Odds ‘n Sods:

Prepper comms goes mainstream? My New Favorite Social Network Is Ham Radio. – B.C.

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City plans to attack economic segregation by moving poor into middle-class neighborhoods, richer into poverty spots. No point in fleeing a high crime area when the city will simply be moving the high crime area right back into your formerly “nice” neighborhood. Middle class and upper class flight from the state of New York will simply accelerate… even more. – T.P.

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A chilling message from the cartels: Billboards with hanging mannequins warning cops to choose ‘silver over lead’ appear in Texas. – G.P.

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Seen on Craigslist: Beekeeper/Apiary Technician (Milton Freewater, OR) – RBS

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Feds Force Oklahoma to Overturn Anti-Sharia Law & Pay Islamists $303,333. – H.L.

Product Review: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer, by HJL – Part 2

1

Why It Works

I spent quite a bit of time, over the last three years, researching how freeze drying is accomplished. I wanted to know why and how it worked and ultimately, if I could do it at home. Earlier, I alluded to some pretty bad information I had run across, and I think a short primer of what makes freeze drying successful is in order, so that the user can understand just how useful this appliance actually is.

It is well understood by any high school student who has taken a physics or physical science course that there are three basic forms that matter can take– solid, liquid, and gas. (Yes, I know. Plasma counts there too, but we aren’t going to talk about it.) We can force matter into any of those states by varying the temperature or pressure. Usually, we do so by varying the temperature. You do this every time you put water in your freezer to make ice. We happen to know that water turns to a gas at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (boiling) and turns to a solid at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (ice). A little lesser known but just as important is that those numbers change as the pressure changes. If you are a mountain climber, the water boils at roughly 193 degrees Fahrenheit (F) when you are at 10,000 feet elevation. For the survivor, this change can be critical, as the lowered boiling point means you may not be killing all the bad stuff in your water that you are trying to purify, but that’s another story for another time.

There is one more property of water that we need to know about in order to take advantage of it. Water can exist in all three states at the same time, within a certain temperature range. At 32 degree F, you can have some of the water as liquid, some of it as a solid, and some of it will actually be water vapor (gas). We are all familiar with the concept of ice thawing into water on the ground during a spring thaw, and if the sun is gently warming the air, you can actually see the water turning to vapor or mist. What you may not be aware of is that not all of the water goes through that cycle. Some of it turns directly from the solid ice into water vapor in a process we call sublimation. This is the process that we want to enhance to create a freeze dryer. When we freeze a cellular-based object, like food, we damage the cells because the water expands as it freezes, thus bursting the cell walls. When it begins to thaw out, it usually turns into a sloppy mess, just like a spring thaw. If you are cooking the food as that process happens, you usually don’t notice the texture change, because your cooking will do much the same damage to the cellular structure. However, the loss of integrity of those cellular walls means that the object will degrade much quicker than normal. If you’ve ever found lettuce in your refrigerator crisper that has now turned slimy and dark while parts of it are still crisp and green, you’ve probably seen this kind of behavior.

This is why when we loose power to our freezers, we generally loose all of the food contained in them. Once the cellular damage has occurred and the thawing has started, you can’t repair it. If you catch it in time, you can stop further degradation, but you can’t reverse it. However, what if you could keep the cellular structure intact despite the thawing? By removing all of the water from the food without letting it thaw, we essentially “stop” any degradation of the product when it warms up. You are also generally capable of keeping the vitamins intact, though you still need to protect them from oxidation– the interaction with oxygen that destroys flavor and vitamins and makes oils go rancid. An added benefit of freeze drying is that bacteria can’t really survive in a perfectly dry environment, so we essentially stop the bacterial action that would normally occur outside of freezing temperatures and cause your food to rot. There are a few draw backs to be sure. Without the full cellular integrity and the water to fill the cells, the food becomes brittle and easily broken into pieces. You also need to replace all of the water for your body to be able to utilize it as an energy source. If you are not re-hydrating the food before you eat it, you will need to re-hydrate your body, as the food will simply steal the water from you. Both dehydrators and freeze dryers remove the water, but the difference is that if the water is removed in a liquid state, the cell walls collapse, shrinking the food and making it take longer to re-hydrate it. Freeze drying, on the other hand, freezes the food and then removes the water keeping the cellular structure from collapsing, despite its damaged state. It is also tremendously easier to re-hydrate the freeze dried food because the water can easily penetrate the entire structure.

How It Works

The concept is very easy. Once you figure out that you can manipulate that temperature/pressure boundary, you simply have to create the right “atmosphere”, or lack thereof, to encourage the process. The very small pressures involved in manipulating that boundary requires some special tools and measurement abilities. Most people in the prepping community have heard of the Tilia FoodSaver. It’s a very useful vacuum sealing machine that will produce about 29 inches of mercury (Hg). At 29 inches of Hg, we can make water boil at about 75F, but that is still above the freezing point and where we don’t want it. The water can exist as a liquid there, which defeats the whole purpose. Don’t even try that route. What you need is a vacuum pump that uses rotating vanes or gears in an oil bath to create a really good vacuum. We need to be able to make water boil at well below freezing in order to accomplish what we want. The pump supplied with the Harvest Right can reach vacuum levels that we can no longer effectively read in inches of mercury, so we have to switch to a smaller scale, which we will call millitorr (mTorr or 1/25400 of an inch). At one Torr (1000 mTorr), water will boil at about 3 degrees F, making it perfect.

In our freeze dryer, we can freeze the food to roughly -30F. We can then turn on the vacuum pump and reduce the pressure to below 1000mTorr. Then all we have to do is gently warm the food until it begins to reach the temperature at which the ice will sublimate into gas without ever turning to liquid. If the gas starts to overwhelm our vacuum pump, we simply turn the heaters off and allow the system to cool back down until the water ceases to sublimate. Then we start the cycle again. That’s it. In a nutshell, we have just described how the system works.

We still have to do something with that water vapor tough, because if we let it get pulled through the pump oil, some of it gets trapped in the oil and the oil becomes less effective. Eventually, enough of it gets into the oil that the system can no longer pull a low enough vacuum and we have to stop and change or clean the oil to continue. Harvest Right’s solution is simply to keep the freezer part running through the whole process. As the water sublimates out of the food, the vapor eventually comes in contact with the wall of the vessel, which is near -30F. Since water vapor would take less than 150mTorr to exist, it simply refreezes on the wall of the vessel, which you allow to defrost once you are through with the batch. It is an elegantly simple process that is capable of running itself with very little intervention, if any at all.

Alright, Already! What About The Bananas?

Those who have run dehydrators for your food preps usually understand that bananas and chives are not really two things that you want to run in the same batch. The chives, while yummy, are especially odoriferous and nobody likes chive-flavored bananas. Do it once in a dehydrator, and you’ll probably never do it again. We started the bananas at 0900, and I let the cooling process run for four hours. I knew I was pushing it, but most users of this machine will end up pushing the times sooner or later, so I figured we would simply use this as a learning experience. In essence, I expected some failures. At the four hour mark, I opened the freezer and felt the bananas. They were cold and hard, so I decided to push the process on. The top knob on the right side controls the timer for the cooling process, the bottom knob controls the timer for the drying process. I rotated the top knob until the cooling timer reached zero. The vacuum pump sprang to life, and the door began to compress against the chamber seal. I carefully watched the door, knowing that there was nearly 1,800 pounds of pressure there. The door snugged against the chamber, showing about a 1/2 wide contact ring with the seal. If you step away from the machine and eyeball it, you can see a slight bow to the door, but it’s obvious the system is built to take the pressures involved. I had expected the system to immediately start the drying timer, but it did not. The vacuum pump ran until the pressure reached 480 mTorr. Then the heaters kicked in, and the drying timer started. I watched the pressure begin to climb. When it reached 580 mTorr, the heaters turned off, and the timer disappeared until the pressure had dropped again to 480 mTorr. This cycle continued for about 10 hours. Finally, the timer came on and stayed on. As the pressure began to drop, I unilaterally decided that the time was up after the timer had run two hours (leaving four on the clock), and I shut the machine down. When I opened it up, the chives were done, and the bananas looked good but were still cold in the middle. There was no hint of chive flavor on the bananas either. I put the bananas back in the machine, forced it into the drying mode, and let the timer run out. Qualified as a partial success, my fiddling with the timers was obviously the problem. On thicker foods, you must let the timer run the full six hours (or longer, depending on the food).

Performance

Over the course of a month, I ran the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer 24/7, with a variety of foods. I played around with the timer settings, attempting to get better performance than just the standard programming, but it was hard to do. The standard program is a great place to start and stay. Where you will find some leeway is in how you prepare the foods for the freeze dryer. If you pre-freeze foods, you can cut the cooling time down by several hours. If you keep the prepared foods to less than 1/2” thick with no skins and good surface contact on the trays, you can cut the drying timer down to three or four hours. If you just want to come home from the grocery store and put freshly prepared foods in the freeze dryer, leave the standard controls where they are.

Several times we ran liquids through the machine, such as milk and scrambled eggs, and our first attempt involved pre-freezing the liquids in ice cube trays. The unit comes with only four trays, and to keep it running efficiently, you really need to prepare foods and pre-freeze them. Good luck finding quality ice-cube trays though. Some liquids, such as milk, contain sugar and create a sticky hard cube that just doesn’t want to release from the tray. I broke six trays before I found that I could soak the bottom of the tray in hot water to help it release the frozen product. In the end, I discarded the ice cube tray idea, because it created chunks that were thicker than 1/2”, which didn’t work very well under the standard programming. The product creates a light and airy structure that also works as a great insulator. Harvest Right is correct when they list 1/2” as the working size of product, because even after eight hours of drying cycle time, the center of the cubes still contained frozen product.

Oil-based products do not work well at all. I attempted to freeze dry butter, figuring that since butter will freeze hard it has at least some water content in it. As the heaters kicked on to begin the process of drying the butter, it seemed to work as I watched for about 10 minutes. Then the butter melted into a liquid product and proceeded to boil violently, spraying melted butter over the entire interior. That was a spectacular failure that required about an hour of cleanup. Do you have any idea how much soap is required to clean up 1.5 pounds of butter? I do. It isn’t pretty. As messy as that was, it provided valuable insight into just how easy the unit is to clean. The vacuum port, along with the measurement ports, are on the upper half of the chamber, so they rarely get dirty. In this case, I was able to wipe out any melted (then congealed) butter with a hot soapy cloth. The drain, on the other hand, presented a problem; it is on the bottom of the unit. Several repeated applications of boiling soapy water had to be sent down the drain, followed by cleaning with a nylon brush (from my camel-back cleaning kit) to remove the butter from it. In the end, we were able to clean the entire unit up in a little less than an hour, though there were two people working on it– one cleaning trays and the tray holder while the other was cleaning the unit itself.

Irritants

There were some things about the unit that bothered me. This unit is retailing for about $3899.00, which is an incredible price considering what it does. However, I was annoyed with the riveting of the tray holder assembly. As we used the unit, and especially as we had to remove the tray holder to deal with the failures and cleanup, the rivets loosened up and the tray would eventually rock back and forth nearly 1.5 inches. It doesn’t affect the operation of the unit in any way, but I expect an assembly to be sturdy enough that there is no movement unless it is intended. In my case, it irritated me enough that I drilled out four of the aluminum rivets and replaced them with 1/4” #4 stainless machine screws and nuts. It’s an easy fix.

The second worst irritant is the exit of the drain tube. The tube attached to the drain port of the chamber is re-enforced vacuum hose, which is rather stiff. You have to route that hose out from under the unit in the rear (because it isn’t long enough to exit anywhere else). The hose then connects to a 1/4 turn valve, which you open to drain the unit and close to operate. The valve assembly is too close to the unit, and if you do not have the rear feet lengthened enough, the weight of the unit will mash the valve assembly into your counter marring its surface and possible damaging the valve. The tubing supplied on the other end of the valve is too short to reach the ground if you are setting on a counter, necessitating the use of a stool to place the bucket to catch the melted water when you drain it. Also, if you are setting the tube in a bucket, you need to make sure that the end is above the water line of any water left in the bucket. If you forget to close the valve when you are cycling the machine, it will suck up anything in the bucket back into the chamber and spray it all over your product. Don’t ask me how I know this. It was a painful loss of food.

Another item that bothered me was that the system simply shuts the vacuum motor down by shutting off the power to the pump. The pump manufacturer recommends against that type of shutdown, as the pump is still under a vacuum, and the loss of power means that the oil gets sucked back into the cartridge, making for a hard start the next time. The pump never failed due to this, but you could hear the pump work hard to spit the oil out of the mechanism before starting to pull a vacuum. In some cases, the pump will stall several times before running due to the oil. The manufacture also states that this is hard on the plastic coupler between the motor and the pump. You can, however, mitigate this with some simple oversight in the operation, but that removes the “push the button and go” feature of the freeze dryer.

I also had a failure of the electronic display on the unit I received, but the company was very responsive in getting it fixed. They sent the replacement directly to me with the instructions of having a refrigerator repair man install it and bill them. However, it was a simple matter to replace the display, so I did the work myself.

I had the unit apart to repair the shipping damage and then again when I replaced the display. While most electrical connections are made by crimp connectors, I was disappointed to find the power connectors soldered and then simply wrapped in electrical tape. I would expect nothing less than heat-shrink wrapped solder connections in a unit that I am paying several thousand dollars for.

It wouldn’t be hard for Harvest Right to fix any of these irritants, though some, such as the vacuum motor, might affect the cost of the unit. The drain tube would have been better with the valve mounted to the unit and the hose exiting through the casing rather than under it.

Benefits

Did I mention that you can freeze dry your own products? Let me list the top three benefits of owning this machine in order of importance:

  1. You can freeze dry your own products (determining your family’s preferred quality and content).
  2. You can freeze dry your own products!
  3. You can freeze dry your own products!!

Seriously, I can’t think of a more compelling reason to own this unit. You can freeze dry ingredients (carrots, meat, potatoes, fruit, et cetera) or you can freeze dry meals (your favorite stew and casseroles), including only the ingredients that your family prefers or needs for dietary purposes. You need less salt; no problem! You have a gluten, onion, or dairy intolerance; no problem! You despise celery; no problem! You can have complete control, even to the point of growing your own organic food and freeze drying it to preserve the nutrients and fiber better than if canned. Plus, my family reminds me that this is the only way they can get their “ice cream fix” when there is no electricity. My wife says she cannot be sweet without her daily sweet intake. So, I am freeze drying ice cream sandwiches simply for her “sweet” disposition.

The irritants were small in comparison to the benefit derived by having this unit. You also have some serious flexibility in what you can use it for. I found that there were very few foods that couldn’t be freeze dried (most being those that have a high oil content, such as butter or peanut butter). You can produce about a gallon of food every 24 hours. If you have a family of six and freeze dry only those things that require refrigeration or freezing (or canning) for long term storage, you can actually make this a part of your long-term food storage and be able to freeze dry your larder as fast as you use it. This, of course, means that products like wheat, pasta, rice, and beans are not freeze dried, but meats, fruits, and vegetables are.

With only one of these units, the freezer becomes a short-term preparation and holding area as you feed the freeze dryer. My calculations show that if you have a one-year larder for a family of six and you freeze dry all foods that you would normally can, dehydrate, or freeze, you would be running it about six months out of the year. If you supplement by dehydrating foods that don’t need to be freeze dried, you may even be able to run it three to four months out of the year. Of course, to get in that position, you will end up running it 24/7 until you have attained that position. In addition, if you calculate in the cost of running the freezers and canning equipment for a normal larder, you come very close to break even expenses. Three freezers are not cheap to run year round.

Cost Factors

One of the most common questions I received as I reviewed this unit was about the cost of owning and running it. For the purposes of these calculations, I will use current food prices at Costco (2014) and a 10-year lifetime on the unit. In addition, we had previously purchased many Honeyville freeze-dried products because of their reputation of having high quality product, so I compared my product from the Harvest Right freeze dryer to the Honeyville products I had on hand.

  1. First, we have to calculate the ownership cost of the unit. If you purchase at $4000.00 and use it for 10 years (the standard lifetime of kitchen appliances), your cost is $400/yr or $1.09/day.
  2. The unit uses oil in the vacuum pump. You don’t change it because it breaks down, but you must change it due to contamination issues. The more contaminated the oil is, the harder it is to pull a vacuum. For our purposes, I’ll assume you do not have the ability to recycle and clean the oil. Locally, O’Reilly Autoparts store sells the oil for $22/gallon. On average, you will use one gallon/month if you routinely change the oil once a week. (See the tips and tricks on the next post to find out how to extend the life of the oil.) That makes the cost of the oil $0.73/day.
  3. It also requires electricity to run the unit. There is a compressor and a one HP motor on the vacuum pump. (The electronics use a negligible amount, so we will ignore them.) The unit states that it uses 10 amps, but that is a worst case number. The vacuum pump will not require the full 1hp when the high level of vacuum is reached and will also only run about 2/3 of the time, unless you pre-freeze your food. My current electricity is $0.09/kWh, so if the 10 amp figure is used (worst case) I use $2.60/day, though the real amount is probably closer to $1/day.

That means the unit costs $4.42/day to operate, including cost of ownership, worst-case oil usage costs, and worst case electricity usage costs. In 24 hours, the unit will produce roughly one gallon of food. One of the first foods that we produced was freeze-dried egg crystals, similar to Honeyville’s whole egg crystals. We were able to produce a #10 can with 96 purchased eggs for $13.87 compared to Honeyville’s $36.99. In addition, you can use your own chicken eggs to further reduce the cost. You also have total control over the quality of the product, and the resulting product shows it.

I produced a #10 can of freeze-dried cheddar cheese for $19.93 compared to Honeyville’s $43.89, and my product was considerably better in both texture and taste. A #10 can of sour cream cost me $10.89 versus Honeyville’s $22.49, and the product was indistinguishable from the fresh product whereas Honeyville’s product was merely edible. Berries on the other hand, were just about break even on the cost with Honeyville’s product, but my end product was superior in taste and texture. (On both accounts the superior results were probably because we used a higher quality fresh product than Honeyville.)

Have you ever made a large meal and then had to throw the leftovers out a week later? I admit that is a rarity with two teenage boys around here, but it has happened. You can only refrigerate the leftovers for a few days. However, you can extend the storage time by moving it to a freezer, but then you take up valuable space there. This unit will allow you to simply freeze dry the leftovers and use them off your pantry shelf at your leisure.

Would I Purchase This Freeze Drier?

In a heartbeat! After having played around with it for a month, I can see that in both cost of food storage and quality of food storage, this is the way to go. I will be purchasing one of these units, despite some of the rough edges. I am confident that the company will work out the minor issues that bothered me, and those issues that would affect the bottom line price of the unit can be dealt with by simply managing the unit rather than letting it run as intended. Of course, if you don’t want to bother with it, it will run just fine by loading it and pushing the button.

You can check this unit out at Harvest Rights web page along with several other nifty products they produce.

Index

This is a three part review:

Letter Re: Seven Secrets of Medical Prepping

Hugh,

I appreciate the concern pharmacist MDS, Pharm.D. has for keeping all of us safe. His comment regarding the danger of expired tetracycline is worth addressing in more detail.

According to the respected newsletter, The Medical Letter, Vol. 44, Issue 1142, October 28, 2002, “The only report of human toxicity that may have been caused by chemical or physical degradation of a pharmaceutical product is renal tubular damage that was associated with use of degraded tetracycline…Current tetracycline preparations have been reformulated with different fillers to minimize degradation and are unlikely to have this effect.” This refers to a 1963 incident, with apparently no reports since then.

The tetracycline antibiotics commonly used in humans are tetracycline, doxycycline, and minocycline, with doxycycline being most commonly used and also less expensive. Tetracycline is no longer manufactured in the U.S., apparently due to a shortage of needed raw materials.

Both doctors and pharmacists err on the side of caution when it comes to recommending medications. Yet how far should we extrapolate from an old tetracycline formulation to current drugs? Beyond this report on an old, unstable tetracycline formulation, there is no evidence to say that current tetracyclines will degrade into dangerous compounds. I doubt the editors of The Medical Letter would permit publication of the above safety affirmation without a fair amount of certainty that there is little danger. Also, note that The Medical Letter states that this is the ONLY report of human toxicity due to drug degradation. Overall I find that most reassuring.

Am I absolutely 100% certain that every outdated medication is safe? It’s impossible to know, but testing so far seems to say the risk is minimal. The Shelf Life Extension Program concluded that “84% of 1122 lots of 96 different drug products stored in military facilities in their unopened original containers would be expected to remain stable for an average of 57 months after their original expiration date.”

For a non-prepper article on drug expiration dates, check out “Drug Expiration Dates – Are They Still Safe to Take?” This pharmacist’s conclusion pretty much parallels my own.

HJL Adds: Dr Koelker has promised us an article in the near future dealing with insulin since diabetes is such a rampant disease today. I’m looking forward to that one

Odds ‘n Sods:

Natural Water Purification Using Coriander – We have

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Man cooked to death in scalding shower as punishment by prison guards. – H.L.

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IRS: 318,000 fed workers owe $3.3B in back taxes . – D.S.

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10,996,447: Disability Beneficiaries Hit New Record – G.G.

“The number of Americans receiving disability benefits continues to exceed the populations of Greece, Tunisia and Portugal, and is approaching the population of Cuba…”

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New York Lawmakers Complain Alabama’s Remington Win Due in Part to ‘Gun-Friendly’ Political Climate – C.D.

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N.J. doctor supplied steroids to hundreds of law enforcement officers, firefighters – T.P.

This is a dated article, but it is still relevant in this day and age of police abuses. It helps us understand why law enforcement officers are so often aggressive. Now if we could just do something about it.

Notes for Friday – May 23, 2014

May 23rd is the birthday of George Lars Kellgren, born 1943 in Borås, Sweden and the founder and chief engineer of Kel-Tec. According to LeftistAgendaPedia: He designed many firearms earlier for Husqvarna and Swedish Interdynamics AB in Sweden. He moved to the U.S. in 1979 and his original U.S. designs were for Intratec and Grendel brand firearms. He founded Kel-Tec in 1991.

This is also the day on which, in 1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were killed by police near Gibbsland, Louisiana.

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Product Review: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer – Part 1, by HJL

4

I have to admit, I was excited when I was first contacted by Harvest Right. A freeze dryer in my own home? What a thought! This has been a dream of my family for a number of years. I have even played around with the idea of creating my own freeze dryer several times, but in the end, the work involved and the daily grind always won out.

The Dream

Our food preps have always had issues, with the solutions seeming just out of reach. When we first started, the preps simply meant two things– remodeling the pantry to hold more canned and dry goods and getting an extra freezer to hold the beef of our first slaughtered steer. That worked for a while, but the pantry was soon outgrown and extra space was sought for dry goods. Initially, purchasing in bulk from the local Mormon Co-op showed that long-term storage was going to be a problem. We are strong believers in the concept of “store what you eat, eat what you store,” so our diet has improved considerably as we merged our diet and food storage capabilities, increasing our consumption of whole grains and homegrown/homemade-from-scratch foods. Then the inevitable happened. We ran out of beef at the end of harvest. As we had used the existing beef from the freezer, we had simply filled the available space with frozen vegetables. A quick trip to the local Sears to procure a second freezer solved that problem, but my sister-in-law had just returned from traveling only to find that their freezer died while they were away and over $2500 of food had just been destroyed. That was heart breaking, and I had also set myself up for just such a disaster. A week later, finding the freezer door ajar in the garage freezer with all of the meat in a semi-frozen state because someone didn’t correctly close the door after rummaging though it, nearly made me cry. Fortunately, the meat was salvagable, except for a few wrapped packages. That fall we had an exceptionally bountiful harvest and both freezers were packed again. We knew we were running low on meat, and I contacted our regular supplier of beef-on-the-hoof to let him know we were ready to start looking for a beef. This process usually took about two months. We would then dicker on a price, and he would then take the animal to the butcher where we would place our cut order. I knew I needed to make room in the freezers and with no other option, we began to participate in the time honored tradition of canning. While not optimum, you can can the frozen vegetables relatively easily. While the texture isn’t a good as either freshly frozen or freshly canned, it is still edible. It’s certainly better than throwing food away. Our moment of panic came when the butcher unexpectedly called and asked us for our cut order. I started mentally recounting the conversations of the last few days, trying to remember when I had actually purchased a beef. Coming up blank, I asked the butcher what beef he was talking about. He recounted how our supplier had brought the beef in 14 days ago with our name on it and given him instructions to call us for the cut order. He also wanted to know when we could pick the beef up because it was too much for him to store. A few phone calls later, I began to realize the depth of the situation. Our supplier had brought a bull in with a hanging weight of 1700 pounds!

“You mean a hoof weight of 1700 pounds.“ I corrected.

“No. I said a hanging weight of 1700 pounds,” he said. “You have to get this as quickly as you can because it will take up too much room in my freezer. Man, he gave you a screaming deal on this bull.”

My eyes started to roll back into my head. I asked him to store it just a few days longer, and then I called in favors from all of the neighbors, borrowing their canning supplies. For a few days, we ran an amazing canning operation 24 hrs/day clearing room in the freezer for the beef. In the end, we managed to fit all of the beef in the freezers, but my wife had to sacrifice her frozen corn, beans, and apples. For the next two years, we ate from the frozen-then-canned vegetables. All of us began to dread them. Clearly something had to be done. I was unwilling to move to a third freezer, worried that any power event would create a crisis in our food preps.

We experimented with MREs and purchased freeze-dried foods, but the high salt content and other additives caused problems with some family members. MRE’s were out of the question because of the odiferous side effect, especially upon the male members of the household. The sheer cost of purchasing ready-made freeze-dried foods as a significant component of our food preps wouldn’t work either. It was especially painful to consider that we would basically loose our precious garden and that the prepped food often had a calorie content as low as 300-400 calories per day per person. “If only I could freeze dry my own garden produce” was a lament often heard. I began to experiment with the process and dreamed of having my own machine.

I think you can understand how excited I was when contacted by Harvest Right about their unit. Here was my opportunity to finally realize that dream. A return email was sent which was followed by several phone calls to work out the details on the amount of time I would have to play with the machine before writing the review. Then the wait began. We finalized negotiations on a sample unit on Monday. The manufacturer said it weighed in at over 100 pounds, which, in my mind, meant it was shipping by truck, so I began to mentally calculate the days until the prize would arrive. Sometimes, being the managing editor of SurvivalBlog really has its perks!

The Arrival

I spent the day after the negotiations scouring Harvest Right’s web page for information. Being a techie kind of guy, I wanted hard details on the machine. Their web site, however, is not really set up for a guy like me. It’s more of a sales brochure, with lots of useful information on the benefits of freeze drying but not much “how to” or techie stuff. I expanded my search to the whole web at that point. I’ve done this before, and while there is some pretty decent information out there, I had seen most of it, or recognized that what I was finding was obviously incorrect and questionable. In fact, there is some down right scary information out there. I actually found one web site that instructed the user to seal wet food in a vacuum pack bag, freeze it over dry ice, and then store it on a shelf. Whoever follows those instructions is going to spend some miserable days in the hospital wishing they were actually dead, if they survive. Anyone who has canned, understands that freezing doesn’t necessarily kill bacteria and that botulism can grow in an oxygen-free atmosphere (and doesn’t have a smell to it). After a couple of hours, I started to get a headache over all the bad information and decided to call it quits. Back to the regular grind I went.

On the third day, about 1100 hours, the driveway alarm went off. Looking out the window, I saw a private contract van. Hmmm. That was odd. I couldn’t remember anything ordered that was scheduled for delivery. I watched for a few minutes. The driver was obviously struggling with something. I decided I would go help. As I opened the front door, I saw what appeared to be a small refrigerator box. The light clicked on. Wow! That was fast delivery. It was a FedEx contractor, and together we moved the heavy box up to the porch. Normal OPSEC was in place. I didn’t know this driver, so that’s as far as I let him come. He was kind and offered to move it into the house, but I assured him that that’s why I keep two teenage boys around the house. As I started to leave, he informed me that there was one more box. It turns out the vacuum pump is physically separate from the unit, which, as we will learn later, is advantageous to the design of this unit.

Unpacking

My house runs like a well-oiled machine. Both my wife and I believe in the Biblical roles of husband and wife, and if there is such a thing as a true Proverbs 31 woman, I’ve got her. The way she runs this household is an envy to many families in our fellowship. She has a place and a time for everything, and I’ve learned over the years that she knows her stuff. When it comes to outside, shop, cars, work, et cetera, that’s my domain, but the house is hers. Of course, working from home, my stuff has a tendency to spill over into her domain every once in a while. Actually, it happens quite often. She’s just very understanding and patient towards me.

This, obviously, was going to spill into her domain. To evaluate it properly, I needed it set up in the kitchen area, but how many women would appreciate a small, noisy “small refrigerator looking thing” sitting on their kitchen counter? This was going to take some serious persuasion on my part. In the meantime, I decided to unpack everything and remove the packing material to the garage.

I’m apparently not the typical kind of guy who likes to tear into new things without thinking or reading the manual. Whenever I get a new toy, the first object I reach for is the manuals that come with it, and I typically don’t even touch the hardware until I have completely read and understood the instructions that come with it. My wife used to make fun of me when we first married, because I kept computer programming manuals by the bed side and would read them to de-stress at the end of the day. However, she doesn’t do that anymore, because I’m the guy that can not only utilize technology well but knows how it works and can fix it when it breaks. We don’t often call repairmen around here.

I called for my boys to come help, and we carefully cut open the large package and began the unpacking process. It turns out that this is one well-packaged product. The top and bottom have a custom fitted, expanding foam lid that is then held together at the four corners by angled stiffeners, tying the whole package together. I can admire the thinking that went into this packaging, because of its simplicity and ability to protect the contents. There is a clear air gap surrounding the sides of the unit inside the heavy cardboard container. There are three to four inches of hard, expanding foam on the top and bottom, and there is no “rattle” to the package. Because this is a loaner unit, we were attempting to remove it without damaging the packaging, so that we can return the unit when we are through. It would be much easier to simply cut the unit out of the packaging, and with the exception of the plastic door, there is nothing that could be damaged by this action. The door has nearly an inch clearance to the cardboard wall, so if you simply make sure that your knife does not penetrate more than 1/4 inch into the box, you will be fine. Normally, manufacturers pack the manual in the main box on top, which creates a problem, because when you slice the sealing tape, you generally cut the manual. As we opened the box, I could see that there was no manual there, so no problem. I then stopped the process and carefully peeked down into the sides of the packing, which is the next most common place for the user manuals. Carefully pulling back the sides and peering down, I could see no manual within sight. Okay. It’s no problem. The next most common place is to place the manual on the bottom of the packaging. This is where things got interesting. In attempting to keep the packaging as whole as possible, for returning the unit, we had to carefully lift the 70 pound unit three feet vertically, using our fingertips with virtually nothing to grip. The exterior of this unit is sleek, and there are just no natural finger holds on it. One of my boys had his fingers on the upper door hinge; the other held it by the door latch, and I used a compressive grip on the rear of the unit as we lifted it free of the packing material. I had a faint mental image of the sound of dumping a #10 can of nacho cheese as it came clear of the box– schhhlllooooopppp!

To my dismay, there was no instruction manual in the bottom of the box either. Okay. It’s still not a problem. They’ve obviously hidden it somewhere else. Could it perhaps be in the vacuum pump box? I carefully opened that box. Yes, there were manuals. So I pulled the manuals out and began to read them. They contained very valuable information on the operation of the vacuum pump, such as preparing for the first pump start, maintaining the oil, how to properly shut the pump down, et cetera. All this was very valuable information, but it didn’t tell me how to assemble or operate the whole unit. Then the light bulb clicked on again. This unit has a cavity in it somewhere for the food. That would be the next most common place to put the manual. Back to the main unit I went. The door is made from what looks to be 3/4” plexiglass that is roughly 16 inches square, and it still has the protective paper covering on it. I grabbed the handle and gave it 1/4 turn and … nothing. Oh snap! That 1/4 turn simply loosened the door; another 1/4 turn unlatched it and allowed the door to swing open. I mentally filed that way as useful information. I’m always interested to know how other engineers have solved difficult problems. That simple 1/4 turn to pull the door tight took care of a huge issue I had often pondered in my own designs. They resolved the problem of how to have a door that swung open and closed easily, yet would snug tight enough to allow a good seal to be made while the vacuum pump started. It is simple and elegant. I like it!

There we had the jackpot! There were obviously the food trays, though it took a few seconds to recognize them, as the tray holder was turned sideways, and it was stuffed full of packing. A careful inspection of the contents revealed that there was a heavy rubber seal around the chamber that needed to come off to remove them. The ring easily slid off, revealing a chamber made from roughly 14-gauge stainless steel about 12.5 inches in diameter. My mind quickly moved over some calculations. Lets see, that’s (6.25in) x (6.25in) x (3.14) x (14.5lbs/sqin) = 1778 lbs! Maybe that door was Lexan rather than plexiglass. I mentally filed away another question to ask. As I carefully extracted the contents of the chamber, I found four aluminum trays, one long reinforced vacuum hose, a whole bunch of mylar bags (both quart and gallon size), one electrical cord, and one insulating door plug but no manual. Hmmmm. That was odd. Maybe they forgot to pack it. At this point, I now had packing material and contents spread clear across the living room, and it occurred to me that I might be better off if I took a break and cleaned my mess up before my wife stepped in and discovered the disaster zone that used to be her house. I was sure negotiations would go better if I didn’t start off in a hole. I began gathering up all the packing material and stuffing it back into the box to send it out to the garage with one of my sons. Man I love having that slave labor around the house. The thought crossed my mind on what I will do when they leave. I thought to myself, “No! I’m not going to think about that right now.” I got back to business. I don’t want to look like an idiot, but I was disturbed by the fact that there was no manual in the box. Deciding to chalk it up to the fact that this is an obvious loaner unit, I decided to email Harvest Right about the missing manual and also tell them I received the boxes with slight shipping damage but that everything looks good.

In the mean time, my beautiful bride had arrived on scene and was looking at the largish black box in the middle of the living room that has obviously gotten sick and puked its contents all over the floor. Oops… too late– the negotiations began!

The Negotiations

Like any good husband, I had rehearsed how I was going to proceed at this point, knowing full well that my work was spilling violently into her domain. I even had a speech all prepared to begin the negotiations. I would carefully lay the groundwork for the freeze dryer being in the kitchen, so it could be easily monitored, loaded, and unloaded. I would tied its existence to the shortcomings of our food preps, even to the point of suggesting that when the review was done, we might consider purchasing the unit if everything worked out as I had imagined. In the essence of full disclosure, I even planned on reminding her of the noise the garage freezer made (not being designed for installation in a living space) and the noise that every vacuum pump I had experimented with had made, at times making simple conversations difficult when standing next to it.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s the freeze dryer I’m reviewing for work,” I answered carefully, trying to gauge just how deep the hole was where I stood.

She eyed it carefully and then asked, “This has to be on my kitchen counter?”

“That’s the best place for it while I review it.” I answered. “That way, I can keep an eye on it as I work, making changes, loading and unloading it, and keeping it running round the clock.”

“May I provide some suggestions for what should be freeze-dried?” she asked.

“Sure. I have a list of things I want to try, but I’m open to suggestions. Anything we can do in a month is good,” I answered.

“Okay.” She walked over to a counter that had a few knick knacks on it. “You can put it here for a month, but after the review, it has to move to the shop.” Then she walked out.

I wanted to yell, “Wait! I haven’t started negotiating yet,”but I wisely kept my mouth shut. There had been no negotiations, and I just got everything I needed without even a strange look. I felt kind of let down, almost out-maneuvered, but there was no downside that I could think of.

The Inspection

The boys and I moved the unit to the counter, where I began to look at the construction of it. The chamber was made of stainless steel, about 12.5 inches in diameter and roughly 22 inches deep. The tray holder was made of formed aluminum, with heating elements on the bottom of each tray space and one on the bottom of the top piece to radiate heat down onto the top tray. The bottom had a piece of corrugated plastic stuck to the bottom as an obvious insulator to keep the heat from radiating to the chamber walls. The tray holder assembly was riveted together with pop rivets and exhibited a bit of looseness in the joints making the whole assembly slightly wobbly front to back but rock solid side to side. The front to back wobbly is relatively unimportant, because the trays stay level as it wobbles, which keeps liquids from dumping out. If it gets too annoying, it would be simple to drill a couple of the rivets out and replace them with some 1/4 inch #4 stainless machine screws with locknuts. The wiring was in the rear of the assembly and was attached to the freeze dryer with a pigtail and connector that gave enough slack to remove the tray holder completely from the unit with about six inches of room. This allows you to disconnect the tray holder from the unit for cleaning, which is most easily accomplished by two people– one to hold the tray and one to manage the connector. (I have since disconnected the connector by myself with relative ease, but connecting it requires you to pin the tray holder under your arm while using two hands to connect the screw-lock connect– not an easy task for one person.) The pigtail exits the chamber through a port in the rear just above the vacuum port, and you must be careful not to put too much tension on it or you will destroy the seal around the wiring.

There was a third port on the rear bottom of the chamber as a drain. This particular freeze dryer is a single-chamber design. When the ice is sublimated into water vapor, the water needs to be removed from the system before traveling through the oil in the vacuum pump. Any water, that migrates to the pump, degrades the oil and makes the pump work harder to pull the vacuum. Eventually, the oil gets contaminated enough that it cannot lower the pressure enough to create the sublimation process and your system stalls until you change or clean the oil. Most commercial systems use a dual chamber design, where the food is in one chamber and then vapor travels through a secondary chamber that is cooled enough to condense the vapor back into ice before traveling through the pump. We will look more at that process later, but for now, it is enough to know that the Harvest Right design is a single chamber design. The sublimation and condensation/refreezing occur in the same chamber with the ice sublimating into vapor, leaving the food, and refreezing on the walls of the chamber. There are some drawbacks to this design, but the big advantage is that the cost of the unit is brought down to a reasonable level, making this unit truly affordable.

The casing of this unit is made from a non-ferrous painted metal. I’m guessing it’s aluminum, though a stainless steel version is available, if you prefer. The fit and finish shows that the unit is well designed, and there are no ugly sharp corners that will bite you as you work with the unit. The chamber obviously provides the stability and strength of the unit on the top, and there are two heavy bars on the bottom that the innards are mounted on, which provide the strength and stability on the bottom of the unit. This particular unit had been mishandled by the delivery agent. (There is no surprise there, given that there were at least 10 brightly colored stickers indicating fragile contents, which end was up, and not to stack or lay on its side.) The left side of the unit was bowed in at the bottom by nearly 2 inches. I was concerned about this at first, but it provided an opportunity to actually open the unit up and inspect for damage. The inside is laid out very simply. There is a refrigerant compressor/condenser unit that is designed to cool the chamber down to about -30F, a computer/display board mounted to the front of the case, and a mess of wiring to sensors/controls and refrigerant plumbing along with the drain. I was glad that I had opened the unit up, because the flexible drain line had been tucked up into the unit and was difficult to extract due to the damage to the case. After careful inspection, it was apparent that the damage was cosmetic only. (Fortunately, the damage was not on the side of the unit that contains the condenser– the right side.) I noted that information to relay to Harvest Right, and looked further at the construction. The Chamber (and cooling coils) were wrapped in foam insulation with a protective fiberglass cover over it, but the unit couldn’t be simpler. It was well thought out and had plenty of room to work on the innards, if the need arose. Nothing was “shoe-horned” in like we see in many of today’s products. Even if original replacement parts couldn’t be had, it should be easy to make repairs to the unit. I spent a few moments to bend the cover back into the proper shape, rerouted the drain line properly, and put the cover back on. Continuing the inspection, the rear of the unit had a connection for the power cord and a socket to plug the vacuum pump into. The right side of the unit had the vacuum port on it with the two knobs at the front of the unit near the display. The front of the unit had a rocker-type switch (obviously the power switch), the LCD display, and the front door of the unit. That was it. I must say, I was quite surprised. I expected a more complex unit with more knobs and switches, though I can’t say for certain why I had that expectation. Overall, I would have to say the unit was well designed, well thought out, and well constructed. It is simple, strong, and light. Again– I like it.

Assembly and First Operation.

I still didn’t have an operations manual, but the assembly of the unit appeared to be extremely easy. The pump came with a quart of the proper oil and had instructions on how to prep it. It was painfully obvious where the vacuum hose connected, both on the unit and the pump, and the electrical connections were simple. Simply plug the pump into the unit and plug the unit into the wall. I installed the tray holder, noting that the plug can only be assembled one way, and slid it into place, placing the rubber ring on the chamber and closing the door. Obviously, the insulating plug needs to be in place when the unit is operating, since we are talking about temperatures well below zero. Those who have connected F-connectors on gas plumbing know that you don’t have to be a gorilla. The connectors are designed to be finger tightened, then tightened another 1/4 turn with a wrench.

I headed back to the computer to see if Harvest Right had answered my email. Yep! There was the reply, and attached to it were assembly and operating instructions. I eagerly opened the email, planning on printing the instructions out and spending the rest of the afternoon studying them. Another surprise was discovering that there were only a few pages of instructions and most of the information was on what foods could be easily freeze dried. Could this machine really be that simple to operate? There was only one way to find out. I started scrounging around the kitchen looking for something to freeze dry and came across two items that piqued my interest. The first was a bunch of bananas my wife had purchased the previous day, and the second was six ziplock bags of frozen, chopped chives from the garden last year in the freezer. The instructions stated that you could easily start with frozen foods, if you let the unit cool down about 30-45 minutes before adding the food trays. So back to the machine I went. I pressed the top of the toggle switch on the machine and the display came to life. There was a moment where the computer booted up, the unit let out a piercing beep, then the unit showed the obligatory “Harvest Right, << Freeze // Drying >>” with two timers– one for Cooling, which showed 9 hours, and one for Drying, which showed 7 hours. Then the compressor kicked on and the 9 hour timer started counting down. There ought to be an “Easy” button nearby when you use this thing.

While the unit was pre-cooling, I started prepping the trays. I pulled them from their protective plastic wrapping and inspected them. They were aluminum, formed from a single sheet, cut and bent to shape. The corners had been welded and looked good. We are not too particularly fond of aluminum in food products (preferring stainless steel when we can), so I went on the hunt for a lining material for the tray. I considered wax paper, but wondered about the out-gassing of the wax at the near absolute vacuum this thing operated at. I settled on the parchment paper my wife uses for baking. She buys it in the large rolls, 15 inches wide as Costco. Two sheets, approximately 19 inches long, split in half, would give me the four sheets to cover the aluminum trays and at the very least, make me feel better about having aluminum contacting my food. The paper pressed easily into place, and my wife and I began to slice bananas. One bunch of bananas provided two trays worth, when they were sliced 1/2 inch thick and spread evenly without touching each other on the trays. I filled both of the remaining trays with the chopped chives to the 1/2 level, and then I placed all four trays in the freeze dryer. Knowing that it doesn’t take anywhere near nine hours to freeze the bananas, I rotated the top knob of the unit (which corresponded to the Cooling timer) to bring the remaining time down to four hours. Then I had to go find something else to do.

You know the old saying, “A watched pot never boils”? Well, it boils at lightning speed, compared to watching bananas freeze. In the next part, I’ll walk you through the performance of the unit on a wide variety of foods that we tried, showing the pitfalls that we fell into, the shortcuts that we were tempted to take, and even the dismal failures we had as well as the astounding successes.

Index

This is a three part review:

Letter Re: Seven Secrets of Medical Prepping

Hugh,

As a relatively recent addition to the prepper society, I am a HUGE fan of everything and anything on SurvivalBlog.com and all things James Wesley, Rawles. Kudos on all that you, JWR, and the team do on a daily basis. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. I glean and digest all of the information that I can from the website and JWR’s novels. I am currently reading Expatriates and have already read and passed around to friends and family Patriots, Survivors, Founders, and How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It. I take the information in all forms from the website and books very seriously and try to pack it all away in my mind for the day that it may be needed. (Knowledge weighs nothing.) I believe many of your other regular readers may do the same.

Therefore, I felt compelled to write to you, as a pharmacist, when I noticed possibly dangerous information in one of the recent posts. In Dr. Koelker’s article regarding prepping and medicines, the first article of her list states that:

“When stored according to manufacturer directions, pills, tablets, and dry powders are likely safe and effective for years beyond their printed expiration dates. (The Shelf Life Extension Program has confirmed this for many drugs, including several antibiotics.)”

There is a class of antibiotics known as tetracyclines. It includes tetracycline (no longer available), doxycycline, minocycline, and many others that aren’t as widely used. If this particular class of medications is taken after expiration, it can cause a very dangerous condition known as Fanconi Syndrome, a serious and potentially fatal kidney disease. Liver damage (hepatotoxicity) could also occur with outdated tetracyclines.

The reason that I mention this is because this class of medications is also used first-line in the treatment of tick-borne illnesses and could be the first medication on a prepper’s list. It can also be used to treat certain skin infections, which is another reason to (in theory) stock up on this medication.

In a SHTF scenario, Fanconi Syndrome would almost certainly be fatal. Treatment might not be readily available. Trying to survive only to have your preparations kill you seems counterproductive.

While I agree with most of the points in Dr. Koelker’s article, I wanted to make sure that the readers of SurvivalBlog.com are safe and secure in their preparations. I know that if something in another article were incorrect, I would want someone to point it out, especially if it were potentially dangerous.

Again, thanks for all that you do. Happy Prepping! – MDS, Pharm.D.

Economics and Investing:

Darkcoin, the Shadowy Cousin of Bitcoin, Is Booming – G.P.

o o o

27 Huge Red Flags For The U.S. Economy. – H.L.

o o o

Items from The Economatrix:

Roommates Are A Financial Lifeline For Some Seniors

Did U.S. Economy Just Turn Negative?

George Soros Sells All Shares Of Citigroup, Bank Of America And JP Morgan:Is This A Sign Of Trouble Ahead For The Banking Industry?

Dollar Collapse Starts in Late 2014-Charles Nenner: ‘I Still Think The Big War Will Come From The Middle East.’

Odds ‘n Sods:

Thailand Goes From Martial Law To a Full-on Coup In a Matter Of Days. Thai military seizes power in coup, imposes curfew. – E.B.

o o o

Two 9-year-old students in Vancouver, Washington were deeply embarrassed last week after a classroom policy led to them urinating on themselves. ‘Pay to Potty” Policy Results in Third-Graders Peeing Themselves in School. As Duck Dynasty’s founder Phil Robertson would say, “Are you NUTS?” – H.L.

o o o

Do you remember when establishment Republicans in Congress were scared to death of having Tea Party challengers come after their seats? Well, those days are over. Is The Tea Party Dead? – H.L.

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Can You Solve For 32-12? Probably Not…. Unbelievable common core math.

o o o

Why Soldiers Leave Coins as a Memorial – D.S.

Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. By trying to seize far more power than is necessary over American citizens, the federal government is destroying its own legitimacy. We face a choice not of anarchy or authoritarianism, but a choice of limited government or unlimited government.” – James Bovard

Notes for Thursday – May 22, 2014:

Today we present another entry for Round 52 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $11,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course (a $1,195 value),
  2. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. A $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear,
  5. A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value),
  6. A $300 gift certificate from Freeze Dry Guy,
  7. A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo,
  8. A roll of $10 face value in pre-1965 U.S. 90% silver quarters, courtesy of GoldAndSilverOnline.com, (currently valued at around $180 postpaid),
  9. Both VPN tunnel and DigitalSafe annual subscriptions from Privacy Abroad (a combined value of $195),
  10. KellyKettleUSA.com is donating both an AquaBrick water filtration kit and a Stainless Medium Scout Kelly Kettle Complete Kit with a combined retail value of $304,
  11. APEX Gun Parts is donating a $250 purchase credit, and
  12. TexasgiBrass.com is providing a $300 gift certificate.

Second Prize:

  1. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  2. A FloJak EarthStraw “Code Red” 100-foot well pump system (a $500 value), courtesy of FloJak.com,
  3. Acorn Supplies is donating a Deluxe Food Storage Survival Kit with a retail value of $350,
  4. The Ark Instituteis donating a non-GMO, non-hybrid vegetable seed package–enough for two families of four, seed storage materials, a CD-ROM of Geri Guidetti’s book “Build Your Ark! How to Prepare for Self Reliance in Uncertain Times”, and two bottles of Potassium Iodate– a $325 retail value,
  5. $300 worth of ammo from Patriot Firearms and Munitions. (They also offer a 10% discount for all SurvivalBlog readers with coupon code SVB10P),
  6. A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials,
  7. A full set of all 26 books published by PrepperPress.com (a $270 value),
  8. Two cases of meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value),
  9. Autrey’s Armory – specialists in AR-15, M4s, parts, and accessories is donating a $250 gift certificate,
  10. Dri-Harvestfoods.com in Bozeman, Montana is providing a prize bundle with Beans, Buttermilk Powder, Montana Hard Red Wheat, Drink Mixes, and White Rice, valued at $333,
  11. TexasgiBrass.com is providing a $150 gift certificate, and
  12. Organized Prepper is providing a $500 gift certificate.

Third Prize:

  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
  3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security,
  5. A MURS Dakota Alert Base Station Kit with a retail value of $240 from JRH Enterprises,
  6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, and
  7. Ambra Le Roy Medical Products in North Carolina is donating a bundle of their traditional wound care and first aid supplies, with a value of $208.
  8. SurvivalBased.com is donating a $500 gift certificate to their store.

Round 52 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.