To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. Note that as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in the Comments. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
Jim Reports:
I had a fairly quiet week. Other than writing, the highlights of the week were deer hunting, horse hoof trimming, and some organization around the house. I got busy and tagged and cataloged most of the antique guns that I’ve purchased in past few months. My goal is to be ready to re-launch my mail order company, come March or April, of 2020. With that venture, I’ll be re-selling antique guns and various gun accessories, nationwide. Because my blog and books are being shadow-banned, de-ranked, and demonetiized, that new revenue stream may prove crucial for keeping my household afloat.
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week the weather has been cold and mostly sunny. It was a quieter week for all of us. At the beginning of the week, I processed the last of the apples designated for processing. They were turned into seven more quarts of applesauce and 17 jars of apple jelly.
Our farrier came and trimmed our horses’ hooves. I’m so glad that was taken care of. I was feeling really bad for one of our horses, in particular, whose hooves tend to grow very, very fast and split. They’re all looking great now. What a relief. I’m just not strong enough to squeeze the hoof nippers over their hard horn.
I planted about 120 cloves of garlic which is about three times more than last year. I planted them right after a snow squall when the temperature was about 25 degrees, after dark, with a flashlight. I just had to get them into the ground before it was too late.
The rest of the week, we majored on school, housework, animal chores, watering the indoor garden, making meals, house cleaning, basically maintaining the status quo.
I have been harvesting some of the baby greens that have already grown in the bedroom greenhouse and have put them in a smoothy and have shared them with the chicks.
Free moments, of course, found us all playing with the chicks. Already one of the lavender/gray is well trained to leap upon the arm or hand of whomever puts their arm down into the tank, and perch. They have a non-stop contented twitter which is lovely to hear, but if someone gently knocks the side of the tank, they all go silent and look up expectantly. It’s really funny to us to see.
The chicks had doubled in size and were beginning to make the great escape. One night, Miss Eloise woke up to the sound of chicks screaming. She ran out to the Great room and found two chicks on top of the screen covering which was partially covering the tank, and two chicks on the floor outside of the tank. She scooped them up and put them back into the tank and readjusted the screen covering.
Yes, they were making our great room dusty. I’ve been having to vacuum and dust all surfaces every day… On Thursday, it became too much for me. I was beginning to have a runny nose, sneezing and scratchy throat, and was also feeling slightly tight-chested when breathing. We decided that they must go out to the hen house, now. Too much dust. Thank God we have electricity at this time in history. Jim built a small enclosed area in the hen house, using pieces of plywood we have hanging around, we put in the heat lamp, made a deep nest of hay, covered the top and cracks with our all- purpose towels. We also popped the two adult hens into the enclosure with the hopes that they’ll get broody over the chicks. If not, then at least they themselves will be warmer and will add their heat to the enclosure for the chicks.
It now has been two days since the chicks were moved out. They are doing well and are keeping warm enough. The two hens do not appear to be broody with the chicks but are tolerating them. At least they’ll all keep each other warmer, just from being in close proximity. Plus the hens themselves are also benefitting from the heat lamp. Thankfully the night time temperatures will be warmer for the week ahead.
Friday, saw me vacuuming, dusting, washing and re-organizing the whole great room once more. My symptoms immediately abated! Late spring is the best time to order chicks around here because of our weather, but considering all of the news of possible food shortages coming, I wanted to rebuild our flock, now. Therefore, a little sacrifice of sharing our living space with the chicks for a short while was necessary and worth it.
I went hunting with Jim. I very much enjoyed hiking through the forest looking for deer or elk.
This coming week we plan on getting out hunting most days and hope we’ll have success.
May you all have a very blessed, productive, and safe week.
– Avalanche Lily, Rawles
o o o
As always, please share your own successes and hard-earned wisdom in the Comments.
…Lily, your weekly reports and the following comments are SO encouraging to me. Thank you for making the everyday things one must do to keep a household running smoothly important too. It also made me smile and feel not so odd to have found myself out in the dark, with headlamp, finishing up first planting garlic, and second, transplanting yarrow.
The frozen season most often finds me scrambling as i roll my eyes muttering to myself something along the lines of “it comes the same time EVERY year! WHY does it feel like it dropped on me like a rock?!?”…more eye rolling…
It’s a season of urgency lately. As one tries to fit everything into the finite time we have, it is accomplished best on those days i don’t neglect my quiet time with the Father. Life rushes at one, especially as the day begins so it’s easy to do. Counterintuitive, this taking time, but invaluable.
Happy hunting you two…
JWR: What is shadow banned and who is doing it.? I haven’t heard the term before.
I’ll have some unkind words for them.LOL
See: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/08/01/what-is-shadowbanning
SurvivalBlog has been shadowbanned a variety of ways, mainly through search engine de-ranking.
Shadow banning is banning but trying not to be obvious. Liken it to a new book by a non PC author that is really hot off the press. You go to the book store but instead of it being right out front on the new release stand it is on some obscure shelf buried in the back. Michael Savage books come to mind.
RG- sometimes when I go to the book store I rearrange books about Emperor Hussein and his pet Wookie so I won’t vomit when I see their faces; or cover periodicals about progressives with gun mags and survival mags… I have even taken down entire collections of Hussein books and replaced them with Dr. Seuss. I guess I am guilty of passive aggressively shadow-banning the opposition! Gotta fight to win!
BTW, in my estimation Savage has become unhinged of late and has shown his liberal roots and anti-gun stance. I cannot listen to that dude for more than a few minutes before his hypocrisy and waffling show and I switch to Shapiro or Levin.. YMMV.
We had a productive week here, but slower, on some counts. Monday morning started with getting wall panels up on our shop addition. We powered through that enjoying the break in the cold weather until the last 8 feet of walls – when a squall blew in across the lake and my Jill went scrambling to secure and cover materials tools while I finished hanging siding. All the tools had to be wiped down and oiled from the snow before being put away but I keep old washcloths with WD-40 in an empty container for that so it went quickly and we recovered from the fast heavy snow with no problems. After dinner we were winding down when the power went out.
This was the second outage so far this year (they’ve changed the transmission lines that service our area) and the first outage since we specifically prepped for my elderly mother. Her plug-in emergency lights all came on and her room was lit, her battery lantern gave her plenty of light for reading and all went well. Power was only out for about two hours so we barely noticed it as we sipped hot chocolate and talked about our winter plans.
Tuesday was spent insulating the shop addition and inventory of construction goods and materials.
I also finished modding out the Bercomac snowthrower for Japanese mini-truck and got it running this week. That was a major goal for this year and it felt great to get that done! The final prep for the snowthrower was erecting a portable garage to store it in through the winter. We bought the 10′ x 17′ model from Harbor Freight and got it up and anchored before the week-end. It is just long enough to hold the truck with the blower attached and we’re hoping will survive the Idaho winter!
The mini-truck is a continued blessing. It is 25 years old but is real beast when it comes to work around the property. When I bought it there was a rusted out air intake connection that needed to be repaired and this week, using JB Weld, we patched that up and its good to go.
I hope everyone had a great and productive week. As always there are some pictures posted at my insta.
purchased 25lbs of light red kidney Beans, 25lbs of small red beans, 25lbs of spaghetti, 50lbs of white rice and Paid less that $100 for 125 pounds of food. Picked up 3 gamma seal lids and 3 buckets but bought them before I went to pick up the food. I didn’t plan on getting so much but the prices were good.
Packed everything into Mylar bags and plastic buckets with gamma seal lids except the rice. So I interested in comments on what I did. I looked at the white bucket that Home Depot was selling as their “Food” grade bucket. It is the same as the “Homer” bucket (orange Home Depot bucket). Did some research and the Orange Home Depot bucket would be food grade IF it wasn’t orange. The concern is that the chemicals used in the dyes would leach into the food that was stored inside. Okay BUT I put my food into a Mylar bag THEN inside the bucket. I looked at the chemical resistance of Mylar (https://www.usplastic.com/knowledgebase/article.aspx?contentkey=569 ). I don’t think that any of the dye chemicals would be able to leach through the Mylar based on the link above. Looking at additional information on plastic and food safety the main concern is “blooming” but again the Mylar would stop that. Just wondering what anyone else has researched. The other issue is contact time. Many of the research experiments that we hear about don’t tell us that the mouse who developed cancer at 600lbs of “x” for a month and nothing else.
Anyway, just wondering what others do.
Did some research into how to build an ox yoke.
We had the first snow of the year accompanied by 40-50mph winds with 60mph gust. Lights flicked a number of times and we did loose power but only for seconds. Was nice not to have to haul the generator out.
In addition to the dye, another issue is the injection molding process. Cheap utility buckets often use a mold release compound that is toxic. So UNLESS a bucket is marked “food grade” or “USDA”, then assume that it is NOT safe to use for food, even with a Mylar liner.
Jim thanks for the info. On the mold release compound
I’m not sure if I can mention this in comments, but I currently have about 80-85 food grade premium buckets with lids for sale at my cost. These have an extra ridge at top so they are sturdy for stacking. My cost was just under $5 each for bucket and lid combo. Keep in my mind I had to drive from Louisiana to Lima, OH and buy 2 pallets to get that price from U.S. Plastics. They have never been used. They are not gamma seal lids but you can rotate a few gamma seals as you open food. They were purchased for resale through my business which I am currently closing out. You would have to be in Southeast Louisiana area or passing through as I won’t be shipping them. If anyone is interested I will post an email to coordinate the sale.
JL: For your privacy, please get a “throwaway” hotmail or gmail account, just for the purpose of distributing these buckets. I can post it in SurvivalBlog.
I also feel a pressing urgency to get as much put up as I can before the election. I have to work within my budget to purchase what I don’t grow or raise right now. I’m speeding up obtaining more basic pantry items and personal necessities as I think price increases and hard times are coming soon. Made a run to the city to pick up bulk items and have been repackaging 25 and 50 pd bags into buckets with gamma lids and smaller portions in vacuum sealed or mylar bags.
We’re trying out a new brand of non-GMO all purpose pellets from the feed store. The chickens and pigs will eat anything but my rabbits are more picky. We are up to a 2 month storage of small livestock feed and a 3-month storage of dog and cat food. I know that is not enough so I’m going to get more food grade storage containers from the local swap meet place. We keep the stored animal feed in 55-gal barrels with lockable lids down at the barn and in-use feed closer to the coops and hutches. The barn is not visible from the road and only our closest neighbors know it’s there.
My son has gotten the main part of the hoop house up including the poly-carbonate ends. We worked on the concrete block retaining wall and moved dirt around to create water swales to go around the hoop house. We are going to put rocks in the swales for erosion control, but we can’t get a dump truck in the area so we’ll just have to make a bunch of pickup truck loads.
Been canning and FDing beef and chicken all week long b/c local grocers are still in a price war. Got 3 qts of rich beef broth made and canned up. Marinated some sirloin tip beef strips and got them in the dehydrator for jerky, which is a favorite of family and friends.
Got some mushrooms on sale and pressure canned 12 half-pints. Started processing all the dried herbs; some I leave in whole leaves, others I grind down to powder. It’s just a time consuming task. Still have not gotten to the apples, but they will hold for a while.
Got the bunnies ready for the freezing temps. Put straw in the cages and used left over poly-carbonate pieces to make cold weather shutters for the rabbit cages. So much to do in so little time.
Have a safe and productive week.
What do the terms shadow-banned and the other two mean?
We are playing catch-up. This week we FINALLY mounted a red-dot one purchased in 2017 for one of our Kel-Tec SU-16Cs. Mounting was easy. Zeroing was an unnecessarily humiliating experience but eventually successful.
Secondly we focused on OTC pain relievers. Included were caffeine supplements which might aid those on long, boring security watches. It’s foolish to overlook OTC meds assuming they will remain inexpensive and readily available. But that’s what we did.
We still have snow on the ground, so I guess winter has really arrived early this year here in the Rockies. We were able to put some rather good snow tires on the car. The truck just needs 2 new tires next. This year I’m putting together winter bins for the vehicles rather than just filling bags in the trunk. Like most, we keep sleeping bags, extra coats, boots, hats, mittens and gloves, tools, a deck of cards, some reading material and snacks at the ready. Of course this is in addition to our emergency road and first aid kits as well. Knowing that we need these things, I keep my eyes peeled at thrift shops for extras that will fit us. I like to stock extra large coats that will fit over the ones we’d have with us incase of a long wait or walkout.
Realizing that the family is short on merino wool hiking socks, I ordered some for now and for stocking stuffers from Sierra Trading Post. Warm feet are essential and so is having an extra pair of dry socks to change into.
Had to take a trip and was able to stop and buy some more canned goods. Ordered in more vitamins. Dehydrated more diced peppers. Today I’m going to dehydrate diced apple pieces for baking. Keeping on the wood supply.
For our place back east, our son bought a propane powered stainless steel camping cook top grill and it is working out very well. He highly recommends it. The photos are great and clean up is very easy and does not require water.
We, too, are considering additional revenue streams as our earning situation has changed. The best to you in your renewed business venture, JWR.
Hello Lilly,
You asked about the wolf around here. Did a follow up on the scary big wolf taken here 2 years ago by a old trapper friend. It is indeed a Canadian Timber Wolf. He has two in his living room. The big one, nose to tail, about 9 feet, and was 110 pounds. Around here, this is considered record large. My friend explains that a wolf in a Alaska is considered big when it 100 pounds. As he is now 80, and he no longer traps wolves. He also explained that inland Grizzly are much more aggressive than the Alaskan variety. Same genetics, but the Alaskan bear gets big due to eating salmon. The inland Grizzly has a rougher time and must be meaner to survive, cause it does not have salmon. It will destroy a camp or cabin looking for every last crumb, whereas an Alaskan will grab a snack and leave. He fears the inland variety. He also explained that a .30-30 will take Grizzly with good shot placement, but it does not kill them fast enough. It is always best to break the shoulder. He prefers his .300 Win Mag, but he also said .30-06 has killed a lot of Grizzly. He always a pistol and bear spray hanging around his neck when he goes into the woods. And a rifle, or 12 ga mag loaded with 00 buck. He has been trapping most of his life. It would be hard in this day and age, to find a more qualified opinion.
I have seen what inland grizzly will do. When injured or sick, they are dangerous. It is best to build the root cellar entrance, and the chicken coup as strong as possible. It is also almost impossible to build it tough enough. Ply board with nails or screws sticking up placed at the entrance is good deterrent. We would not want to loose what is in the root cellar, including the root cellar.
We have the highest concentration of grizzly in the lower U.S. We may also have the healthiest ecosystem as well. They may not be as big of a concern elsewhere. BTW, even black bears will steal a ‘kill’ from wolves or coyotes. This is explains the record blackie. I canned up 200 pounds of this one this spring. It was ‘spring bear’, yet it was loaded with fat you could scoop up with a flat shovel off the hide. Black bears are good for fat. The wolves are feeding the bears, therefore the bears are controlling the wolf population. IMHO, if there are not enough bears, there is nothing to slow down the wolves. We have no shortage of deer, but the elk have yet to fully recover from the introduction of the wolves. However, for the past 4 years, I always get elk. I’ll be canning non stop after the snow falls, a buck and elk. And I’ll try out a few of those reusable canning lids.
BTW, turnips were huge, but potatoes were small this year. And the rutabaga was disappointing. It is good to diversify. I will plant these 3 root crops next year as if I had to completely rely on only one of them. Also still growing Gaint Swiss Chard this late in the season. I would be planting mostly seed for cold weather and short season this spring, especially up here…
Tunnel rabbit ,,,,,i homesteaded in central Alaska a life time ago ,have killed a number of griz ,and airplane hunted wolf for a time ,i agree with your old timerer ,felt under gunned without a 375HH or 458 when dealing with griz ,had one bust down a door on a hunting cabin with us in it , We had brought our kill in to protect it ,three grown men and a kid could not hold the door closed ,it had it’s head inside snapping it’s teeth ,i managed to shove a 12Gage in it mouth and pull the trigger ,i got a ticket from F&G for killing it ,judge did dismiss it tho ,
As for wolf’s ,,wolf’s were released to clean up sick elk on the north slope of Mt St Helens about 10x 15 years ago ,washington fish game said not us ,wonder about timber company ,took us years to clean them out ,problem now is the crossbreed with coyotes ,lost a calf last spring to them ,
At the Idaho place have all but quit trying to run cattle with calfs ,
Am told decon mouse and rat bait works well mixed with meat from a kill ,
We use Anatolian/bull masstaf guard dogs that has helped, also a 22. 250
Also for you folks storing FEED for chickens I know from experience (i had a broiler farm ) that feed that has been ground and processed in a mill will not keep well ,in fact I would dump feed ,sometimes tons of it that was over 90 days old , would spread it on a field and disc it in ,if our going to store feed do whole grain and invest in a grinder ,whole corn and wheat will keep years with little loss
Mycottoxins WILL develop and out right kill birds or affect them for life ,, I saw that kill over 10,000chicks in 2 hours
Base spores are present in the feed mills ,you horse people know about mold dust in hay ,very similar ,,,
Lots happping this week
Have much more but time and daylight are going
Tea and chocolate
Great story I’ll pass along, and use when building my next cabin. I know a guy who has his own mill and trees. He built the entrance to his root cellar with heavy timber. Way over kill by most standards, almost monolithic. A wounded griz, probably unable to get enough to eat, tore it to pieces, but did not quite get in. I’ll keep my 12 ga loaded for bear. Thanks.
JWR:
Did a limited test on your Google searchability by typing in “Survival Websites” . Your site was the first in a list displayed on the second hit. There were lots of other and many “aggregate” sites listing survival websites.
That said, my sister in law works for Google working with people making their websites show up more prominently in Google searches. When you search for perhaps “Estate Lawyers Idaho” if a lawyer has set their site up correctly, their ad will show up on top in the ad section of the Google searches for a certain number of times per day for searches originating from a a given region.
I don’t know if I am explaining this clearly but bottom line, if you are interested in this service I will ask her to contact you or give you her contact information via separate email. This is a for fee service. I have no clue what it costs as I am not at all involved in her business. She has simply attempted to explain it to me on occasion. I don’t know whether the cost benefit for you will pencil out in your case but I know it does in others cases.
JBH,
Don’t forget that your search history, search proclivities, and all the personal information in both your PC and Cloud are what guide your search results (even if you believe you have scrubbed or cleared your history, it exists in the ethernet). If my progressive neighbor were to do the same search attempt as you, they would find results suited to what the Masters want them to see. Shadow banning, I have found, is not readily apparent to those who would question the practice, hence the term “shadow”. Any of our acquaintances here on SB would likely find similar results based upon the information the Masters have gathered on us.
Your mention of search engine optimization is spot on, but I fear when one uses such a pay-for-play service they are not just manipulating the data stream, but likely give up some autonomy to the owners of those services. When you stop paying for the service, all the data manipulation goes away and you lose your access to the metrics and stats. As your S-i-L if that is the case, and I bet she is bound to deny, deny, deny… she does work for the Master of the Google after all!
I suspect my progressive neighbor would see what they wanted to see rather than any what the “Master” would point them toward. I think we are self filtering more than being filtered.
I do not post hardly anything to Facebook. For OPSEC you could say and because I have no interest in arguing with people there. I simply read what my friends are posting. I am a Facebook “stalker”. I see no evidence of filtering although some may be occurring.
My SIL is simply selling complicated advertising. You quit paying you simply fall further down the lists. Or off.
On a lighter note I have friends who like to play with system and purposely search for all kinds of random stuff just to watch the adds that then pop up and laugh. Good sport sometimes.
I continue to look after my aging Mother and help her deal with her health issues. But this past month has proved an interesting one. Rifle hunting season occupies October here in Oregon and the hunt was on. We covered a lot of ground and ranged high and low and although we saw deer (mostly Does with her Yearlings), we just did not see them like we did when I was a kid growing up. But it wasn’t until the last day that I was able to get a nice little forked horn buck. Despite that struggle, the one thing we have been lucky and plentiful in getting was the mushrooms. With an early rain at the end of September beginning of October it made the forest explode with mushrooms. We are pretty amateur in our knowledge so we stuck with the ones that we knew and are easy to identify. So we found a few Shaggy Manes, but by far the biggest haul has been the Golden Chantrelles. We have been drying them in the homemade food dryer and dry sautéing some to then freeze. The ones that went into the food dryer will, at a later date be smoked in the smoker and then ground to powder to make a seasoning for cooking.
Just looked up several search terms that should have brought Survivalblog to the first page. “survival websites” brought you up on page 6 at google, page 3 at bing, page 2 at duckduckgo. Preparedness websites brought you up at page 7 at google, page 11 at bing, page 2 at duckduckgo. “Preparedness blogs” brought you up at page 6 at google, page 1 at bing, page1 at duckduckgo. “Survivalist blogs” brought you up at page one or even the top spot on all three search engines.
It does look like you are being forced down the list at google and maybe bing to a lesser degree, depending on the search terms. It looks like you could use some SEO (search engine optimization). There are just too many, what I consider obscure, web sites that are getting ranked higher than Survivalblog. There are also a whole boatload of government sites that are getting ranked higher than Survivalblog. Where is the justice in that? 🙂
Any container you buy food in is food grade. I keep plastic mayo jars, peanut butter jars, and plastic vinegar bottles, I buy vinegar in 1 gallon jugs. I went to local grocery store and asked if they could order some for me, they said I would have to get a whole case (about 100 buckets) that was out of my price range. A beekeeper may have 5 gallon pails. I grab empty popcorn and cookie tins whenever I see them at yard sales. Some feed stores sell used foodgrade barrels, but when you buy one open it up at the store, I bought one that had been used to ship olives and even after scrubbing with baking soda it still smelled like olives. I have had friends save 2-liter soda bottles for me, I wash and bleach them and leave the lid off so they can air dry and the chlorine smell can disipate.
We got 8 inches of snow during the Midwest “storm.” The local weather report said 4 inches, but we keep track on our deck rail, which isn’t affected by wind. It’s all gone now, but certainly made me more mindful of the anticipated Grand Solar Minimum (which even my acupuncturist commented upon). It has been a week to stock up with items from the local farmer’s market that we didn’t grow. The last outdoor week has passed, but today they had the first of four indoor markets. I loaded up on sourdough bread, plenty of squash and sweet potatoes to keep in our garage fridge. Today I also went and purchased more pork and wheat flour since these may be in short supply — alluding to Lily’s comments. I watch RFD-TV market report at least once a week to get the real skinny on farm reports. I have been working on my own sourdough starter, and just working more on more thrifty — but healthy and tasty — meals. Nice to read everyone’s comments!
Duckduckgo is a far better search engine than Google. Have used DDG for years, no issues.
I agree that https://www.Duckduckgo.com and https://www.startpage.com/ show far less bias. But the problem is that Google holds 80% or more market share of the search engine universe. Their search manipulation can be either subtle (like shadowbanning) or overt. THEY control the narrative. They also control a huge portion of the world’s online advertising revenue. All of the power is concentrated in the hands of the search engines and social media tech giants. And they are all in one great big happy leftist CONSPIRACY. They are currently conspiring to tilt the 2020 presidential election. Ever since they ganged up on Alex Jones, they’ve been systematically marginalizing conservative and libertarian voices. If they get their way in 2020, then we can say goodbye to the Republic, as we know it.
Here is a fun exercise: Go to Google.com and start typing in the phrase “Hillary Clinton Crimes”, one letter at a time, and see what “autofills” Google offers for your search box, as you type each letter, past “Hillary Clinton”. Then try the same thing, but instead with “corruption” and “server” as the last word of the sentence. If it wasn’t so Black Mirror frightening, it would be comical.
We should not forget the sham impeachment proceedings either. This is a current example of the extreme lengths these radicals will go. Never underestimate the enemy. While we may have limits, they have no limits. They believe they can, or must successfully remove Trump before the election, otherwise he might win in 2020, despite the collusion by Big Tech, and all other manipulations schemes. Unfortunately the threat of impeachment, and removal by force is underestimated, and therefore has a greater chance of succeeding as a result. The corruption is now so pervasive that this can happen.
Trump did not, or could not break Big Tech’s hold on the media, and internet, and preserve our ability to speak freely to defend the Republic, His lack of understanding of how important, or influential the internet and ‘Alt Media’ is, resulted in a lack of action to stop the censorship. He underestimated this threat. We therefore cannot expose the sham impeachment with the force we once used to get him elected. Nor can we be there for the 2020 election in the same way we were there in 2016. I was once heavily involved in all this, and can attest to the importance of the influence Big Tech has, and the huge loss in our ability to fight. Taking out Alex Jones was a pivotal move. We did not protest enough. All the rest was easy. It would be a greater miracle for Trump to be reelected in 2020, than was for him to be elected in 2016. First we must see if he survives the impeachment.
Yes, the real fight will be in the Senate. How deep is the corrupting influences? How did they get Epstien? The tentacles are everywhere, and from here on forward, this is do or die time for the Globalists, who control and motivate the radicals. The stakes could not be higher for either side.
For this weeks prepping, my focus was again on community emergency preparedness, specifically concerned with the Cascadia Earthquake coming.
Our CERT staff found a donor who provided us with 700 pounds of medical and relief supplies, which we picked up 3 hours away from here and brought back. We’ll be distributing it to the 16 CERT teams in our fire District. Every bit helps.
God Bless
Wheatley Fisher,
That is an awesome gift to your CERT team. Just curious as to how your CERT operates. Is all equipment and supplies divided and stored amongst the CERT team members or does your community have a cache program where some CERT equipment and supplies are stored in strategic and/or central locations within your neighborhood or region? I have read several interesting concept based on grant applications to the state emergency management organizations.
I think more preppers should join and or form CERTs in their area. For one you aren’t the “crazy doomsday guy” down the street you are simply the neighbor who is doing the responsible that all citizens should do and that is be prepared for a disaster. You don’t need to let anyone know HOW prepared you are.
Good question. We recognize two very distinct and different things: Emergency Response, and Disaster Relief.
No one really has stockpiled much for Disaster Relief. Both CERT training and Map Your Neighborhood programs strongly advocate for individual and family based storage and readiness.
We have 16 geographically-based CERT teams organized under our very active Fire District leadership, also there are MYN groups.
A few teams and MYN groups have established storage locations. I know of five locations with shipping containers where limited assets are stored. One of those has a established 300 sets of bedding, food, water, kitchen trailer, water trailer. None of the others are that far along, but several have been stockpiling relief items.
Teams simply store their very limited tools, and really no supplies to speak of, at their homes.
Our recent supply source was partly trauma/wound care bandages and gauze type stuff, and partly disaster relief items like garbage bags, hygiene items and cleansing materials. Right now we are working to schedule further supply buildup, and use the supplies as an incentive for individual teams to establish storage locations.
The Fire District has a plan to establish shipping containers for a decentralized operational centers with limited storage capacity, with a networked, independent communcations WAN and phone system linked by line-of sight comms, powered with solar and battery bank. It is years away from full implementation but it already has started.
If you can become integrated with FEMA (I’m laughing now because I already envision the comments that will protest this on the SB blog) and local organizations as a solid graymen/women, you get training and access to resources for communication, supply, training, networking. As Selco consistently says, lone wolfs die.
Active preparedness groups in terms of emergency response includes more than a dozen subdivisions who have long-standing and active Map Your Neighborhood organizations.
https://www.pep-c.org/map-your-neighborhood.html
Prep On!
Wheatley Fisher,
I agree with the integration. I think many preppers would benefit from seeing the reality of what goes on at the local, state and federal levels of emergency management. Many like minded individuals in CERT but they will be guarded (as they should be) on how well prepared they are individually.
We are busy digging around in the freezer and eating up food that’s fine, but needs to be “updated”, plus finishing off bits and pieces that get saved. It’s amazing how much space gets freed up. We believe meat will be an issue soon so that is one thing to make room for. Made some yummy jam from the frozen cherries in cute custom Ball jars (on sale) with cherries on them for holiday gifts. Am going to order a case of pecans from the local church sale. While they don’t last forever, they last a good while and can be frozen or vacuum packed. Checking weekly for the buy one get one free (BOGO) sales. Where else can get make a 50% return on your money?! Christmas shopping already, but only practical things, including stocking stuffer, except maybe chocolate – lol! Also adding essential oils, shampoo, TP, coffee. As I’ve said before, it’s all so easy now. I do not want to kick myself for running out of the simple things. Prayers for all and our country.
We hit up the last outdoor farmer’s markets this week and came away with 100 lbs of onions, squash of various kinds and 5 lb cabbages. I turned some of the cabbage into mustard slaw and canned it. The squash and onions will keep for a few weeks until I can get to them.
Like Always Forward, we cleaned and organized our freezers. I’m working hard to rotate through meat that has been in the freezer for awhile. I made bone broth this week from soup bones and a bit batch of chicken noodle soup from a whole chicken that needed to be used. I’m hoping to buy a hind quarter of beef and some pork before the end of the month along with purchasing extra ham and turkey during the November sales to fill out our freezer.
We are still working on our list of projects to complete as well. We hung two security lights in areas of the property that are not lit well. When I took family members out trick or treating I noticed homes that were well lit and those with security lighting placed in strategic areas. This prompted me to take another look at how we are lighting our property.
We filled propane bottles, ordered two cords of wood to fill out our wood supply and continue to add to our non-perishables on a monthly basis. The California fires have prompted a conversation in our home about how current our go bags are and having a list of items we would grab if we needed to leave our property quickly. It is easy to assume we have everything where we want it but the reality is that we do not.
Best to everyone.
JWR-
Re: on-line store. Not sure what of inventory you will have but I for one am always looking for Mil-Spec AR firing pins and the little stuff on an AR bolt like cam pins, etc that can get lost real easy.
One-of-a-kind military surplus items or prepper items that you find in your travels would be of interest too. Most on-line stores don’t list items that they only have one or two of. I am interested in a small switchboard used with TA-1 and TA-312 phones. Also the reel handles for the WD wire reels. Just suggestions. Good luck and please let us know when your up and running.
The online store will be nearly all pre-1899 cartridge guns, and a few gun parts and accessories.