So what did you put away this week?

Yep, the global SHTF type of thing is what I was talking about. As for the personal loss of income, I'm much safer than most in that category. I work for a gov contractor. I sit on my a$$ all day in front of a computer. That leaves getting to work as the challenge. I'm in a van pool to work and can get there in most situations. The company is very large, my specific job skills are in demand and the work itself can not be shipped overseas. So while I know I am not immune from this type of situation, I'm safer than most.

My wife and I haven't discussed it in depth, but I brought up the subject today and she wants to prepare for a situation "like Jericho." I explained that in that case we need to drastically change out storage strategy. I'm going to have to look for a good source for grain, prefably locally. Any suggestions?

Put a couple tubes of toothpaste and some cotton balls into the store. Just going around the house I've found that we have lots of extra stuff around. Just a matter of getting it together.

 

Fritz, take that TP and some heavy duty trash bags and put them in five gallon buckets with lids. When the power goes out, crack the plastic bucket out and you have an instant toilet. I have even seen in camping magazines where you can buy toilet lids to fit plastic buckets.

I am still building a stockage pantry for the house. It will hold all the long term storeage food for rotation through our gullets. It worked in the past that other than the short lived things like milk and eggs, you get it out of the storeage pantry and when it comes off the shelf, you write what you took and that is the grocery list for that month. Works quite well if everyone plays. Just got to put expiration or born on dates on the top of the product.

 

Where is local and how convinced are you everything has to go through the FDA or USDA? In most areasif you get slightly rural, then most small towns have a grain elevator. You can get rolled oats (oatmeal) in 50 lbs bags for well under $10, corn for around $12/100 lbs, grain for maybe $15/100 lbs and so on. The stuff is what comes from the fields and is just what your grandparents would have eaten but it is marked and sold as animal feed.

Do you grind your own flours and such or are you looking for it for animal feed? If you are looking at it to store for later grinding to cook with you might consider just storeing up flour. You can get flour in 50 lbs bags from any resteraunt supply store and same for sugar, we go to a near by Amish dry goods store and buy flours and sugar in 50 lbs bags. A GOOD grain mill might be a decent thing to have so, in a 'like Jericho' situation, after the flour runs out (hopefuly at least 1 harvest has come in) you can grind flour if needed but storeing up enouph that you dont have to start grinding flour a couple weeks into getting used to a new life would be good. The time shortly after a collapse would be the worst as we would all have to be makeing adjustments and a LOT of work to get things switched around to deal with the new situation and challenges would take a lot, so the more stuff you can have set up to save some work (like preground flour) while makeing the adjustments the easier (IMHO) you are going to make things for yourself.

Some grains to be used for seed might be a good thing if you have access to a place to grow it though.

 

Yep, I'm talking about long term grain storage to use as food for us. My thinking is flour is not very long lived, at least from the info I've been able to find. How would I pack 50# of flour to keep it usable for a number of years? I'm the bread baker in the family, but I don't make it as much as I should. I guess if I'm going to bake bread, I need to work on baking it without an oven. Maybe a dutch oven? What do you pay for 50# of flour and sugar?

Today I added a couple more cans of Dinty Moore beef stew, a couple more cans of string beans and a bunch of tuna cans. I also added a big tube of oat meal, I sealed that in a bag using the vacuum sealer. Another case of water. I also received my Aqua Pod kit in the mail today. That will live in the bathroom with the tub so it is ready to fill iff needed. Also added in 4 tooth brushes to go with the tooth paste, this is in a vacuum sealed bag. Finally, added some Ivory soap bars, also vacuum bagged.

We are slowly making progress. I figure that the storage shelf has about a week and a half worth of food now. That doesn't count out normal household food cabinets, I think we probably have about 3 weeks total in the house.

I am shopping for a shotgun for home defense, and I guess it would work well to repell the type of folks that I feel is the biggest threat. I've been planning on getting one for the past couple months, just haven't gotten around to buying it. I'm thinking about the Mossberg 500 home defense version or mariner, Just don't know if the stainless is worth the extra $100.

 

http://solarcooking.org/plans/

No fuel needed.

OGM

 

Very cool site. A shame there is only the 1 oven shown. Lots of cookers, I guess some can be modified to make them ovens.

DW just came back from the store. She picked up a couple more cans of soup and a 5# bag of rice. I'm sure glad that she's getting into this. I'll have to keep an eye on her, sometimes she gets a bit of OCD about things like this.

Next on my list is Coleman white gas. I also need to go through my stoves to make sure they are in working order. I know the WhisperLite works, but I haven't used the Peak 1 in about 15 years. Hopefully I'll just need to clean it up.

 

We have food frade 5 gallon buckets that we keep the flour and sugar stored in. We use a lot of both and keep about 6 months or so ahead most of the time and rotate it. The 50# bags of flour run us around $10 and the 50# bags of sugar run us about $15. If you wanted to you could probably also vacume seal the flour?

You mention getting a shotgun, have you shot much before? If not I would suggest going with a 20ga instead of the 12. I say this mostly due to recoil, the 20 guage still has PLENTY of power to do everything a 12 guage will but with noticably less recoil. If you (or especialy the wife) are new to shooting then the lower recoil will have you more likely to get out and shoot it a bit from time to time which is VERY important. If you dont shoot it and learn to be accurate and how to opperate the gun in normal situations you will be screwed trying to figure it out in a high stress self defense situation. I know I am 6'2" and about 275 lbs at 33 years old and started shooting before I started school, I still dont like shooting 12 guages do to uncomfortable recoil but I and my MUCH smaller and recoil sensitive fiancee both like our 20 guages.

Now ON topic (lol), I went to Aldis and spent about $100 to restock some of the stuff from the pantries that we have been going through since I have been home as well as a 20 lbs bag of rice.

 

I've thought about the 20ga, my concern is availability of ammo. If I'm wrong about a short term SHTF situation and it is long term, 12ga. would be available far longer than 20ga. I've shot the 12ga. quite a bit, but not recently. Yes, it kicks pretty good. I don't think the DW has ever shot a gun. I'll start her on my .22 a little bit. And I'll make sure that the first time she shoots the shotgun will be in winter. (i.e. heavy coats cushion) But I will think about the 20ga. What's the weight difference of ammo?

Also, son asked for a bow. I think he wants a gun and doesn't want to ask. I'm thinking that maybe a pellet gun it the way to go. Since I'm in a fairly urban environment, he would still be able to shoot it at home since we have a privacy fence and enough yard to get a 40 foot shot off. He'll learn to be a responsible gun owner with something that is very unlikely to be deadly to a human. And in a SHTF situation will be able to take some small game almost completely silently. Others have mentioned a .22lr for him, but I don't think the DW will agree with that and we'd have to go to a range for him to shoot that.

On topic, I added a small box of .22lr to the stock. Also a couple boxes of mac-n-cheese.

 

Two antique Singer treadle sewing machines. WIll buy spare needles, thread, and cloth once I get a chance to get home and learn how to sew.

 

My father has one of those tredle machines. Those things will sew through just about anything. He got his to sew his boat cover. Nothing taxes a sewing machine like several layers of canvas. Once we have space for it, I think I'll see if he wants to get rid of it.

 

Had to go lightly this week, as I had to order stuff for the MC (finally wore out the chain & sprockets at 17,000 miles - when half the little rollers are GONE, it's time for a new one!).
So, a trip to the local store netted me four 12-packs of Ramen (half Beef and half Chicken), six cans of Hormel Beef, assorted other canned goods. Had also put up nine pounds of Uncle Ben's Rice in 3-pound plastic bottles.

 

I bought Wildernessgal one of those several years ago and it's all she sews on. Seems to work pretty good.

OGM

 

Got the food stockage room finished today, shelving completed, chest freezer moved in along with the spare fridge. Tomorrow, will wire a drop for the generator to plug into the freezer and fridge.

 

Added some additional food. Most everything in cans still. Vegetables, fruit, ravioli, Spam. Also put up some sugar and flour. These are all in vacuum bags and just put into the freezer to kill any little nasties living in there. Finally put up some 1 lb bottles of propane. Need to get an adapter to allow me to use the big cylinders.

 

Wasn't there a thread about 5gal buckets. Well after reading that thread I tried the idea of a bob (bugoutbucket vs bugoutbag) - learned it does not take much to fill a 5 gal bucket. being ready and with the right stuff is harder than I realized.

 

bought a few more cans of hormel stew.

 

You've got a start, though. That's a huge step. The DW and I are still in the short term storage thing. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 weeks of food. Once we hit 3 months, we will really get started on the long term storage. Don't forget the can opener.

Oh yea, I put a couple P-38 can openers in the stash. Bought 25 from a guy for $.25 each. Best invention ever.

 

funny u should mention can openers. I have been looking for a small one for sometime. I have always used a manual one but have been looking for the short version. 7 stores - 0 openers, at least the one I am looking for. I think that will be a very important item.