Letter Re: Seeking Advice on Kernel Corn Storage

Hello Mr. Rawles,
I was wondering if you could give me and your readers more info on whole kernel corn storage/nutritive value after storage and storage life given packing and conditions (weather)? I was also going to inquire about the different wheat’s and their differences but you have answered that already thanks, I would however like to know which mylar bags to use for better protection against the humid and high temp weather in my area (4 mil versus 8 mil thickness) if it matters at all? I don’t think the plastic bag route mentioned in your excellent “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course will be as effective for me as I plan to stock up on wheat, beans, rice, corn and oats and just have them stored for the long haul while using them also to cook with and learn the best cooking methods. I will follow the course but my basic grain/legume/rice storage will be put away and expanded upon according to my usage and needs. A reliable source for the 20″ x 30″ mylar bags at a reasonable price would also be great as in my web research I’ve found many suppliers at different prices and pack contents, what and who would you suggest? Thank you for your time. – CL

JWR Replies: Whole kernel corn can be stored for up to 10 years and still have decent nutritive value. Once ground into corn meal, however, the practical shelf life declines to two years or less. High temperature is real shelf life killer with all stored foods, including corn. High temperatures can shorten potential shelf lives by one half, or even more. Do your best to store your food in the coolest part of your house. High humidity is another problem. It is best to do your packaging in the most dry months of the year for your particular climate. When storing bulk foods in five gallon food grade buckets, be sure to use oxygen absorbing packets as well as a small packet of silica gel. (The only exception would be popping corn which won’t pop if it gets too dry.) Keep buckets sealed until you need to use the food. When you do break the seal, unless you have the need to use the entire contents within a few weeks time, then it is best to open the bucket and pour out just 1/3 to 1/2 of the contents for immediate use and then go through the full re-sealing process with the remainder. In answer to your question on bucket liners: I use 8 mil thickness bags, but 4 mil will suffice. (You need to handle them gently to avoid punctures, regardless of their thickness.) Since you will be sealing the bucket liner bag, the oxygen absorbing packets and silica gel. packets should be inside of that bag, on top of the grain. Mylar bags are available from a number of large Internet food storage vendors including Ready Made Resources and Nitro-Pak. You might also check Promised Land Products, Best Prices Storable Foods, and Lehman’s. OBTW, I have found that a standard size liner will work with buckets of up to six gallon capacity.

Letter Re: A Useful Reference on Amateur Radio Band Designations

Jim,
Here is a useful link for a free, downloadable, “.pdf ” format, frequency allocation chart. It is located on the ARRL (American Radio Relay League) web site. It delineates the U.S. amateur bands and their assigned usages from 1.8 MHz to 1.3 GHz. Regards, – Joe from Tennessee

JWR Replies: Thanks for sending that link. The radio band designations can be confusing to folks who are newcomers to the short wave listening and amateur radio worlds. I highly recommend that all SurvivalBlog readers at the very minimum buy themselves a short wave radio and a multi-band police scanner, and become familiar with their use. In a “When the Schumer Hits the Fan” (WTSHTF) situation, hard wire telephone, cellular phone, AM and FM commercial radio, the Internet, and television may be essentially unavailable. (Read: Off the air.) Most radio and TV stations only have enough fuel to run their backup generators for few days. Ditto for the telephone company Central Offices (COs.) After that, there will be an acute information vacuum. You may find yourself listening to overseas short wave broadcasters for your daily news, and to your police scanner for updates on the local situation–to keep track on the whereabouts of looter gangs. Be sure to buy a CB radio and few walkie talkies so that you can coordinate security with your neighbors. (The CB, FRS, and MURS bands do not require any license in the U.S.) My favorite band for walkie-talkies is the MURS band, since most MURS radios can be programmed to operate in the 2 Meter band, and because they have much better range than FRS radios. It is also important to note that the CB channels, FRS channels, and 2 Meter band frequencies will likely be very crowded WTSHTF, particularly in the suburbs, but the less well-known and less populated MURS frequencies will probably be largely available at any given time. (See the MURS Radios web page–one of our advertisers–for details on these radios.)

Once you’ve mastered short range communications and public service band monitoring, the next step is to join your local ARRL affiliate club and study to get your amateur license. Someday you may be very glad that you did!

Odds ‘n Sods:

Sales of Existing U.S. Homes Fall: “The median price of a single-family home fell to $219,800 last month, a drop of 2.5 percent from the price in September 2005. That was the biggest year-over-year price decline in records going back nearly four decades.” I’ve been warning SurvivalBlog readers about this since I first started the blog, back in August of 2005. Buckle your seatbelts, folks! We are about to witness the part of the roller coaster ride when everyone screams. (So far all that we’ve heard have been a few nervous whimpers.)

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Vic at Safecastle mentioned to me that he was able to convince his contract storm shelter/fallout shelter builder to extend a special discount of 5% off the list price of any custom steel plate fallout shelter, storm shelter, or saferoom that is ordered before January 31, 2007. This sale price has never before been offered. Typically, this discount will be between $1,000 and $2,000, depending on the type and size of shelter needed. (The discount does not apply to shipping or installation fees.) The offer is good to anyone who contacts Vic and arranges for a shelter to be built and places the 50% deposit before February 1, 2007. For those that are not be familiar with their shelters, they are the best shelters available in the USA, dollar for dollar. They are engineered and built to exceed FEMA standards, and above or below ground, they will withstand winds in excess of 330 mph. Safecastle’s contract builder has installed more than 400 shelters all over the US over the last 13 years for corporations, government groups, homeowners, and associations. A few have been real-world tested by storms such as Hurricane Katrina and have come through with flying colors, saving lives in the process. Do you want peace of mind? Believe me, there is no better way of getting it than to build a serious storm/fallout shelter for your family. If you are interested, start by looking at Safecastle’s shelter web site. After looking through the site, go to the “Request a Quote” page and submit your no-obligation query. It is simply an initial correspondence that will allow then to start a dialog with you about what kind of shelter you really need.

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We are saddened to hear of the death of four firefighters in California. They died battling a large wildfire near Palm Springs. The fire was reportedly lit by an arsonist.

Note From JWR:

I still have room for a few more Retreat Owner Profiles. I’d particularly appreciate reading profiles from overseas readers. If you “live the life”, just write your own profile (following the same format as the other profiles, and answering the same questions) and e-mail it to us. Just be sure to fictionalize things slightly (especially geographic details), to preserve your anonymity.

Letter Re: Pandemic Reference Guides Now Available

Dear Jim:
Bruce Beach, the driving force behind the Ark Two nuclear shelter in Canada, mentioned the Pandemic Reference Guides web site in his e-mail newsletter. (By the way, Bruce’s article “You Will Survive Doomsday” is just one of the must-read highlights of his informative web site.) With some very wise forethought, the Pandemic Reference Guides are set up to be easily downloadable to your hard drive or CD. So you can copy it now, before the site gets buried with requests in the event of a real pandemic emergency.

Are there any qualified medical folks that read SurvivalBlog who could study it and give us a Reader’s Digest version to commit to memory? Regards, OSOM – “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

Two Letter Re: MURS Radios and Microphone Connections

Jim,
I am considering buying a set of the MURS radios from your advertiser [MURS Radio] but I have a question for you and the readers. I want to use a microphone setup like this but the plugs seem to be incompatible. The radio is a Kenwood K1 plug and the microphone is listed as Motorola Pro Series 2 pin. Are there adapters to connect the two or are there similar or better throat microphone setups that will work with the K1 plug? Thanks, – W. in Wyoming

[I forwarded W.’s e-mail to Rob at MURS Radio, and he sent the following speedy reply:]

Hi Jim,
I’m not aware of adapters that will convert microphone connections from one manufacturer to another. There is a site that I use often that carries accessories for the $49 Kenwood MURS radios that I sell. The surveillance style microphones and earbuds can be found here. I order from them and they have proved themselves a very good source for these accessories. I also have an accessories source page on my site. Thanks! – Rob at MURS Radio

Letter Re: Gas Masks, Fire, and Chlorine Gas

Jim,
Thank you for your hard work on maintaining the SurvivalBlog. I was first introduced to survival ideas in the late 1990s when I read your novel “TEOTWAWKI” (I read it again when it was [expanded and] re-published as “Patriots”.) I truly appreciate the time and effort you spend promoting a self-reliant way of life. I am an Air Force NBC instructor (have been for about 8 years now) and I am concerned that recent posts on your web site will lead people to believe that military gas masks will protect them from industrial chemical releases. Military masks (M17, M40, M45, MCU-2 series, and others) are designed for battlefield concentrations of chemical agents. Battlefield concentrations of chemical agents are expected to be lower than those that result from industrial releases. These masks are not designed to protect the wearer from toxic industrial materials including chlorine. The Army Technical Manuals (TMs.) and Air Force Technical Orders (TOs) for masks using the C2A1 canister all contain warnings about the limitations of the C2A1 canisters.
Here is an excerpt from the MCU-2 technical order dated 24 June 2004 (about a decade after the introduction of the C2A1 canister):
“WARNING. The MCU-2 Series mask is not an authorized respiratory device for industrial chemical use. The canister will not protect against ammonia or carbon monoxide, and the mask is not effective in confined spaces where there is not enough oxygen in the air to support life.” Here is an excerpt from Air Force Manual 10-100 ,dated 1 June 2004:
“The mask is ineffective in industrial chemical environments such as ammonia or chlorine spills, or within carbon monoxide atmospheres.” I realize that some companies (Scott and 3M) manufacture filters that do protect against chlorine and are compatible with the threads on most military masks; however, the military canisters do not provide this level of filtration. It is important that people know the capabilities and limitations of any protective equipment prior to using it. Thanks again for your work on SurvivalBlog. I hope that this information is helpful. Thank you. – Scott

The Memsahib’s Quote of the Day:

“It’s in our fallen, sinful nature for tyrants to rise up in every nation. And unfortunately, it’s also in our nature that the vast majority in every nation is either too stupid or too apathetic to do anything about it until the tyrants have put up their barbed wire and spilled a lot of blood.” – James Wesley, Rawles, Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse

Note From JWR:

When you write your obligatory Christmas card insert “brag letter” this year, please mention that you’ve been reading SurvivalBlog. If you send an electronic version, it would be greatly appreciated if you’d include a SurvivalBlog link logo or link text. Every bit of publicity helps. (Our goal is to double the SurvivalBlog readership in 2007.) Thanks!

Two Letters Re: Sources for Plumbed-In Reserve Water Tanks?

Jim,
The black poly tanks ($600 for a 1,550 gallon tank) are better than the clean septic tanks that you mentioned because not only are they buriable, but the black poly is UV-proof and algae will not grow in the black tanks. I use one on top of the ground to supplement the hot water supplied by the water heater. If you can’t bury the tank, then I recommend setting it on the surface and build a protective wall around the tank with native rock and mortar. This will [absorb or] turn away bullets in case your enemies decide to try to deny you water. The wall can also insulate the tank against a fire set by an enemy. You can get these tanks at any feed store, or at a farm and ranch supply store. Regards, L.R. (of SurvivingTheDayAfter@yahoogroups.com)

 

Jim,
I hate to dispute your advice about using plastic septic tanks for water storage but I think you’re in error here. These plastic tanks are not designed to hold water and many of them have pinhole leaks (that can cause you a world of trouble in the long run). Additionally,if the tanks are buried, you have to remember that they are meant to be kept filled lest they be collapsed by the inward pressure of the surrounding earth (a little known fact is that pumped [empty] septic tanks should never be left empty) and this is particularly true if buried in heavy clay soils or driven over by vehicles. Here in Hawaii we just had a 6.7 magnitude earthquake. Among the hardest hit were those of us who live “off grid” (ironically) as many water tanks collapsed and virtually everybody had problems with damage to piping connections (which are difficult to make earthquake-proof.. Water supply should be one of the most engineered aspect of house construction, and this goes double for survivalists who are counting on independent systems to keep their families alive. The best book, hands down, for calculating what you need is “Water Storage” by Art Ludwig (who, by the way, makes learning ferrocement tank making about as easy as it will ever get.) Your local library likely has a copy, read it and save yourself a ton of money and two tons of frustration caused by an ill-conceived water system! – Hawaii K.

JWR Replies: Thanks for your input. I recommend that any buried poly tank be kept full, regardless of its design or its originally intended use. As for earthquakes, I’ve read that folks in Hawaii mostly had failures of rainwater catchment tanks, both aboveground and underground, and of both concrete and a plastic construction. The only tanks that at seemed to fare better than most were aboveground galvanized steel water tanks. But even for those that kept their integrity, many suffered from cracked water pipes and/or water pipe connections. (So be sure to buy plenty of spare copper or PVC pipe, fittings, purple primer, pipe cement, et cetera.) As for potential pinholes or larger leaks, when you buy any water tank, you should make sure that it is guaranteed against leaks before making the purchase, and definitely do an above-ground water fill test before burying it.

Two Letters Re: Gas Masks, Fire, and Chlorine Gas

1

Jim:
Just something I would really like to beat to death, and that’s Chlorine, Fires and Gas masks. I just keep getting this really creepy feeling that there are a lot of folks out there that aren’t clued in on the limitations of gas masks and may kill themselves.
First:, grass fires, forest fires and house fires.
A gas mask will keep you from choking on the fumes and stop your eyes from watering but it will kill you!
The mask will stop the particulate matter that irritates your eyes, throat and lungs but it will not make oxygen where there is none, like in the fires described above, and you will suffocate! You’ll pass out
Second, chlorine is a particularly nasty product. Most of the normal ABC, NBC, and biowarfare filters will trap a lot of nasty stuff in the activated charcoal granules in the filter. BUT MOST WILL NOT STOP CHLORINE! Chlorine requires a special filter. If you have masks and you anticipate Chlorine then get the right filter!
Okay, I feel better. It was this part from today’s post that triggered me: “Unfortunately, the chlorine gas saturation level in the area was too high and most vehicles would not start. Many families perished in their cars. Gas masks are great idea if you have to walk out.” If they had tried to walk out without a chlorine filter on their mask, they would have died anyway. I’ve seen Chlorine deaths and it’s not pretty. Thanks for letting me vent. Best Regards, – The Army Aviator

JWR Replies: Thanks for mentioning the importance of gas mask filter selection! You are right that most “typical” masks sold to civilians do not protect against chlorine. For example, the ubiquitous “green ring” cheek filters for U.S. M17 series masks do not protect against chlorine. However, the current NATO issue C2A1 filter canisters (which are standard issue for M40 series masks) do protect against chlorine. SurvivalBlog readers that live near train tracks or a chemical plant should do their homework before they buy.
And, as you pointed out, both the gas concentration level and the available oxygen level are both crucial issues, regardless of the filter used. How much oxygen? OSHA defines a “safe” oxygen level for mine workers as 19.5%, or higher. With a web search, I found the following on a forestry web site: “A fire consumes the oxygen essential to human survival. During a fire, the normal level of oxygen in the air (about 21%) drops rapidly. If the level drops below 17%, clear thinking and muscle control become difficult. When the oxygen level in the air drops between 6% and 10%, breathing stops, and after four to six minutes without oxygen, brain death occurs.”]

 

James:
I have worked US Air Force NBC for several years and civilian law enforcement. I have read with interest the information regarding hazardous materials spills by the SurvivalBlog reader in North Carolina. I was concerned about the advice about using gas masks to protect yourself and family. Toxic Industrial Materials are referred to as TIMs. The common gas masks the many individuals have (Israeli, US surplus M-17s, MCU 2A/P) are only filters. They will stop many chemicals, but they will not provide oxygen. I know that this is understood by most readers but if this prevents one person from going into a cloud of methyl-ethyl-kill-you then it was worth posting. If there is enough chlorine concentration in the air to prevent a car from starting then a mask will not protect you. I do not remember the chemical but I saw a video of two US Army Chemical Corps troops checking what appeared to be a large propane tank in Iraq or Afghanistan.
This was a real incident but not covered by the media. It was being videoed by another troop. They had their sampling equipment at the ready. They opened the tank and within seconds the were on the ground and died. Was it some kind of super warfare agent? No, it was an industrial chemical. (The name escapes me.)
If you are dealing with an unknown TIM, you need a self contained breathing apparatus like firefighters wear. Otherwise, take the safe room approach and seal your self in. Hopefully they will get the leak sealed off and it will dissipate before you run out of air. A HEPA filter will not safely ventilate a safe room when TIMs are involved. A mask and a HEPA filter will protect you from bio agents and the charcoal elements will protect from warfare chemicals but TIMS, depending on what they are can be a different story. The Department of transportation puts out
the hazmat guide, usually yellow that describes most of the truck placards and different chemicals. (Even war agents.) The guide has a cross reference including what is needed to protect you. It has other info as well. My buddy who also works military NBC plays a game on the road with his kids. They each have a copy and race to see who can figure out what the placarded trucks are carrying first. I haven’t done that with my kids yet. Regards, – Nightshift in Mississippi

Odds ‘n Sods:

Frequent content contributor (and top notch novelist) Michael Z. Williamson mentioned two interesting articles posted over at the Box O’ Truth web site: New tests on pistol shotshells, and will school books stop bullets? (To explain: A candidate for the office of Texas state superintendent of schools recently said that he wants to distribute thick used textbooks to students so they can shield themselves from school shooters.)

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London Underground contact surfaces to get anti-flu disinfectant silver spray.

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There is currently an interesting thread about walking sticks/staves over at The Claire Files. Yes, they are multipurpose, but as we’ve discussed before on SurvivalBlog, their most important use is self defense.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Freedom isn’t purchased or held indefinitely, it’s more like a loan that’s never paid off. The “payment” is constant vigilance against government encroachment; by our grandfathers, our fathers, and us. If the payments are ignored, the penalty will be collected in blood from our sons and daughters." – Jim Howard, 2003