So what did you put away this week?

That's funny ... My husband is a cop and he says the same thing!

This seems to be my week for "unconventional" preps. I found MilkBone dog biscuits at the dollar store here for 3 boxes for a dollar. I have GSDs.

There are now 10 boxes of MilkBones in the freezer. In a couple of weeks I will take them out, put in another 10 and FoodSaver the ones I took out of the freezer. Whoo hooo ...

Let me just say 30 boxes of MilkBones is a BUNCH of doggie treats!

 

Dehydrated Food & Water Bob

I just got a shipment of dehydrated food today.

I ordered more dehydrated food and placed an order for my waterbob. The waterbob is a plastic bladder you place into your bathtub and fill with up to 100 gallons of water. You can check it out at waterbob.com

A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law bought a couple of wine refrigerators for me. I enjoy keeping them stocked, too.

I've been buying my food in #10 cans.

 

I packed 25# of Walton Feed ABC soup mix into vacuum packed oxy absorber containing 1/2 gal mason jars, and 25# of their 7 grain blend (a great addition to breads) into oxy absorber/mylar pouches.

The ABC soup mix is pretty nice - a blend of pasta "alphabet", rice, lentils, green & yellow split peas, and barley. I added some chicken bouillon & chicken chunks, salt, pepper, and a bay leaf. WARNING - the soup mix cooks to "done" in 45-60 minutes, NOT the 90 minutes that Walton Feed puts on the bag label. My kids still loved it!

Then there was the hard white wheat I found at my local Wally World, but it's not safely stashed away...yet. I still need to drop by Home Depot & pick up another dozen or so pails.

 

Yup. I use lithium AA batteries for an outdoor motion detector (driveway alarm). They work quite nicely, even when it's -10F or thereabouts.

Does anyone know if the lithium batteries are more resistant to leaking (& destroying expensive electronic goodies) than regular alkaline cells? That's another of my concerns with leaving batteries in any sort of device for a long while.

My main hassle with flashlights at home is keeping my darling kids (!) away from the flashlights. They will use them...and play with them...and drain the batteries dry.

For Christmas this year, I'm planning on giving them nice bright (yet inexpensive) AA powered LED flashlights. These give about 45-60 minutes of BRIGHT light on a 2000 mAh rechargeable NiMH Eneloop AA battery. One nice thing about the Eneloop batteries is that they have a very low discharge rate, so once you charge them, they stay charged for a nice long time.

 

10 more 5 gallon buckets and lids from Home Depot (still on sale a $2.48 for bucket and 98 cents each for lid with seal). 240 pounds of enriched long grain rice in 10 pound bags. 4 kilogram (2.2lb) jars of knorr chicken bouillon. 3 gallons of apple juice.
.
At this point, there are some things I will add to my stores and preps, but with all I have stored I ain't gonna starve in short order if the lights go out.

 

Added another case of Spaghetti Sauce, Case of Mac N Cheese, Bought a Grain Mill this week. Looking for a decent price for wheat berries. Haven't found anything near me in the Fl Panhandle.

 

Headed to Another Gun Show

I believe that the more expensive lithium batteries are built a bit better than their lower powered relatives. Also, be aware that if you plan to take lithium batteries in your battery-powered devices onto an airplane, if they are detected, they will be confiscated and removed from your device(s). I think that this is because the change in air pressure can overwhelm even their better built bodies and cause them to become mini-grenades.

If you are not entering any environment where air pressure changes are as dramatic as those on an aircraft in flight, you ought to be just fine.

 

This week I added:

50 lbs flour, 2 cases ravioli, 2 cases Cajun diced tomatoes, 2 cases canned tamales, 3 cases canned potatoes (at 3 cans for $1, hard to beat), 1 case of Green Giant green beans. We use the canned foods to augment the staples, and the stuff we grow in the garden.

For flashlights, Streamlight has a little flashlight that uses 4 AA batteries, has 7 or eight LED bulbs in the head. They cost around $20.00. They are the only flashlights that I have ever seen that you can turn on, leave them on for a week straight, and still have usable light at the end of the week.
They claim a 155 hour burn time, and I have tested it with Duracell batteries,
and it's no lie!

 

Another contender on the flashlights!!! Sometime back, Backwoods home did a scientific test of several. Blacked out room, distance from lens of flashlight to white wall 10 foot, light meter to measure lumens, timer to measure when light output dropped to unuseable. 1 watt leds were new at the time. The 2 most powerful were the Maglight 5 d cell regular incandescant bulb at 50 lumens, and the chinese Dorcy 3 d cell 1 watt led bulb at 60 lumens. The Maglight ran out of light at 15 hours. The Dorcy after 15 days. NO LIE. I have 5 of the Dorcys as above and have used them alot. 2 of them very very often. One in my work as a construction electrician, for attic diving and crawl space squirming. These 2 lights in heavy usage lasted over a year before I had to replace batteries. All of these flashlights were purchased at Walmart or K-mart for $21 to $27 each. 3 watt and newer technology bulbs are brighter, but the batteries don't last like this. They are big enough and built like a Maglight where they would make an acceptable club in a pinch as well. JMHO

 

Another "sardine can" of '39 and two of 54R. 10 more#s of sugar, 3 more of salt, and some cocoa. Three more cases of MREs and a new 232 Sig in 380. A buddy has picked up some ammo for it and will get it this weekend at our gathering. More firewood stacked for the cool days ahead.

 

A couple of Swedish FireSteels and 2 cases of strike anywhere matches.

 

The last couple weeks have been heavy reloading for me. I think I will keep going until I run out of components...... the ammo stock is looking great.

 

20#s of rice, a bit more pasta, and more iodized salt. Had earlier picked up a large supply of bandages and gauze and will be giving part away at the gathering.

 

Just finished canning ground beef, sausage, and beef chunks.

 

I bought a USGI blanket for $10 at the swap meet. I finished case prep and priming over 400 .45ACP case.... should have em' loaded up by next weekend.

Wife is doing some canning this week. I think I am going to try frozen vegetables on the dehydrator this weekend. (Maybe throw some jerky on for good measure)

 

Oh yeah, found a new pair of size 5 Mickey's for the oldest boy.

 

Building 3 Bug-Out Bags

I've been buying 3 of each of the components going into our individual BOB's. I bought hatchets, knives, multi-tools, first aid kits, toiletries, multiple ways to start fires, tarps, etc.

It occurs to me that whereas I have gone to several stores (over several days) thus far to acquire the contents of these BOB's, if there is a 3-4 hour advance warning of an imminent attack/threat, there is no way in HE double two sticks that the balance of our population will be able to be reasonably prepared for such an event.

I'm feeling a bit tardy about my preparations but at least they are underway and do have some momentum.

 

500 123gr SP 7.62x39 for the sks, and 2 tapco 20 round mags.

 

Well, unfortunately, I had no money, no time and even less enthusiasm!
Been busy working on drawings and the 3 plots of land as far as what will be needed: fencing, posts, etc....
"IF" I only had more time and a LOT more money!

 

I feel ya ... so I looked at cabin plans ... You know, I seriously think I am just gonna do the redneck thing and get a single-wide. Suddenly everything looks like too danged much work. (I sure hope this passes ... I got things that need to get done! lol)