for a good topical anti-biotic.
3. First aid kit – for taking care of wounds and injuries.
4. Way to cook without electricity – Propane is a good option, but its going to run out sooner or later. Solar ovens are a good choice, if you live an area that gets plenty of sun light. Wood burning pits are a good option. Firewood might go into short supply as people run out of ways to cook, but its always going to be around.
5. Water bottles – some way to transport water from a nearby stream to your water filter.
6. Good quality bicycle – after gasoline runs out, you have an way to get around.
7. Good quality boots – if your feet hurt, your not going anywhere.
8. Solar charger – whether its for charging a cell phone or a flashlight, the sun offers unlimited energy, you just have to have a way harness that power.
9. Fishing supplies – give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and you feed him for life. If you live close to a lake, stream, pond or river, fishing gear must not be overlooked.
10. Physical and Mental conditioning – Stay sharp and stay fit.
Back around 1980 my parents inherited some land from my grandmother (my dads mom). Shortly after my parents got the land, they moved a 2 bedroom 1 bath trailer house behind my grandmothers house – which had been built around the turn of the 20th century. Mom and dad put a septic system down, setup a water well,,, all the comforts of home, except a home phone. Back in the early 1980 cell phones had not been invented yet. So for maybe 10 years, every time we went to the camp, we lost all contact with the outside world.
I would like to share my past 30 years experience with dealing with camps, and remote locations.
Rodents – This includes mice, rats and squirrels. Not only do they chew holes in the eves of the house, in floors, in the walls, and get into your food stocks, they build nest, piss, and poop everywhere. When you start talking about feces, there is always the chance of diseases.
Squirrels are not too bad about staying in the house, its mostly the mice and rats that like to make themselves at home. What is the difference between a mouse and a rat? About a pound.
If you put rat poison out – sometimes they will get in the walls, die, and start stinking. But for a camp that people do not go to everyday, nobody will be around to smell the stench.
There have been times when I have gone to the camp, and found mice in the toilet – dead. I’am going to guess they jumped into the toilet to get a drink of water, and could not get back out.
When those mice get hungry, they will start chewing into everything they can. This includes peanut butter jars made out of plastic, snacks, chips,,,, anything with a plastic container.
Something of interest, I have kept cases of MREs at the camp and rodents have never gotten into them. Why is it that rodents will chew into a jar of peanut butter, but not an MRE? Maybe because the MREs are double sealed? Maybe because the MREs do not have the smell of food on them from being handled? I dont know exactly, maybe its a combination of several factors?
Food Stockpile -Sometimes my family and I will go to the camp, bring some chili, canned beans, spam,,,,, with plans to either it that weekend, or eat it later on. Well, the canned goods get put in the pantry, forgotten, and expire. We may keep a couple of weeks worth of food up there, and its rarely rotated out. So when we go looking for something to eat, a lot of the cans are expired. This is one of the problems with keeping food stocks at a remote location. If people only go there a few times a year, the canned goods do not get rotated out.
At least one thing with the rodents, they force us to rotate out some of our food stocks. Its like the mouse is saying – “this is going to expire soon, so why not eat it before it expires?” A big chew hole in the side of a plastic jar of peanut butter is a lot more noticeable then a small printed date on the top of the lid.
Every bug out location should have some kind of food stocks, but the problem is keeping the food rotated out. When you have a remote location that may not be visited but a few times a year, food rotation becomes an issue. Its not like the dates can be checked every few weeks.
No frozen foods (or very little) are kept at the camp. There have been times when the freezer stopped working, or the power was out for several days and all of the meat in the freezer spoiled.
There is an old saying “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you will feed him for life.” I think that applies to more then just fishing.
If you give someone a pay check and a grocery store, you will feed hm for a few days.
If you give a man some land, and some seeds, you may feed him for a few weeks or even months.
The difference in the 2 above comparisons, most people pick their lifestyles. Given the choice between feeding themselves, or having someone provide their food for them, most people will pick the easy way out and have someone provide their food. This makes us variable and weak. This makes us sub-servant to others.
For a true survivalist, the idea of being sub-servant (or dependent) is repugnant. We want to stand on our own feet, we want to be independent from grocery stores, we want to know where our next meal is coming from.
When you say to yourself “I need some cucumbers for that salad” – do you think about going to the store and buying your cucumbers, or do you think about growing your own cucumbers?
There is nothing wrong with buying your food. But always keep in the back of your head, that you can stand on your own feet and grow your own food.
Lets say that a disaster happens – whether its some kind of disease outbreak, nuclear war, meteor impact,,, and there were no grocery stores, what would you and your family do for food? I like to call that situation “The Dog Bowl Theory.” This is where people line up at the grocery store, looking at the empty shelves, and wondering how they are going to eat.
People along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard have seen examples of this kind of situation. When a hurricane is expected to make landfall, wherever the strike zone is located at, people will make a run on the stores – cleaning out the shelves. And its not just in the impact zone, people traveling along the evacuation routes will clean stores out.
Lets take the town that I live in for example – we have 2 grocery stores, a super Wal-mart and a Brookshire Brothers. With a population of 8,000+ people, it would not take long to clean those 2 stores out if the public went into panic buying mode.
Once the food is gone, what then? How many people will be looking for a hand out? How many people will be calling their friends and family asking for food? And how many people will go fishing?
If the water went off tonight, what kind of plans do you have in place? As with everything else in my survival plans, water is broken down into 3 phases – short term, medium term, and long term solution.
Short Term – this is your bottled water. Most people have a couple of cases of bottled water laying around somewhere. On a trip to the grocery store most people might grab a case or two of bottled water to have around for guest or parties.
Some survivalist stockpile water in 35 or 55 gallon drums.
When the water goes out, the bottled and stockpiled water will go first. Its convenient, you just un-screw the top of the bottle and the water is ready to drink. Most people like to take the easy way out, and bottled water is about as easy as it gets.
Medium Term – this is your water filters. This may include your Berkey water filters or some kind of backpacking, lightweight water filter.
Sooner or later, the filter is going to reach its lifespan, and that is it.
Long term – private water well that is safe to drink. This could include water wells on farms, or rural water wells where people do not get city water.
Now that we are past the three layers of water preps, lets move forward. “Where” exactly do you get water in an urban survival situation? Lets see, there are – local ponds, streams, creeks, rivers, lakes, rain fall, ditches, bayous,,,,,.
For an example, in the middle of Jasper, Texas (where I live), there is a park with a small pond and creek. Using my bicycle I could cycle to the park, use some water bottles to retrieve the water, bring it back home and run it through my Berkey water filter. Its about 8 miles round trip from my home to the park.
River water – Another example, the Angelina River is just a few miles from my house. Once again, using my bicycle I could cycle to the river, bring several 32 ounce water bottles, collect the water from the river, cycle back home and then run the water through my Berkey water filter.
Rain water – once those 55 gallon drums run out of water, they could be positioned under the down spout of a rain gutter. But this only works if you live in an area that gets rain fall. If you do not have any 55 gallon drums, some 5 gallon buckets should work just as good. If nothing else, refill those water bottles that were used when the event first started.
Waterborne diseases – As sewers fill up and start to back up, people will start doing their “business” outside. The problem here, is when an area receives rain fall, the sewage can be washed off the soil and into the local rivers, steams, ponds,,,, any kind of surface water. If water can stand around the pipe going into a well, there is a chance that contaminated water can get into the well. That is why its recommended that a cement step be built around the pipe of a well.
Possible diseases include:
Cryptosporidium
E. Coli
Shigella
Giardiasis
Botulism
Cholera
Dysentery
Legionellosis – Legionnaires disease and Pontiac fever
Salmonellosis – Salmonella (mostly foodborne)
Typhoid fever
Hepatitis A – food and waterborne
only to name a few.
In my opinion, the ideal situation would be to have a water well with some kind of solar water pump on it, or at least a hand operated water pump. In a worse case situation, having a well and a hand powered pump is better then nothing.
One of the big differences between urban and rural water plans, would probably be that a lot of people in rural areas already have some kind of water well in place. Whether its to water the cows, horses or other livestock, or as their main water source, a lot of people who live in rural areas have access to some kind of water well. From there, its just a matter of getting the water out of the well with no electricity.
I would like to hear some input on this topic. What are your safe drinking water plans in some kind of long term survival situation? Do you have a water well already in place? Do you have a rain water collection system already in place? Do you have any creeks, streams, ponds or lakes nearby that your planning on filtering the water from?
Yesterday afternoon after my wife and I got from from a trip to Beaumont Texas, I turned on the Discovery Channel and there was a show on called “2 Weeks in Hell.” The program documents a 2 week test for candidates trying to get into the Special Forces school.
I would like to state that not joining the military is one of the big regrets of my life. Instead of joining the Army, I got married, went to work and had some kids. If I could do it all over again, I would probably serve my nation first, and my own interest second.
At the start of the program, the men the men were put into “The Pit” – where they worked together in teams to lift a log that weighed close to 1,000 pounds. After a few hours of physical training (PT), the candidates were vomiting, suffering injuries, and dropping out right and left – and this is just the first morning of the first day.
After watching the first 15 – 30 minutes, I had to question my own physical fitness. Staying in physical shape while sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day is not impossible, its just going to be difficult.
One of the mental test was a nighttime navigation course. Candidates had to navigate through the woods at night – with no light – and they could not follow roads. For people who were raised in the city, and never been in the woods at night, this must have been a pretty bad situation. Every sound in the woods at night brings up a primal fear that “something” might be out there. For people that have spent a lot of time in the woods at night, they probably would have been more at home.
The teamwork projects show how well people can work together under stress. Do they come together like a jigsaw puzzle, or do they look like a map that has been run through a shredder.
After watching 2 Weeks in Hell, you have to question everything about your lifestyle – everything from your level of physical fitness, to your metal conditioning.
There is a thread going on over at the forum – Post-Disaster Disease Management. During the discussion, the thread was kinda derailed into a discussion on Tuberculosis (TB), Whooping Cough, and other diseases. While looking for some information on the most common diseases, I found a page on the World Health Organization website – Six diseases cause 90% of infectious disease deaths.
Some of the diseases that I expected to see were not listed, such as Whooping Cough, Small Pox, Plague, and water borne diseases. After all, the Plague has killed more then its fair share of the human population over the past 1,000 years. Instead of listing all of the water borne diseases separately, I’am going to guess they were grouped together and listed as Diarrhoea.
On the topic of Tuberculosis (TB) – the WHO says that “nearly two billion people – one-third of the world’s population – have latent TB infection.” When the person becomes sick, and their immune system becomes weak, the TB infection can break out.
The question is, have you reviewed your infection control plans? Do you have N95 facemask (or something similar), do you have non-sterile surgical gloves, do you have hand sanitizer.
For you metal workers out there – the face shield you use for grinding can also be used as s face shield for taking care of infected patients. The face shield provides full face protection from cough droplets and vomit projectiles – be sure to wear safety glasses and an N95 behind the face shield.
Diarrhoea (Diarrhea) – according to the WHO website, Diarrhoea kills around two million children every year.
With the topic of Diarrhea in mind, have you reviewed your water filtration and water purification plans?
When talking to survivalist, it becomes clear that some of them have no idea as to what they would do if a long term disaster set in. For the sake of argument, lets say that some kind of new virus came out of the Amazon. Loggers are cutting in areas that mankind has not seen in 10,000 years. While moving the logs, a worker is exposed to some kind of virus. He goes about his daily routine for a few days, walking around town, going to the local stores, spreads the virus. And just like with the swine flu, in a matter or days its spread all over the world.
When the Swine Flu broke out in early 2009, the US government refused to close the borders – citing that companies would lose too money.
The virus moves from city to city and country to country with nothing to stop it. People become sick, die, social services breaks down, the trucks stop rolling, supplies and food shipments stop to the local grocery stores, panic buying sets in, and in a matter of days the shelves are empty.
From there, certain groups of survivalist plan on grabbing their bug out bag, and head to the nearest national forest where they and their families will live in safety and seclusion. That is, until some kind of dysentery sets in and members of the group needs medical attention.
For those of us that take our survivalist mindset a little more serious, we have secured provisions, and have tested plans in place for such a situation.
While testing a Berkey water filter at the camp – which included filtering water from a creek for 3 days – a lot was learned and the plans will be changed to reflect what I learned.
Here is the video about the 3 day Royal Berkey water filter test.
Someone on youtube posted the following comment to the video:
Reverse osmosis is much much better. I would use a reverse osmosis system with a permeate pump.
The problem is, reverse osmosis with a permeate pump requires electricity. In a total break down of social services – which means no electricity, no running water, no natural gas,,,,, no nothing, exactly “how” is a reverse osmosis with a permeate pump system “supposed” to work?
From here, I’am pretty sure someone is saying – setup some solar panels with a battery bank, or a wind generator, or make some bio-diesel to run a diesel engine so that the alternator can be run, then take that DC voltage from the alternator and run it through an inverter to power the water pump,,,,,.
The problem is – all of that needs to be setup “before” a disaster happens. The more moving parts something has, the more likely it is to break, and last but not least – keep it simple.
How much more simple do you want a gravity flow system? Pour the water into the holding tank, and it flows through the filter. The only moving part is the spigot that you get the water out of.
I dont know what planet some survivalist live on, but in my world, supplies do not just magically appear out of nowhere. If you need a solar panel, its not just going to appear out of nowhere as a gift from the solar panel GOD. If you need a water filter, its not going to magically appear as a gift from the water filter GOD.
Here are the facts:
Your plans need to be laid out and tested before hand.
From those test, corrections need to be made.
The corrections then need to be tested.
Keep the plans simple.
Keep the plans realistic.
Simple Plans: Why makes things more complicated then they need to be? If someone ask you what time it is, do you hand them instructions on how to build a watch? Why even thing about using a complicated water filter system, when you can use a simple gravity flow system?
Realistic Plans: Over the years I have seen people talk about everything from bugging out to a national forest that is a 14 – 18 hour drive – under normal situations. Exactly “how” they were going to get fuel for the drive, exactly “where” they were going, exact plans on food and other supplies,,,,, had never been thought out, much less tested.
This is a description of my personal hygiene kit. Personal hygiene is one of the topics that I take into consideration everyday. I wear contacts – everytime I put my contacts in, I think about if my hands are clean or not. Having infected eyes is no fun. If an eye infection can be prevented by washing my hands before I put the contacts in, then it needs to be done. My daily routine is – get up, shower, put contacts in – that way my hands are clean from the shower.
Years ago my buddies and I used to go camping along the salt marshes of southeast Texas – Bridge City and Orangefield, Texas. We would load up the boat with our ALICE packs, and head out for a weekend of adventures and exploring. One thing about those bayous and low lying areas, there is a plentiful supply of mud, and a short supply of fresh water. Its one of those situations where you bring plenty of water, some canteens and a good water filter.
Even if I had to use the water from my 2 quart US Military canteen to wash off my hands, I did whatever it took to get my fingers clean to take care of my eyes.
Maybe I should have just wore glasses instead?
My personal hygiene kit is kept behind the sink and contains:
personal size shampoo
personal sized soap
contact case
spare contact case with spare set of contacts
contact cleaning and wetting solution
comb
tooth brush and tooth paste
zip lock plastic bag – this is to hold the liquid soap and shampoo. That way if the bottles leak, the fluid does not get into the kit, and is contained within the plastic bag.
After using the liquid soap on a couple of camping trips, I have learned that its no replacement for liquid soap. With the small amount of space that a bar of soap takes up, I see no reason not to bring one along.
When I’am camping on the river, first thing in the morning I like to get up, go to the boat, take a bath, wash my hair and brush my teeth. Even its river water, its better then nothing, and its better then stinking all day long.
