Letter Re: Getting The Most Out of Ethnic Markets

JWR,
I just thought I’d pass the word on some shopping options people might not think about too often. My wife is originally from Vietnam and we often go to an asian market for food supplies. I assume the following is true for other non-western stores, but you might want to check out what is within driving distance. These places are a preppers oasis.

There are a few major advantages to shop at these stores. Please note I am talking about small stores, not a place like the asian mega-marts in California.

First is money. Not just that they are usually less expensive, but more important they are less dependent on a cash register working. I’d expect if there are issues, wally-mart wouldn’t be able to sell anything without a cash register working. In these places, that would not be much of an issue.

In addition, cash is king here. Bring cash, buy in bulk, and talk to the owner. You might be surprised to find that you can get 10-20% discount just by asking, or by getting 10 instead of the 2 you planned for. Try haggling over a price at the local supermarket and see what success you have. But in these small, mom and pop stores, it is not only allowed, it’s almost expected.

Second, foods tend to focus on non-refrigeration items. (Asian market focus)

25-50 lbs sacks of rice – it’s common to see from 50 to 80 sacks of rice at the front of the store. Note that brown rice is usually in smaller sizes due to a cultural tendency to serve that to the elderly, and not for general consumption.

Store bought vacuum packed brown, white rice – long/short/medium grain.

Dried everything. Squid, beef, fish, mushrooms.. everything. Not sure what it is? ask.

Pickled everything. Vegetables , fruits, meat.

More dried noodle options than I ever knew existed.

Candy and treats designed for long term storage – i.e. hard candies, hard cookies, etc.

Spices for everything and in large quantities. In countries where meat might not be of the best quality, there tends to be a focus on cooking with enough spices to cover the flavor of the meet. In TEOTWAWKI, you might just need to make that days hunt taste a little better.

Third, electricity independent food preparation tools.

Remember, many of these countries do not have a stable electric grid, so non-electric cooking tools are very common in these stores. Butane cooking stoves are very common, and you won’t have the price markups that you will see in a camping store.

Fourth, experience

Remember, many of these stores are owned by first generation Americans. They know what keeps best when there is no power, or unstable power. What rice keeps longer, what tool works better. They know it first hand. Don’t be shy to ask.

Yes, sometimes you might have to put up with a different cultures approach to standing in a line (or lack there of), and you might have to have a little patience with a language barrier, but for me it’s well worth it.

Remember, these stores stay alive by having personable relationships with their customers. If you go out of your way to be friendly, you just might find that if Stuff hits the Fan, they will sell items to you (store open or not), where other places will be boarded up.

As always, thanks for your blog. For me, its one of the most valuable web sites on the Internet. – Robert B. in North Carolina

Economics and Investing:

Debt crisis: Greece to run out of money by August 20. (Thanks to J.B.G. for the link.)

Doug C. recommended this: Failing to Break Up the Big Banks is Destroying America

Santelli Rants: “Ditch The Duct Tape; The Problem Is Insolvency”. He says in summary: “We need pro-growth policies and spending cuts, right now.” (Thanks to B.B. for the link.)

Economy: The U.S. Retail Collapse Accelerates

Items from The Economatrix:

The War On Silver

Everything You Need To Know:  The Economic Collapse For Dummies “Micro Documentary”

Europe Is Sleepwalking Toward Imminent Disaster, Warn Top Economists

Global Economy In Worst Shape Since 2009

Odds ‘n Sods:

H.L. liked this piece at Alt-Market: Off-Grid Refrigeration

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Dick Morris Reveals How Obama Will Kill The 2nd Amendment On July 27

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Not particularly preparedness-related, but this collaborative music video site is amazing: The Johnny Cash Project

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Peter S. recommended two new e-books: The Survival Doctor’s Guide to Burns and The Survival Doctor’s Guide to Wounds

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The United Nations will convene next week for agreement on a “Small Arms and Light Weapons” Treaty. Please contact your Senators and insist that they do not ratify the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). It is plain and simply a civilian disarmament scheme.

Note from JWR:

Today we present a lengthy entry for Round 41 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) 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, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. Together, these have a retail value of $589. B.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) 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, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and E.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 41 ends on July 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.

Living With Photovoltaic Power, by D.P.

So, you’ve been wondering if you should be buying some photovoltaic (PV) panels to avoid the darkest of ages? And you have some specific questions:
– how many panels do I need?
– which type of panel do I need?
– what’s it going to cost?
– what about an inverter?
– what can I actually get done with my energy?

In this post I will try to answer these questions, having gone through the process myself in the last few years. My hope is that by relating my journey, it will help some of you make the right decisions for your situation. My main goal is to be able to collect and store enough energy that my life can continue without being totally thrown back into the 19th century. ‘Little House on the Prairie‘ may be nice to watch but I am not sure I would enjoy every aspect of that lifestyle. Example: I do have a woodstove with built-in oven but would really rather use my breadmaker to bake a loaf of bread. On the other hand: our house has electrical heat and the kWh it consumes on a winter day can only be delivered by a fully operational power grid (even rolling blackouts could be a disaster), so drastic measures are required.

I decided to go with solar energy because PV panels make no noise, need no gas and are maintenance free. Three plusses over a generator when you find yourself in the dark age. They have downsides as well in the comparison: up-front cost per kWh for panels is much higher and you will need more batteries. What tipped the balance for me is that I do not know how long the grid will be down, so I do not know how much gas I have to store, or if I can get gas at any price if I run out for that matter. As J.E.B. pointed out in his letter to SurvivalBlog (published July 17, 2012): a worst case scenario will be measured in years, not days. A second consideration for me is that if everything works out I may go off-grid voluntarily. In that case the system would pay for it self rather quickly.

Having said that, creating a system for collecting/storing/using solar energy does not come cheap. If you cannot set aside $1000-$2000 without seriously compromising your prepping budget, my approach may not be the correct one for you. Let me first explain this figure a bit more because
it may strike many of you as too much or too little.

First of all: you do not have to plan on spending much more. If you can that is great, but installing $10,000 worth of panels on the roof of your retreat is asking for trouble IMHO. It may give you a lifestyle similar to what you have today, but in a situation where law and order breaks down,
this display simply says: Hey guys, I have got the goods here, come and get me first. Personally I am not a gunslinger trying to attract targets, so keeping a (very) low profile is my first line of defense.

Secondly, if you can’t afford that much money, you will need to adjust your expectations and priorities because very inexpensive components are expensive to run in that they are usually less efficient and therefore leave you with much less useable energy. I will give you some ideas of what you can do for $100-$250 at the end of this post.

As a side note on budgeting: if you are in the lucky circumstance of being able to set aside some money and save (or have saved) it in the form of dollars, please stop doing so, take that money and start buying the goods that you will need soon enough. The US dollar is being pushed out of its position of global reserve currency day by day. When that process reaches its inevitable tipping point, the dollar’s purchasing power will evaporate and the only official notification you will get is a message from your friendly neighborhood ATM that it is currently out of order. This comes from someone who, up until a few years ago, spent decades saving for a rainy day. Which has now arrived … and so I feel I have no choice but to convert a good chunk of my savings to goods that I expect to be able to put to good use.

While on the topic of budgeting:
If you don’t have or plan to purchase an over-the-top system, you will need to get used to an energy budget. You know: supply and demand. Like an old farmer, you will have to make hay when the sun shines [modern farmers can’t afford to wait for the sun so they make haylage instead]. Supply can be increased by buying additional panels; demand can be lowered by energy conservation measures; you can do both until you find your happy or affordable middle ground.

Starting with demand, how can we keep it low? What are the things you really want electricity for? Here is my list:
– lighting (LED type uses the least energy and is long lasting)
– walk-in cooler to store food, seeds, etc. (our house has no basement)
– monitoring systems
– water pumps
– communications (radio, 2-way radios)
– small kitchen appliances (mixer, blender, breadmaker, etc.)
– security (keeping wildlife out of the garden and the chicken coop)
– laptop, e-reader, battery powered flashlights
– handheld power tools (drill, saw, angle grinder, rotary tool)

No washer? Nope, grandma got the job done with a few hand tools and so can I.
No dryer? Hot air from the woodstove will do just fine.
No dishwasher? Never had one.
No plasma television? What are you going to watch when the grid is down?
No entertainment center? I can watch DVDs on my laptop.
No microwave? I would use it if possible, but I am not budgeting for it.
No air conditioner? I do have a small (500W – 1 room – fits in a window)
air conditioner but don’t plan on using it unless I really have to. I prefer to sit under a tree beside a brook when compared to the air conditioner’s noise. As for heating rooms and/or water with a solar panel: don’t even think about it; that is a job for wood or coal. Yes you can use a solar heat exchanger for that, but what if it breaks down and you can’t get the repairman to come over? And the wind chills are around -40?

When determining the feasibility of solar power to run a tool or appliance, you need to keep in mind it’s power rating and the time it’s actually on. For instance if you need to cut a 2×4 your saw may be rated at 1200W but if your cut only takes 10 seconds, the energy used is 10 * 1200 / 3600 = 3.3Wh / 12V = .28Ah. Not worth talking about if your batteries are full. A 50W solar panel will generate 3.3Wh in about 4 minutes on a sunny summer day.

On the other end of the scale: let’s say you want to bake loaf of bread using an automatic breadmaker. The appliance is rated at 600W and the process takes 3 hours. About half an hour is used kneading dough and 1 hour to actually bake the bread. Its energy usage amounts to:
.5 * 100 = 50Wh for kneading
1 * 600 * .67 = 402Wh for baking at 2/3 duty cycle
Total = 452Wh over a 3 hour period, which equates to a 150W demand.

The numbers above are pretty close to what I have observed personally: I can use my hand-held power tools all day and only need a 30W – 60W panel to maintain battery charge. My breadmaker tests showed that on a sunny summer day I need 180W worth of rated panel capacity to maintain battery charge over the entire baking cycle.

Another item that can take up a lot of power is pumping water. This year I have put in a small aquaponic garden with 4 grow beds just to see what it takes to grow veggies that way. It’s an ebb and flow system that uses a 1000 gallon/hr bilge pump with a 1″ outlet. Though the pump is rated for 5 Amps, it draws only 3.5 Amps and runs 20 seconds every half hour. As a result a 15W rated panel keeps up with it with capacity to spare. But if I want to warm up the water quickly after a cool night by using an small aquarium pump to push water through a heat exchanger, I need to go to a 60W panel because that second pump draws 1.3 Amps continually. Lesson for water pumps: try to use big lines and low working pressure and lift.

Because I don’t want to be tied down too much by carrying around a ton of documents, I keep most everything in electronic format (mht or pdf) on hard drives and DVDs. That means I need something to read them with. Laptops tend to take 50-60W (or more depending on CPU/graphics card in it). So running it for 8 hours a day to play solitaire, …err study documents, will set me back 8 * 60 = 480Wh. Sigh! Just ain’t gonna happen on a cold winter day… A small tablet or e-reader would work much better under the circumstances.

For those of you wondering about getting enough juice for your tablets and smart phones to continue life in the cloud (Facebook, Twitter, on-line gaming and data storage): don’t worry, by the time you really NEED your solar panels, in a grid down situation, cell towers will cease to function within 24 hours as their batteries run out and (access to) the cloud will simply disappear like a morning fog.

Phantom Loads
You will waste precious amp hours to run your systems. There is no way around that because no appliance or battery is 100% efficient, but with some advance planning we can keep the leakage to a minimum. Biggest single issue is your inverter. Don’t buy one unless its idle power draw is less than 250 mA. You do not want to waste 1 or 2 amps on heating your inverter while its idling. This is not much of an issue for a 100W inverter that you use only to run your electric shaver because you can turn it off when you’re done. However for large inverters that you leave on all day to run your power tools on-demand you do not want their idle draw to exceed 250 mA and the lower that number the better. I learned this the hard way a few years ago when I left a 300W inverter on thinking only its LED was drawing power. After two days the new 120Ah battery was run down to the point where the inverter’s low voltage alarm went off … at 3AM …

Second inverter issue: do not leave appliances that use standby power plugged into the inverter because that draw will keep the inverter revved up continuously costing a few amps in the process. This may not sound like much but look at it this way: if the inverter uses 2 amps for 12 hours, that is 24 AmpHours. A 60W panel will generate about 3 Amps (averaged over an entire sunny day), so it needs to run 24 / 3 = 8 hours to make up for that loss. At current prices that 60W panel will cost you around $135 (+ S/H & taxes).

As an example: I once kept a yard light plugged in overnight with only its infrared sensor active and it took about 10% of my battery bank’s capacity in the process. My inverter was luke warm that morning whereas it stays cold even if I use it all day with my power tools. Another lesson learned and BTW I am running most of these tests on purpose right now, so I will know what to expect when it counts.

Third big cause of energy leakage: bad cells in your battery bank. I have dealt with this extensively in another post called ‘battery life extension’ and won’t repeat that now. Sufficeth to say that if your bank discharges itself from 12.6V to 12.35V overnight, you have a huge power drain on your hands.

Now, let’s assume you have dealt with all three biggies above; what is there left to do? Actually quite a bit, though exactly how much and what is a bit dependent on your handyman IQ. I am now referring to a couple of specific items on my list: lighting and monitoring systems. By their very nature they have to run many hours, some of them 24/7. The nice thing is that you can get a 12V (or lower voltage) version of pretty much any item you need.

Let me give you some examples:
– The 110V yard light I talked about earlier can be replaced with a 12V infrared sensor connected to a 12V LED flood light. Yes, if you get the right parts it can be as simple as connecting 4 wires.
– The walk-in cooler I mentioned needs to have its temperature monitored and regulated 24/7. Thermistors (temperature sensors) are a dollar a dozen and 12V computer case fans @ $5 each move enough air to get the job done.
– My primary heat source is a woodstove in a rather small work space. To avoid problems the space is outfitted with a dual fire/smoke alarm and carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide alarms. You can get these in 110V AC or 5V, 9V or 12V DC versions.
5V versions tend to come with a “wallwart” power cube, 9V versions run on a battery and 12V versions intended for RV use. If you can’t get them locally, try to find a supplier on-line. [JWR Adds: I have found that Camping World is a great source for 12 VDC appliances and gadgets.]

LED Lighting:
Despite candlemakers waxing nostalgic about the power grid being down, LED type should be used to cover your basic lighting needs due to its simplicity and longevity. In essence: put it in and forget about it; I have wrecked some LEDs by putting too much current through them but never seen one fail due to old age. There are many 12V LED lights available these days, though some are still pricey. I took a different (= less expensive) route by getting a bag full of UFO lights (the type you can put in tents) from China and using those. There are 2 types commonly available as of this writing: one with 60 LEDS and the other with 20-24 LEDs. I have used them both and there is not a lot of difference in the total amount of light they produce for the same current.

These units are designed to run on 4 AA batteries (= 5-6V), so you will need to solder 2 pieces of wire into the battery compartment. If you only need 2 or 3 units, you can connect them in series and then directly to your battery. [2 units may need a small series resistor if LEDs get hot.] I put 4 or more per room (very even lighting throughout the room) by connecting all units in parallel and then putting a ‘circuit breaker’ in the wire that connects them to the negative pole of a 12V battery. The ‘circuit breaker’ is a 555 timer chip that switches a MJE3055T transistor on/off @ 120Hz and about 15% duty cycle. This runs the lights flicker free @ 2.8V which leaves the LEDs cold to the touch but produces ample light. You can adjust the lights’ output by changing the duty cycle of the ‘circuit breaker’.

DC-DC converters:
These do what their name implies and convert one DC voltage into another. Use them to run devices and/or monitoring devices directly from a 12V supply. You want to avoid running an inverter to run a wallwart to run a monitoring device that draws 150mA at all cost. Some DC-DC converter examples:
– a laptop power supply that runs off your car battery (produces 18V-22V; should have no problem charging cordless tools)
– a AA, AAA, 9V battery charger that runs off your car battery.
– a 12V desktop computer power supply (this replaces your standard PSU)
– generic DC-DC step up/step down converters in all shapes and sizes on eBay
– for those with a soldering iron: 78xx voltage regulators are hard to beat and can generally be run without heat sink for loads of less than 250mA.

Try to take advantage of your environment:
This example applies mostly to northeners, mountain and desert dwellers. I built the walk-in cooler that I mentioned earlier because at my location we mostly have cool nights [think morning temperature lower than 60 degrees Fahrenheit] (>340/year). The idea is to use a differential thermostat to start the fans whenever the outside air is colder than the air in the cooler and simply flush out the hot air that accumulates during the day. This approach does a decent job of tracking nighttime lows if you can inhibit air flow throughout the day. The cooler itself is a 7’x5′ room that is also 7′ high. It is completely lined with 2 layers of 1″ thick styrofoam (this allows me to overlap joints to achieve lower air leakage). There should be no wooden or metal breaks in the lining as this will seriously lower the cooler’s overall insulation value. The door is currently sealed by weather stripping, but I may replace that with a magnetic seal like the ones used in a fridge. Your best location is against a north wall on a lower floor. If you can’t avoid a sun baked wall, try to incorporate a layer of aluminum foil on the outside of the styrofoam. That construction needs a small airspace between the wall and the the foil (shiny side out) but is worth its weight in gold. I should point out that in the winter I have to blow hot air from the woodstove into the cooler every now and then to prevent its contents from freezing solid and you may need to provide for that as well.

Inside my cooler there is a separate box that is double insulated. Even on hot summer days it’s temperature rarely exceeds 60 degrees F. The outer part of the cooler may get up to 70 degrees at the end of a hot summer day, cooling down to 55 degrees by morning on most days. I can expect to see these temperatures from the middle of June through the middle of August. Before and after that nights are colder and so is my cooler. So in the summer it emulates a good basement and the rest of the year its more like a fridge. This is plenty good enough to provide additional storage life to whatever you put in there for a small energy footprint.

And so I don’t have to budget for a fridge, but what about a freezer? I would like to have a freezer but haven’t run any tests yet to see how much power it really takes. The good thing about using a freezer is that it requires the most power just when it is most readily available. The problem I see is that I will need to make a custom 12V control circuit to determine when to turn power to the freezer on and off because I do not want the freezer to keep my inverter active 24/7. Apart from that I do not consider a freezer critical because there is always the art of canning to preserve food.

To summarize:
It may sound strange but based on what I discussed above I have decided that if I have enough solar panels to be able to bake one loaf of bread each day year round, I will have enough capacity to run everything I need to run. The catch is in ‘year round’ (I don’t live in the Arizona desert) so let’s look at the supply side of my budget.

Supply:
The calculations above reflect the situation in mid summer, say, from the middle of May till early August. By the end of August the sun is so much lower in the sky that the solar panels’ output is noticeably dropping and of course the days are shorter. This trend accelerates as you go into fall and by late September I need to use 2 60W panels where I need only 1 in June. The darkest part of the year is in November before we get snow on the ground and on a cloudy fall day I have to use 3 60W panels to produce roughly the same AmpHours a single 60W panel produces in the summer.

A solid cloud cover tends to cut power production 50%-70% compared to a sunny day. Light cumulus cloud cover (a few fair weather clouds) isn’t much of an issue. Cirrus clouds (high feathery clouds made of ice crystals) on the other hand can drop the panel’s output 30% even though it still looks ‘sunny’ on the ground. If you are in a situation where there is frequent fog or smog around a city, you will probably need to make an allowance for that too, but I have no experience with it.

Above all, avoid the situation where your panels are shaded part of the day. This may sound strange but my setup doesn’t have any fixed rooftop panels as most commercial installations do. Such a setup would make it hard to do all the tests that I have run but I also consider it inefficient. Even if the rooftop panels’ alignment is properly adjusted for your location you will have only 2 times a year where they are perfectly aligned with the sun’s rays hitting them at a 90 degree angle. But what is worse is that every morning and every evening the sun’s rays hit them at very low angles or not at all (assuming they are facing due south).

A mono-crystalline 60W panel measures approximately 2′ x 2.5′ and weighs around 12 lbs. So its easy to handle and move. Its also a lot sturdier than I thought (I can assure you that those ‘tests’ were unintentional) Some of my panels are hung vertically on the inside of doors. If the door is closed the panel is safely stored inside. If the door is open it faces the sun, which can be tracked from southeast to west. In the summer time when the weather is quiet, I usually tilt those panels upward as well. In winter time they stay in a vertical position to take advantage of light reflected off the snow on the ground, but can still follow the sun from southeast to southwest.

Other panels are completely detached and follow the batteries where-ever they are needed. Those panels get repositioned a few times during the day to track the sun. Lots of work? Not really: I only adjust the panels’ positions when I happen to be around anyway. Besides when the grid is down, your kids will be home and can’t play video games …

But is it really good enough?
Yes, I started out skeptical too; not really wanting to put down $x000 on something that might not meet my needs. So I started small with a 30W panel and a few not so great batteries and built the system from there. Nevertheless right from the start of the work on my ‘retreat’ I have run all power tools off that little system. Granted if I needed to rip a bunch of 2x4s lengthwise, I had to do it on a sunny afternoon or the inverter would kick out due to low battery voltage. But for those of us that grew up and/or live in the countryside, to go with the weather is just a normal way of doing things. The system has been up for more than a year now and it has never left me without enough power to do the things I wanted to do.

At present I have 270W of rated generating capacity and my batteries are in good condition. Last month we had a stretch of 5 cloudy days where we didn’t see the sun at all. None of the batteries fell below 50% capacity even though I didn’t hold back on any planned activities. That is how I am building the confidence that I am on the right track.

Now the math:
150W (for the breadmaker) * 3 (for year round use) = 450W. Based upon what I have seen so far I am confident that this is enough generating capacity for my setup. Making a loaf of bread takes only three hours, so even if my minimum usable day length would be no more than 6 hours there are still 3 hours (~400Wh assuming panels produce at 30% of rated output) left to run all other devices, lights, etc. And if the batteries run low after a stretch of dreary weather I just won’t be able to use my laptop or power tools for a while. Keep in mind that running low means the batteries are approaching the 50% charge level, there is plenty of power left for lighting, emergency repairs, etc. During most of the year 450W generating capacity is too much for my immediate needs but this is partly absorbed by running more water pumps, power tools, freezer, etc. than in the winter. And I can always store unused panels till I need them again.

450W worth of panels @ $2.50/W (includes shipping/taxes) will set me back around $1100. A good inverter $250 and another $250 for batteries add up to $1600. And I was lucky because I was able to purchase good used deep cycle batteries for 10% of their retail value. New they will set you back around $250 apiece. I purchased my solar panels and inverter via the Internet. I can get them locally but for 2-3x as much money. Depending on your situation, you may want to get them on-line too, but only order from a supplier in the country you live in. Getting these items straight from China will probably get you B-grade and that is not what you want on high priced goods. And.. your warranty would be a nightmare at best.

Pricing:
As of the time of this writing (July 2012) the prices that I have quoted are available on eBay from North-American suppliers.

Types of panels:
I am getting the best performance from mono-crystalline panels that are rated at 16.5-17.5% efficiency. Poly-crystalline comes in just under that at around 16% efficiency and is sometimes a bit less expensive per watt. Amorphous type panels are still less expensive per watt but have only 8-9% efficiency and therefore have almost twice the surface area for the same wattage. They also seem to deliver power at a lower voltage.

Inverter size:
My inverter is rated for 2500W with 5000W surge capacity. This sounds like a lot but you should take the ratings with a grain of salt. I tried to run a 2 h.p. industrial motor off it but that didn’t work because the inverter shut itself down after a few seconds on each attempt. On the other hand I have no problems running a 1200W circular saw, a 1500W vacuum cleaner and a 15A stick welder. So my inverter probably delivers close to 2000W in real life. Its a big box which means it runs cool and that is a good thing. Its fans only come on when I am baking bread on a hot day or when I put it in the full sun because its outer shell is used as heat sink. Given my experience I doubt you will be happy for long if you try to use an inverter rated for less than 2000W as your main inverter. Since you probably want a backup unit as well, its worth considering to get a stackable inverter. Those units allow you to connect them in parallel in a single system effectively doubling your capacity.

System building note:
If you buy an inverter you will most likely see in the instructions that it should be grounded. I suggest you ignore that instruction because it will seriously compromise your system without adding safety for people that use it. Here is why: Your system’s common ground is the minus side of your battery bank. Assuming your batteries’ casing is intact it is isolated from the earth you walk on, so its impossible for you to be the switch that closes the loop (i.e. get electrocuted if you touch a hot wire; and yes, I personally tried it and am still writing…). The downside of tying your system to earth was pointed out by J.E.B. in his letter: your system could get fried just when you need it most. He is entirely correct in his assertion. The earth is a large capacitor and when excited by externally induced currents, it rings like a bell. As with any capacitor the rise and fall times of the currents are very small compared to the current’s size leading to near vertical ‘walls of energy’ that are fully capable of destroying a system through its ground connection alone. Exactly what size of external event is required to take down a given system depends on many factors but why take a chance? For that reason my solar powered system is not grounded to earth.

How about the $100-$250 setup?
If you have been reading the entire article you may be able to guess where this is going:
– Forget about using 110 VAC tools and devices. This will save you the expense of an inverter. Definitely skip a charge controller in this setup.
– Buy a 40W or 50W mono- or poly-crystalline solar panel (=$100 to $125). If you live south of 40 degrees latitude, you can probably get by with a
30W-40W panel. I do not recommend using panel sizes below 30W for use with deep cycle and marine batteries. 15W is the minimum for car batteries and 5W for garden tractor and motorcycle batteries. The reason is that small panels cannot generate the power required to charge a large battery to
100% capacity. It may charge to 75% or 80% of capacity but that leaves a lot to be desired capacity wise and will at some point lead to quicker deterioration of the cells inside your battery. Rule of thumb: if your battery never reaches 13.6V in full sun around noon time, your panel is too small (or you have a bad cell in your battery).
– Try to get 1 or 2 used batteries that measure 12.3V or higher at rest. If that doesn’t work, buy 1 with 100Ah (or more) capacity. Deep cycle is great, but marine type is okay too and less expensive and easier to get. Car batteries will work fine but they cannot be discharged as deeply and won’t last as long (but still at least a few years) due to their different grid construction.
– If you can no longer use your car (for any reason you can think of) its quite alright to take out its battery and use that as free additional storage capacity, but you shouldn’t mix new and used batteries in a single battery bank. Perhaps you can even round up some additional batteries in the neighborhood, though I strongly suggest you ask the owners’ permission first.
– Connect panel to batteries and point panel at the sun. Depending on your panel’s connectors, you may need to get or make an adapter for this.
– You now have a system that can provide you with light, a radio and the ability to charge flashlights, 2-way radios, small rechargeable batteries, some gadgets and, likely, your cordless tools year round.
– Since you operate on a shoestring and want your investment to last:
* buy a (inexpensive) small voltmeter and make sure your batteries never drop below 12V (12.2V for car batteries).
* buy a gallon of de-ionized water (it is still inexpensive and easy to get) and keep all cells in your batteries topped up.
* cover the battery terminals and connections with a layer of petroleum jelly (a.k.a. vaseline) to avoid corrosion.
– Best of all: your system is portable. If you have to leave you can take it with you, maybe not on a bicycle but definitely in a car. And so you will be in much better shape than if you had nothing at all.

Letter Re: American Redoubt Relocation Climate Questions

James,
My question is on the American Redoubt.  It’s late in the game, but I’ve got to get out of Southern California.
 
What do you think of eastern Montana as a place to settle down?  Are the snows as bad as the Western part of the state?  My parents used to have a place 7 miles outside of West Yellowstone, and they said it was the coldest spots in the continental U.S.  Is the eastern part of Montana like that?
 
I’ve been watching what’s going on in America, and even I’m getting shaken.  I need to go where they won’t allow Obamacare, where they won’t allow Obama to take our guns, and where land is dirt cheap.

Let me ask:
 
        -Montana?
 
        -Wyoming?
 
        -Texas?  (In the North, I don’t like the demographics down south)
 
        -West Virginia?
 
        -Vermont, was it Vermont that nullified Obamacare?
 
        -North or South Dakota, or perhaps Idaho.
 
I think I’ve got a few friends convinced to move with me, so we can be each other’s backup.
 
I’ve been reading your blog for years; you and Karl Denninger are the two I rely on for this crisis. Thanx for your time, – Tina F.

JWR Replies:

To begin, West Yellowstone is fairly high elevation, so that makes it atypical of the region.

Eastern Montana has some problems:

It is plains country, so it is prone to drifting snow.
The winters are brutal.
It is DOWN WIND of the Malmstrom AFB missile fields.
It is DOWN WIND of Yellowstone and the potential supervolcano. (Yes, I know, “Once each 10,000 years”, but…)

I prefer Northwestern Montana and north Idaho, because they are WEST of the Great Divide, and hence have a milder climate.

My book “Rawles on Retreats and Relocation” has my detailed locale recommendations.  That $28 book will save you a couple of hours of phone consulting time (at $100 per hour.)  But some of that data is also available free, here.

My top choice is the vicinity of St. Maries, Idaho.  That valley has a much more mild climate. And there is great shopping just an hour away in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane is another 40 minutes beyond.)

Economics and Investing:

The hindrance of global debt – Spain accelerating to major bailouts and bond markets react. Eurozone stock markets in major decline.

David B. sent this: Fed Plans Dollar Devaluation, New Evidence; Why Now?

G.G. suggested this: David Stockman: “The Capital Markets Are Simply A Branch Casino Of The Central Bank” (Includes a link to an insightful video interview of Stockman.)

Also from G.G.: San Marino falls victim to the eurozone crisis

Items from The Economatrix:

Greece Now in “Great Depression,” Says PM

Is Vegas Signaling the Consumer is Folding?

Europe’s Systemic Collapse…And What it Means for Us and You

Wall Street Falls As Europe Hits Earnings

Odds ‘n Sods:

H.L. sent this profile of delusion: 55 Percent Of Americans Believe That The Government Will Take Care Of Them If Disaster Strikes. The article includes this frightening statistic: “53 percent of all Americans do not have a 3 day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.”

   o o o

G.G. flagged this: A Nation That’s Losing Its Toolbox. Thankfully, SurvivalBlog readers are regaining forgotten skills, with plenty of hands-on experience in our gardens, in our wood shops, and under the hoods of our vehicles.

   o o o

How to stop a massacre

   o o o

K.A.F. sent: Freezing Tomatoes to can at a later time

   o o o

F.G. mentioned that there has been a bit too much “privatizing”: The Terrifying Background of the Man Who Ran a CIA Assassination Unit. [JWR Adds: For some further reading, do a web search on the phrase “JSOC Kill/Capture Team.”]

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Our character is best revealed by the decisions we’ve made and the impact of these decisions on ourselves and others. Over time, the decisions we make–large and small–become the legacy we leave behind.” – Erwin Lutzer

Note from JWR:

Today we present another two entries for Round 41 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) 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, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. Together, these have a retail value of $589. B.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) 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, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and E.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 41 ends on July 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.

Buying Inexpensive Groceries in Small Towns, by Sarah in Texas

The “extreme couponing” movement is fascinating. In larger communities than mine, people can combine coupons, sales, and store policies (like double- or triple-coupon days) to walk out with free or dirt-cheap groceries, hygiene items, and other goodies. When you’re trying to build a survival stockpile, every dollar matters; it’s great to get a years’ worth of toothbrushes for the entire family for just a few dollars, for example, and to stock up on canned vegetables for twenty cents apiece.

However, I live in a small town. This rural part of Texas includes a Wal-Mart Supercenter, a local grocery store, and a small supermarket. All have sales, and they accept coupons (no doubling or tripling allowed, though, and they won’t accept most online/home-printed coupons), but it’s difficult to get fantastic deals like twenty-five-cent tubes of toothpaste or fifty-cent bags of flour.

This doesn’t mean that Mom and I pay full, retail price for most of our groceries and other essentials. Mom and Dad are living on his Social Security retirement, which doesn’t go very far. Also, we’re still building our survival stockpiles, so we end up spending the same amount of grocery money—we’re just coming home with a lot more these days, a good chunk of which is stored for later.

Our process is a bit time consuming, but we’re motivated to make the investment, especially with recent word that drought conditions in Indiana will affect food prices. We have to eat no matter how expensive or scarce food becomes in the future, so we figure that having a buffer now, when the biggest pain is investing time in the stocking-up process, is best.

We’re Wal-Mart Shoppers
For ninety-something percent of our grocery shopping, we go to Wal-Mart. Regardless of how anybody might feel about that corporation—we can all agree, I’m sure, that they don’t have a perfect track record—they’re the go-to source for groceries where I live.

Why? Wally World honors competitors’ sales ads. Each store has its own policies, which you can check out by calling or visiting the customer-service desk. In most cases, a local competitor’s sales circular is acceptable as long as an actual price is printed; Wally World won’t generally honor sales like “Buy one, get one for a penny” or “Twenty percent off X item.”
One huge advantage is that Wal-Mart substitutes its own, store brand for generic or store-brand items in circulars. The catch is that they must be the same item as far as weight and contents are concerned. I can’t get a fifty-pound bag of Ol’ Roy dog food (Wally World’s brand) if the advertised, store brand is forty-four pounds. I also can’t get Neufchatel cheese for the sale price if the advertisement is for cream cheese.

However, because most Supercenters stock a large selection of groceries and other goods, finding a comparable item in the store isn’t difficult. Wal-Mart also carries quite a few national brands, which often go on sale somewhere. It’s rare for me to find something I want in a sales ad that I can’t find on the shelves.

Finding Ads
On Wednesdays, I get online and look at the sales circulars for other stores. If the supermarkets are nearby, these ads will show up in the mailbox. That applies to the supermarket and local grocery store I mentioned earlier; the other dozen-plus stores don’t mail us anything, as we live too far away, so I use the Internet.

My Wal-Mart honors ads from stores up to sixty miles away, which includes a very-large, well-populated region. The sprawling metropolis has supermercados (Hispanic supermarkets), which tend to have excellent sales prices on meat and produce. They’re also good for deals on paper products, various soaps, and cleaning items.

I visit the supermercados’ sites first. That’s where I find sales like:
Tomatoes: 5 pounds for a dollar (Wal-Mart price: $1.98 a pound)
White or yellow onions: 5 (sometimes 8) pounds for a dollar (Wal-Mart price: at least $1.49 a pound)
Cantaloupe: $1 each (Wal-Mart price: $1.98 each)
Boneless, skinless chicken breast: $1 a pound (Wal-Mart price: $2.99 a pound)
Eggs: $1 a dozen (Wal-Mart price: $2 a dozen)
Other supermarkets also have great sales. Mom and I like McCormick’s Grill Mates seasonings for some cooking. They’re $2.50 apiece at Wal-Mart, but we have a few dozen of them in storage. They were $1 apiece at one grocery store about fifty miles away, so we stocked up by “comp shopping” at the local Wal-Mart. (Try the Montreal Chicken next time you grill chicken breasts; it’s delicious.)
Also, we can combine sale prices with coupons. When that happens, we do our best to stock up on those items. Coupons aren’t easy to find out here unless we buy the newspaper—people aren’t interested in setting up a coupon swap, for some reason—but we do what we can.
Since we started doing this more than two years ago, Mom and I have learned that ads run in cycles. The first week of the month, for example, is not a great time to go stock-up shopping; stores tend to have fewer sales, or worse sales prices. That, I suspect, is because lots of people are paid around the first of the month (retirees, for example). They’re going to do the bulk of their shopping that week, so why offer them the best sales prices when they’re going to show up to buy food no matter how much or little it costs?
Sales cycles run throughout the month and, in some cases, by seasons. The third week of the month, for example, is a good time to stock up on toilet paper and paper towels, as this is when stores tend to have the best sales. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that the pattern is rather consistent, so Mom and I buy our paper products for the month (and for the long-term stash) that week of the month.
Making Menus and Lists
When I’m finished writing down sales prices for items or printing the pages of ads that we want to use, Mom and I plan the weekly menu. Most of what we make around here is based on what we found on sale, at least for fresh goods like meat and produce. Even perishables like vegetables and meat are preserved—we have a Food Saver, food dehydrator, and freezer—but some of the fresh food goes into this week’s meals. Basing food on what’s inexpensive this week saves money and, because Mom and I have loads of recipes that we all like, there are few complaints about the menu. Fresh, homemade meals can be inexpensive but nutritious, especially if you don’t pay full, retail price for the ingredients.
Using my ads or notes, Mom makes the grocery list. She’s shopped at the local Supercenter so long that she knows exactly where to find each item, so she writes the list in that order. We hit the pharmacy first, so those items are at the top. We hit the produce section last, so those items are at the bottom.
Mom’s list, usually on notebook paper, includes several columns titled “Item,” “Description,” “Store,” “Price,” and “Other.” For example:
Item: Canned corn
Description: Store brand, 15 oz.
Store: Dave’s Fiesta Mart
Price: 50 cents
Other: Limit 5
This way, she doesn’t have to go through a stack of ads, which we regularly see other shoppers doing. Why not spend some extra time, while we’re at the house, to organize the list into one, neat page? (Mom writes on the front and back side of the paper; it’s rare for her to need a second page, but it does happen.)

The Shopping Trip
The entire trip to Wal-Mart, from entering to exiting the front doors, takes an hour and a half to two hours. That seems like a long time, but we’re shopping for both the week and our stockpile; it’s common for us to push two carts full of goods out to the truck.

When we first started, trips took longer—up to four hours in a couple of cases—because we weren’t as efficient as we are these days. We’ve learned, mostly through trial and error, to plan things before we leave the house so that we aren’t wandering up and down the aisles, spending what seems like forever trying to find one stupid thing we need.
While we’re in the store, we separate sale items from the rest of the things in the cart. Sometimes, Mom and I both push a cart: one for sale items and the other for the rest. Either way, staying organized while we’re going up and down the aisles makes things go faster when we get to the cashier.
The main problem with shopping competitors’ ads at Wal-Mart is the extra time involved with checking out. Mom and I have cut time from that process by keeping everything separated while we’re in the store, but that does only so much.

We have to tell the cashier where that item’s on sale and how much it costs. He or she might have to verify by looking at a copy of the ad, which management puts at each register. The cashier must manually override the computer every time he or she scans a sale item which, even with an experienced employee, eats up time.
When I’m pushing two Wal-Mart carts full of purchases out the door, after paying all of $200 for them—including non-grocery items like pet food, laundry soap, and the like—I’m fine with the extra time spent on all this. We don’t have much money around here, but we have extra food and other essentials because of comp shopping. If I have to spend thirty minutes looking ad ads and then an hour and a half shopping for those goods, that’s what I’ll do—and keep doing as long as there’s money to spend at the store and items on the shelves to buy.

Some Myths About Seeds, by M.J.E.

I keep coming across misinformation on some of the prep sites I’ve encountered and thought it would be helpful to set some things straight with regard to seeds, seed storage and growing food and other useful plants. Here are some myths I’ve encountered and my attempts at clarification. While the misinformation may not endanger you, it can prevent you from using all resources available or create some false expectations.

Myth 1: If you save seeds from hybrid plants (commercial seeds, not heirloom), you’ll starve.
Seeds from hybrid plants, in my experience, will not fail to grow – they’re just not likely to produce what you expected. Hybrids do not breed true because a certain proportion of the off-spring will revert to the type of the parents. What you get will depend somewhat on what parent plants were used to produce the hybrid and what pollen your plant encountered when it was blooming. The resulting plants may not be hearty or continue to prosper after a few generations, but some will do just fine. It’s a bit of a crap shoot what you’ll end up with. I’ve had volunteer plants of various kinds grow in my compost heap, and it’s always amusing to see what strange and interesting produce appears from the seeds of hybrids I grew the year before. I got what looked like a white acorn squash one year and another volunteer was a particularly weird kind of melon of uncertain origin. They were still very tasty. You can pollinate your plants by hand (with a little paint brush substituting for a bee to carry the pollen) if you want to control what your plants encounter, or you can trust nature to find a stable strain that works for you. Open pollination encourages genetic diversity, and that’s a good thing in the plant world. 

Myth 2: You should keep fruit seeds and nuts for growing trees.
Fruit trees can produce wildly different types of fruit from the same tree’s seeds. Fruit trees for sale from your nursery are not produced from hybrid seeds. Fruit trees and some other fruits like grapes are made to produce consistent fruit by grafting the desired plant from a single source onto a hearty root stock. All the trees are exact clones of the original. You can grow fruit plants from seeds, but there’s no telling what the fruit will be like. If you have a tree that has fruit you really like, you can perpetuate it by grafting. Grafting isn’t very difficult, but may require a little practice. A sturdy, disease resistant base plant is essential (in the 1870s France’s vineyards were saved from near total destruction from a parasite infestation by grafting their plants onto resistant grape vine root stocks from Missouri). Another thing about fruits: some will not self pollinate (apples, for example) and a second plant of a different variety (called a cultivar) may be required within a specified area to allow you to have fruit. Of course, you will also need pollinating insects to carry the pollen between trees, and ideally the trees shouldn’t be further than 300 feet apart. Mulberry and olive trees are wind pollinated, but for mulberries you need a male tree to pollinate your female, fruit bearing trees. Nut trees aren’t as much of a problem with regard to breeding true, but nut trees that grow here in Missouri must be about 10 years old before they begin to produce useful nuts. It’s best to have mature trees scoped out on or near your property or to plant them now to get them started before you need them. Nut trees are wind and self pollinating and should be within 50 feet of each other to allow good pollination for successful production.

Myth 3: You have to have a garden to produce fresh food.
The quickest way to get something fresh into your diet, especially in the dead of winter, is by sprouting. Seeds and beans sprout within days and are loaded with nutrition — far more than the seeds alone. Sprouting requires a little water, a tiny bit of daily attention, and a container that lets you wet the seeds without allowing them to mold. I use a large glass honey jar with a bit of fine mesh (a scrap from a wedding veil) held in place with a rubber band. Spicy sprouts like radish can add snap to bland preserved food. You can even sprout seeds while you’re bugging out by using a mesh bag to carry the sprouts (hikers sometimes do this — a sort of garden on your back).

Myth 4: You have to buy seeds.
If your plants are heirloom varieties or you’re sprouting potatoes from your existing harvest or you’re growing herbs, you can perpetuate your plants nearly indefinitely. As I said before, if you’re willing to take some risks, you can get seeds from hybrids as well. Annuals like mint grow almost like perennials because they reseed themselves so readily. Herbs grow happily from seeds you gather or from the ones the plants themselves drop. Perennials like asparagus, rhubarb, garlic and cane berries such as raspberries only require a bed and occasional fertilizer like manure (human will do) to keep feeding you for years. Some perennial herbs don’t even need fertilizer and are hearty and drought resistant – you’re more likely to be beating them into submission to prevent them taking over your garden than worrying about how to keep them growing. Many plants can be grown from cuttings, runners, tubers and other asexual reproductive processes making plants that are genetically identical to their parent source. This has a bit of danger in that if all your plants are only one variety and a disease hits them, your whole crop will be wiped out (as happened during the Irish potato famine). Diversity is never a bad idea. Having at least two varieties of any kind of plant you like is preferable.

Myth 5: You can’t store seeds forever.
Well, this isn’t quite a myth, but seeds that are dry and stored away from moisture, excessive heat and light in air tight containers can last years. The germination rate may go down a bit after a few years so you might want to plant a few seeds per pot when getting them started, then transplant when you know what you’ve got. You can always check your germination rate by wetting seeds and sprouting them to see what percentage will be successful. I’ve had years old seeds that looked dead germinate a week after they would ordinarily been expected to. I guess they just took longer to wake up than fresher seeds. While seeds can germinate after years in storage, it’s ideal to periodically grow some new plants from your old seeds and save a fresh batch of seeds from the resulting produce. Always label the seeds with the date and rotate out your seed stores periodically if you can, but don’t panic if the only seeds you can find are from five or ten years ago. Chances are pretty good some of those will germinate and even one successful plant can produce many new seeds with good germination rates. After all, the oldest seeds to germinate have been 1300 (lotus) and 2000 (date palm) years old.

Myth 6: You should have seeds for these plants: (someone’s list follows)
Maybe, but if it includes things you and your family would never eat, that list is not very useful. Some things may not grow in your area or in your soil. If all you can grow is a container garden, some varieties of plants won’t work for you at all. Your personal list should be plants you can use and you have experience with. Add a few new plants to your garden each year if you can, or if your space is limited, rotate in new plants and retire out previous successes. Experiment, let things go to seed, learn as much as you can about the life cycle of your plants so you’ll know what to expect. A few years with a variety can teach you a lot about what changes in temperature and water can do to your harvest. Like me, one year you may be dumping cucumbers on anyone who’ll stand, still then begging for the favor returned the next year. On the other hand, my tomatoes and herbs never fail, my eggplants never succeed.
Having said that one list will not serve for all, I believe some plants are incredibly versatile and really deserve your consideration. Radishes make great sprouts, both the greens and the roots are good to eat, and the seed pods are a spicy treat that can be used like snow peas or other pod vegetables. Flax seeds can be sprouted or used for oil (linseed oil) for cooking, burning in lamps, or in wood finishing; and the fibers from the plant can be used for lamp wicks, rope and cloth; and an added bonus, flax flowers are quite pretty.
There aren’t too many things that corn hasn’t been used for including as a vegetable, a source of oil, and for meal and flour; but other grains and plants can be equally versatile and are often less resource intensive. Nuts can provide butters for eating, and the oil that separates out can be used for cooking or burning in oil lamps just as the ancient Romans used olive oil. These lamps are not as bright as kerosene but burn with little or no smoke or odor. If you remove enough of the oil from a nut, the flour remaining is high in protein and can be used to supplement grain flours.

If one final myth you believe is (Myth 7) you must grow domestic garden plants, let me say a few words in praise of the more nontraditional garden.  I need not mention the “weeds” growing in your yard that are good to eat as this has been handled by other writers, but don’t forget dandelions, wood sorrel, violets, and other edibles. You can also have mushrooms in your basement, a key lime tree on your sun porch and pots of herbs on your kitchen window ledge. But there are other plants that might be in your yard that are sources of food, too. Day lilies are grown as an ornamental, but you should experiment with eating them as a vegetable. They require no attention and come back every year. All parts of the plant are edible, as are all parts of the cattails that are growing in your pond or water feature – just make sure the water they are growing in is not contaminated. Rose hips, the red fruit on the rose bushes after the flowers have gone, are loaded with vitamin C, an essential nutrient that can be in short supply in some preserved foods. Redbud tree blossoms and seed pods are edible, and the trees are hearty and self sustaining. Many plants that are grown as ornamentals are good food, as long as you’re careful to identify them correctly and not confuse them with the sometimes toxic things that also can grow in yards and gardens. Experimenting with edible landscaping can increase your available resources without much added effort to your gardening as well as helping to disguise your supplies to protect them from thieves. There’s no reason why food can’t be beautiful, sustainable and very nearly free.

Letter Re: Vehicle Radiator Ballistic Protection

James:
In your novel Patriots, you describe a 1968 Ford Bronco getting its radiator shot out. The only reason that the radiator was put in the front of early cars was because they did not have effective water pumps in the beginning, water flowed through and was cooled. 90% of the air that cools the radiator comes from under the bumper. You can totally block off the upper portion without any overheating issues. So a series of slats if you do not trust it, could be welded behind the grill if you wanted to.

If you are still afraid of overheating, a trick I learned years ago is very effective, and that is to add another windshield washer tank and pump, with the sprayer aiming at the front of the radiator. You then get evaporative cooling that is so effective you have to see it to believe it.

I would think that your mechanic in the book would certainly have foreseen that weak point and taken care of it. A metal plate could be welded at an angle from the bumper to the top of the radiator. It would then have functioned fine to bounce bullets up out of the way. Granted, weight saving is important, so you again could have used Lexan for half the weight, I would have also reinforced the floor, firewall and sides with either Lexan or Kevlar laid up as fiberglass panels. – Steve D.

Letter Re: Observations on Post-Tornado Cleanup

James,
We have been volunteering at the remains of a home of a prepper here in Ohio for the past two weekends.  Their home was destroyed by a tornado.  I have some simple suggestions that you might incorporate into your future work.
                1.  Store / Organize photos and documents in Ziploc bags.  In this case, they had the preverbal box of pictures stored on the second floor of a three story 1860 brick home with brick interior walls located flood plain.  The tornado remove the upper story plus half of the second floor.  The box of pictures was found in the remains of a closet.   The subsequent rains degraded the condition of the photos and other documents.  If they had simply used Ziploc bags as a means of organizing their photo they would have been in good condition even after ten days in the weather.
                2.  Recovered clothing needs to be washed as soon as it is recovered.  They really wanted as much of their clothing back as possible…  We sorted  through piles of rubble (bricks, plaster and mortar) looking for clothing.   The recovered clothing was bagged and taken to a laundry facility to be washed.  The learning here is that you need to have a means of washing all of your clothing in a mass grid down situation.  Washing by hand in a galvanized tub would have been unmanageable.  Lehman’s in Kidron has some possible solutions…all of which would be major work – assuming you had time you could devote to it.
                3. Recovery tools need to be stored somewhere other than in the structure you intend to work on.   The list is long of tools used to recover items from a home.  First off you need to be able bodied, then you need tools and knowledge of how to use them. The tool list needs to include – bolt cutters, spud bars, wonder bars, a Hi-Lift jack, chains, wheel barrow, saws, 5 gallon pails, plastic bags, shovels, gloves, dust masks, hand tools and lots of tarps.  If these tools are all in the basement of your home you will be at a huge disadvantage. 
                4. Food storage – We recovered less than 1/8th of the year’s supply of food that was on hand.  The storm took most of it and the rest was in poor condition due to exposure the weather and falling building materials.  Lots of dented cans, ruined bags, broken glass and wet paper goods.  Items that faired the best were dog food, can goods and bulk bagged items.  If here were 5 gallon pails they were lots along with the 3rd floor.
                5. Security –  the home owners were very concerned about looters.  No one can watch a destroyed property 24/7.  A community fire watch needs to be established.   On the second weekend we heard nothing about actual looting taking place.
 
Lastly, I would encourage your readers to go and work disasters in their area.  There is a lot to learn about tools, recovery, helping people in real need, understanding what damaged is possible, how that damage can affect everyday goods and understanding that it is enough to simply prepare.  The government has professionalized the first responders.  There may be a day when the professional first responders are busy with their own families and you will be the only responder that will ever be on hand.  – Stev