attitude dude

ATTITUDE DUDE
No one can reasonably deny that supplies and equipment are absolutely critical for the survivalist. Without a handful of essential stockpiled goods, our lives will end quicker than a looter in New Orleans at the hands of a boatful of Blackwater jack booted thugs. That being said, these are at best a short term tool to outlast a collapse. Almost none of us are equipped for a long term collapse. That is the ideal, a means to be mostly self sufficient with a small village or tribe. Not just stocks of grain, but the ability to farm or trade with farmers. Not just a armory with ammunition, but the means to fabricate arms and ammo. Not just a first aid kit but the medical knowledge to take care of our injured without outside medical supplies. A very tall order.
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The one tool that we should all possess, and the cheapest, is our attitude. It might be hard won, but we can all get it. And I am not necessarily talking about the will to survive. Yes, that is important. But what I am speaking of is the knowledge that we need to survive. Once we have the paranoia to know hard times are coming, then we get the willpower to do something to help us survive. But just knowing hard times are coming might be the most important thing. Once you truly believe the good life will end, then when it does you have the mental ability to bypass ( well, minimize anyway ) the shock of when it does. Because the shock will be the worse part. Knowing oil might run out is one thing. Being absolutely sure it will is as important as taking steps to minimize it. Having a list of probable disasters is not enough. You need to be running in fear from them.
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I hear, just prepare and relax. Don’t let fear rule your life. That is a sweet and comforting notion. But it is not enough. You need to remain paranoid and fearful. Let me give you an example most of us can relate to. A divorce. Speaking as one who makes a hobby of them I feel qualified to speak here. We all know divorce is a fifty fifty deal. It most likely will happen to every other one of us ( couple wise ). Yet when it happens it is a shock. It is very stressful and can even see you making stupid decisions. Even if you both work, have separate bank accounts, whatever, it will almost paralyze you. However, if the relationship has been deteriorating for some time it comes as far less of a shock. It is almost anti-climatic since the small scale ongoing shocks and stresses have done all the work for you. Or, ( something more of us are going through ) a job layoff. I’m not talking about a gas station or coffee shop going bankrupt, jobs easily replaced. I am speaking of a career being ruined. A pink slip out of the blue is quite the shock. You are frozen in fear. Yet, if other companies around you are downsizing continuously or if you get a few months warning, it is far less of a shock all at once ( I can speak from experience here also ).
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It is a bit unfair as we don’t know which disaster is going to hit us. Yet, if you try to make preparations with most of them in mind the shock will be less. You can’t eliminate stress, but if you can cut it down in size, a bit at a time over a certain period, it will not be a life altering stress. You won’t do anything stupid and get yourself killed. Again, you must believe, a strong belief on par with a religious conviction. The fear will allow you to make the proper decisions. They will be stressful. But not as much as being oblivious and waking up one day to a different world. Fear and paranoia ( and anger that it was allowed or even planed ) are a useful tool in your supply closet.
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petrodollar collapse

PETRODOLLAR COLLAPSE?
Franklin D Roosevelt was a Communist whore, a low life crippled fudge packer. That being said, if you are going to have someone run a anti-American, anti-Constitutional empire, ol’ FDR was your boy. If you needed a patsy to crush the legal law of the land on behalf of the bankers so they could make even more profit in a global war than they did evicting farmers from their lands and repossessing a lot of industry, this was your bitch. All the Presidents after him were midgets in his shadow. Sure, Lincoln, may his rotted blackened soul rot for all eternity in the lowest depths of Hell, was the original, the trailblazer. But he was a mere slacker compared to FDR. Frankie took over the world, baby! ( being careful to only take over half of it so that he would have an enemy that would allow the US economy to stay on a perpetual wartime economy ). And, as if this foul bastard twisted in body as well as soul was sent from The Dark One himself, he managed to complete one final mission before his last putrid breath. A mission that is the only thing keeping us in power still.
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FDR did something, promised something, threatened something that put the Royal Saudi family firmly and squarely in Uncle Sam’s back pocket. Where it has stayed to this day ( a few minor dissenting voices where heard time and again, but they were dwelt with always ). After 1971 when Tricky Dick took the flack for the Federal Reserve Bank pulling the plug on the gold backing the dollar, the only thing propping up the dollar has been oil. Everyone else, as they need oil from the middle east, became dependant on the dollar to buy oil. Saudi Arabia only took dollars, so everyone else pumping oil nearby had to do the same ( Saudi Arabia is the Wal-Mart to their immigrant Mom and Pop corner store, able to crush them economically ). Japan continues to prop up the dollar because of this. They must get our currency to survive to buy oil since they have none of their own. Almost the whole globe plays to our tune because oil is priced in dollars. We print them up, everyone else must sell something real to get them.
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What does it cost us? A military commitment to the Saudi’s. We are going to have the military anyway, to keep the economy propped up. So in essence, our imported oil cost us very little. There is much to do about OPEC thinking about changing from the dollar to a mixed basket. Everyone panics, thinking this is the end of the petrodollar. I say, much to do about nothing. Yes, we might have attacked Iraq when they tried to price oil in Euro’s. But that was just an additional reason, a cherry on the cake. Most likely, any basket of currencies will be predominately dollars with just a sprinkle of other currencies. If it even happens. The Saudi’s have been our butt buddies for sixty years. Why would that change now? In fact, we might even “allow” Iran to get nukes just to scare the crap out of Saudi Arabia, further cementing their allegiance to us and our military defense of them. I can’t see Saudi agreement to go with a mixed basket. Of course, I don’t have the complete picture either.
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I think the only thing that will kill the petrodollar will be Peak Oil, and if/when that happens a strong currency will be the least of our problems.
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junk land gardening

JUNK LAND GARDENING
I am bringing back the blog on dirt cheap land. www.dirtcheapdirt.blogspot.com . I made a big show of stopping it to protest the insane anti-gun antics of E-Bay, but of course that was not the only reason. I was making a whopping $3 a month off of advertising from it, my Wi-Fi connection wasn’t working so I had to use dial up to research it and I was burned out and pissed off in general with all the writing and preparation. I let my video review blog lapse as well as the cheap land one. Well, the movie theatre across the street just turned into a dollar show theatre. It seems the new casino in town opening a digital screen megaplex killed off the crappy little old theatre. So they sold it out and now we get old movies for a buck. Cheaper than renting a video, before videos come out. I might start the movie review blog up again.
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As far as the cheap land blog goes, I won’t make money off of it. That is okay. I’m going to do it as a service to you the reader. I got a better Wi-Fi connector. Besides the small tax write off for that equipment, I’m mainly doing it out of conviction. I really believe it is only a matter of time before our economy takes a big crap. I really think everyone should have a small piece of land that is paid for ( or can be paid off cheaply ) in case we see major unemployment and most folks not on the government payroll lose their homes. I waited twenty years as a working adult before I ever bought mine and there had been plenty of times I was almost homeless. Now I never have to concern myself with that again. A few hundred bucks spent once and you have a great security blanket. As far as the concern of supporting a anti-gun company, let us be honest. The few months I didn’t advertise for them, the company failed to go out of business. They are really the only game in town and our society/economy should be collapsing soon so the bastards will be caught in the middle of California when it all comes apart. Karma. In the meantime, we only hurt ourselves by denying a cheap marketplace for a vital survival tool.
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Unfortunately, most junk land is not suitable for gardening. They are in arid climates or they are of reduced size ( I notice on E-Bay the sizes are shrinking to keep the prices low, like bags of chips ). So you have three choices. Stay in the city to die. Go into debt for farmland for thirty years and gamble you can make payments to the bank. Or buy junk land cheap and bring the farm to it. Before oil disappears, transport compost, organic waste, top soil and containers to your land. Bring in good soil, or its ingredients. Set up a drip irrigation system. Most likely you will be hauling water, both for yourself and the garden. Have plenty of stored grain and beans, but also start planting your own ( plus potatoes ). Forget the dammed lettuce and broccoli. You need calories, not vitamins. You will have little water and soil so you must plant only the most essential crops. Vitamins can be stored pills, window planters, sprouts. Plus your potatoes. Start planting as soon as possible, both to learn how and to save your stored food. Spend a little money. Hauling bags of fertilizer is cheaper than paying the bank a mortgage.
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Set up a human waste composting system. Read up on urine fertilizer. If feasible, have at least some chickens for protein ( mainly the eggs ). Get a hardy breed that can mostly live off of insects and waste rather than feed (Survival Blog covered “non-hybrid” farm animals recently ). It is far cheaper to import a garden to you than export yourself to a farm. Yes, it is reduced size. But so is your cost. 80/20, remember?
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guest article

Book Review: Homesteading on the Kenai


Ok, in the various levels of people that are concerned about self-reliance and preparedness there are a number of them that feel going back to nature and modern day homesteading is a good option. Magazines like Backwoods Homes and Countryside are geared toward that group. Face it, a working farm built on an agrarian economy when TSHTF would be a great place to be. Even better if the farm is back off the grid and away from trouble. It is a common fantasy but not a new one.
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Shortly before and after Alaska became a state there were some homesteading opportunities. A person could file on a quarter section (160 acres) and in a few years take title to the land. One family to try that was the McJunkin’s of Billings, Montana. Shirley McJunkin wrote a book about her adventures as a homesteading wife, and it was published in 2001 by American House Book Publishers.
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Don’t rush out and buy this book. (Sorry Shirley, but I writes it the way is sees it.) While the book is interesting and entertaining, it doesn’t really tell us much about homesteading. Oh, there is a nice list of supplies they had with them and she told of her and husband Keith’s trials and tribulations, but most of the story took place long before they moved to their homestead.
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Some of the better information that might help a modern day homesteader/survivalist are the items she talks about they needed to get by with. They bought a horse for the farm and a tractor. Both were useful and each had different abilities and they show the needs that anyone would face after TSHTF. The problem with modern day is that most of us don’t have that quarter section to help support the horse or allow for the need of a tractor full time.
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As for Shirley’s book and why I would not recommend you purchase it, it boils down to size. Her book is only 107 pages long and it is set with large type. I read the thing in an evening. After which I wish I had just borrowed it from the library and saved the cost of the book. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have a small collection of homesteading books I would have felt cheated out of the $17 I paid.
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Homesteading may indeed be a fine way to prepare for TEOTWAWKI and the days after TSHTF, but using the McJunkin book for anything more than a quick read probably will not help you out. But, I have been known to be wrong before.
Wolverine

economic revolution

ECONOMIC REVOLUTION
Throughout history, great revolutions have had great ideological backdrops. A defiant citizenry takes to the streets and rights wrongs, brings the evil to justice and makes a better place for the common man. The French Revolution beheaded the royalty after they lived in extreme luxury as the masses starved. The American Revolution was fought to end royal rule and replace it with a representative of the common man. Hell, we didn’t mind taxes so much we just wanted them to go to our own leaders. Gandhi led a peaceful revolution so his people could get free salt instead of having to buy it from the British. Indian peasants couldn’t even afford to actually buy something as essential as salt. Americans sacrificed their lives and on the home front their time and treasure to defeat the evil Nazi’s and Japanese, making the world safe for Democracy.
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We all get a warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of our soul at these courageous people that risked all to better the lot of their fellows. We swell up in pride and think we could someday do the same, a fellow Minuteman facing Federal troops to protect our glorious Constitution. Well, let me tell you, the public schools did a great job of indoctrinating you and getting you to stop thinking. You are full of crap. Our Constitution has been dead for some time and neither you, me, or Ross Perot are planning to do a darn thing about it. We are all being “good Germans”, obeying the lawfully elected dictator. You might say you will revolt when X, Y, or Z happen but you are lying like a rug. We spend everyday jumping through hoops and obeying every little law. You might speed in your car but that is a less a rebellious action than gambling on the odds of being penalized economically. You would never do anything truly rebellious such as openly defying the authorities. I dare you, tough guy. Go to the airport and talk about bombs and the First Amendment right of free speech.
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The plain fact of the matter is that no one revolts unless it is economically advantageous to do so. You could be one of the clueless mass that is given ideological arguments that you actually believe, but those giving the arguments have money to be made. The ringleaders of our Revolution made a comfortable living off of the victory ( after screwing over the troops with their promised compensation ). People wanted to believe we were fighting evil in WWII, but in reality they were spending and fighting their way out of the Depression ( started by the same bastards that profited from the war ). Most likely in the case of the French, they literally were fighting to survive. But they did it to eat, not for the Glorious Revolution. Right now, no one gives two craps about our supposed rights. Not as long as we are well fed, have plasma TV’s and can drive our SUV’s three blocks down to the Slurpee Station for junk food and Lotto tickets.
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Once our economy goes into the toilet, then we will see a revolution. It will have a splendid name and poetic call to arms and it will promise the moon to the cannon fodder. But it will merely be to feed you and your kids or to enrich those in power. So when the agitators come calling on you to take up arms and fight, question their true motives. If they are brainwashed and believe the party line, question the party line. And if you find yourself hearing the news and find yourself wanting to run down to enlist, question your true motives. My son is fourteen and bound and determined he wants to join the military. I try to explain about depleted uranium almost guaranteeing him some harm, but he is not swayed. Then I asked him if he knew why we were over in Iraq. He didn’t even hesitate when he answered, the oil. I was so proud. At least the boy is not lying to himself or allowing himself to be lied to. Try to be as smart when during the Greater Depression the revolution begins.
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the 80/20 rule

THE 80/20 RULE
In a recent comment by a loyal minion my choice of words was challenged. When I stated that the cheapest was usually the best, the comment said, in effect, it was an adequate choice but not the best. This was not a criticism on their part but a clarification. I don’t object to that. But I felt I needed to further clarify my reasoning. As it so happens, I have the full force of an observed economic law to use to my own advantage. Pareto’s Principle, also known as the 80/20 law, states that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. This was used in observation that 80% of income goes to 20% of a population or that 80% of business comes from 20% of customers. I use it as follows. 80% of the benefits of a tool come from spending only 20% on a less expensive version.
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Thus, a rifle that costs only 20% of a more expensive model will deliver 80% of the benefits of that more expensive type. A cheap grain grinder that costs 20% of more expensive models still delivers 80% of the performance. A manual vacuum pump that costs 20% of the more expensive electric version still will give you 80% of the function. So, cheap survival tools costs a lot less and you only sacrifice a small portion of the performance. When I say cheaper is better I am saying the cheaper choice is not perfect but close enough. You get to save a heck of a lot of money and give up very little.
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Those readers actually educated beyond my pathetic level might disagree with my bastardization of Pareto’s Principle, but the observation should still stand. The benefits far outweigh the losses. A $100 war surplus bolt action in thirty caliber costs a lot less than plastic battle rifles. You could easily spend two grand once the magazine cost is factored in and the extra ammunition cost is added. You only sacrifice speed of firing. You get a far better platform for a bayonet also. An electric grinder delivers flour with far less labor but they cost far more and are much more liable to malfunction ( and this does not even factor in the need for power ). A paperback sized solar recharger using AA and D batteries and some LED lights delivers less lumens than a full size solar panel and 12v battery with florescent lights but the cost is far less and you still get electric lights.
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A few buckets of wheat deliver far more calories for the same price than a case of MRE’s, even if the protein count for the same calorie is far less and they need preparation. A stainless steel knife holds an edge for a shorter time than one using better metal but you save a lot of money and that is even after buying in multiples rather than singles. This is the whole justification for frugal preps in a nutshell. You are not getting the same quality, but it is close enough and you gain quantity. Since we are part of the 80% of the population that has to share the remaining 20% of the wealth this is no small matter. We must do the same job ( almost ) with far fewer resources.
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Now, don’t you feel so much better that I keep harping on frugal tools for your preparation needs? You now have scientific sociological laws to back up your choices. The next time a Yuppie Survivalist showcases his expensive toys you can take comfort in knowing that yours cost a lot less and almost do the same job. And this is just the financial aspect. More likely than not, being forced to improvise and budget shop will ensure that we actually have the skills needed to use the tools rather than just a closet full of expensive toys we don’t know how to utilize. A crappy bolt action surplus rifle needs practice to use well, it does not use a lot of ammunition to compensate for skill. A manual grinder is used to make healthy food rather than just being another electronic kitchen gadget gathering dust besides the onion cutter and the potato peeler.
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Do any of you understand the pressure that comes from always being right?
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half greenhouse

HALF A GREENHOUSE
Some weeks I really have to stretch my limited imagination to come up with subject matters to write about. Last week was not a great week. I’m sure some of you were quite pleased with the usual amount of blather and felt satisfied with my efforts. I’m also sure some of you grumbled a bit and wished I’d do something more original. This week is a lot easier as I have a lot more material to pick from. I got the issue of Backwoods Home and I picked a lot of good books from the trash. One such was a small booklet from Organic Gardening And Farming Magazine, a reprint of Seventies articles. There was some good stuff on converting grain grinders to pedal power but that was a bit beyond me, requiring handyman skills that I possess none of. Another was on making a greenhouse with half the usual materials. That one caught my eye. Just the thing for us frugal tightwad types.
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The secret to this greenhouse is constructing a submerged walkway through the middle of the greenhouse, thus only requiring a height of three or four feet above ground rather than the usual five or six. To some of you this is so obvious that you are snorting in disgust and rolling your eyes and calling me an idiot, but to me it was a head slapping Eureka moment. How simple and practical. How ingenious. Using salvaged or cheap material to shore up the walkway wall, this is a much cheaper way to do things than using more framing and plastic or glass. By planting at ground level rather than on raised tables you also save money that way. Even if you originally planned on ground floor planting this saves on the height of the greenhouse and saves you from bending over or hurting your knees. It might not matter much to you whippersnappers but to us aging folks this makes a big difference.
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You will need a stairway going down to the trench if you are on otherwise level ground. You can use railway ties or even dirt filled tires to shore up the trench walls. Two by eight planks if you can salvage some, braced by fence posts or metal pipe. Or some cement and concrete blocks if you have some left over. Put rocks on the trench floor to help with mud. The article used bent 1x2 wood for the frame with plastic sheeting. I would imagine a small straight wall with slanting roof would also work. Eventually you want a material such as rigid plastic or glass, otherwise stockpile a lot of plastic sheeting for replacement.
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Now you can help heat your dwelling and grow some winter vegetables if so desired. If you want this to be a fuel-less greenhouse you would need insulation and mass to soak up the heat such as black metal water drums, but then you are wasting floor space. If you have the back wall ( presumably the south side of the house ) made of masonry that could act as a heat sink. I would, if possible, have half the south wall greenhouse and the other half a glass and metal wall solar heater as we have already talked about. Use the back masonry wall to help heat the greenhouse at night and the other to heat the house during the day. If you plan on growing veggies all winter long the greenhouse will need to heat itself during the night. But that gets a bit beyond our subject here, using half the building material. Just having the greenhouse for home heating means later planting but no winter crops. For that have window boxes and eat a lot of sprouts.
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roughing it easy

ROUGHING IT EASY
Being naturally adverse to hard labor type work I held very few jobs through High School. One time a few weeks mowing lawns and another time a few months. And the only reason I held the second job so long was that the owners wife had the biggest knockers I had ever seen ( she must have had one of the first implants ). So buying any cool books was a hit and miss affair. I remember buying a Poor Man’s James Bond about 1981 but after that mostly I had to wait for my first real paycheck two years later before I started to collect survival literature ( which is a stretch calling it that since I only ordered from Desert Pubs, Loompanics and Paladin ). So I pretty much missed out on all but the most popular mass market paperbacks from the 1970’s. Now I am pulling them from the trash all of the time.
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I just discovered Roughing It Easy, by Dian Thomas. Reading her 1975 book you begin to wonder if her book wasn’t the inspiration for most other writers on improvised camping equipment. I’m finding coffee can stoves, the tuna can with cardboard and wax fuel and many others. I mean, this is pretty much all you might need on the subject of cheap camping. She covers improvised cooling. The standard “in the creek” method, hole in the ground in shade covered with burlap, a hanging burlap covered shelf with water pan on top for evaporator. A food prep area, improvised. Cleaning up with plastic lined hole. A constant hot water heater ( a long metal can on its side with a fill hole opposite the pour spout, pour a cup of cold in as you catch hot water coming out the other side- the can is on a bed of coals ). She covers storage, garbage, sleeping, showering, a toilet.
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Fires are covered. Fire starting. Small stoves using Sterno or the tuna cans or newspaper or charcoal. Different types of cooking. Stick and spit. Tin can stove. Tin can oven. Aluminum foil. Tall can stove. Garbage can and wheel barrow. Dutch oven. Cardboard box oven. Reflector oven. Pit cooking. Food inside of food. Rock cooking. And sixty pages of recipes which include sourdough starter. She pretty much covers everything in one source. This is a great book. Yes, I know, when I get a book free it is easy to get all excited about it. But getting your own copy should pay for itself after one camping trip. Just buying the book instead of a cheap propane stove and you are ahead at least $5.
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If anyone has another 70’s book that pioneered a concept that everyone has ripped off, let me know. I like to go to the original source. Then I can make fun of people like Kurt Saxon that ripped off the thermos cookery concept and the trash can wine idea. One time I wasn’t clear about the source of an idea and I got called on it. It was embarrassing. Don’t try to pass off an idea as your own when some hippy got there first forty years ago. The poor bastard died from starving off of a rice and tofu diet, lice racing around in his beard. At least let’s give him credit for ideas so he can have some form of immortality other than the bastard child he produced unknowingly one night stoned on acid during the Summer Of Love. And the good stuff that made you actually see crap, not like the junk I kept getting in the Eighties than was laced with rat poison and wasn’t good for much more than keeping you from getting drunk. I hallucinated like two times so I really felt ripped off. But the one time was really cool, a spiraling giant snake as I listened to the Doors The End. Where was I? What was I talking about? Could their junk science be true? Could I have an acid flashback twenty years later? Sure, I-Gore invented the Internet. Peace and love, brothers.
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heating mass

HEATING MASS
I subscribe to Backwards Home Magazine. It is not cheap. And sometimes it is not very useful. But most of the time it is useful inspiration for my articles. In other words, new ideas to rip off. Let’s face facts, there is little new under the sun. I get ideas where ever I can. And for me, it’s a tax right off. Just don’t get all hurt and rude on me. I spent the better part of a decade losing money doing this. It is nice to have the learning curve pay off now.
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The November/December issue had an article on using a mass of rock to soak up the heat from a barrel stove to capture the heat. That way you could burn a fast and hot fire and let it go out. A lot less creosote is produced that can turn your stove pipe into a rocket engine if left to accumulate. As it just so happens, I even have a link to a barrel stove kit for sale on my Amazon affiliates page ( www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html ). Wow, imagine the odds of my writing an article to shrill a product for my own profit. Hee, hee. Suckers.
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The author built stacked cement block walls on two sides of the stove, filled them with small stones and then formed a “roof” of loose stones over the stove. The large stones rested on top of the stove and on the walls. Obviously, if needed put extra bracing under the floor. He seemed to think the more weight, the better, so I can only assume the stove can handle the weight. If you use your stove for cooking the concept should work with stones along the sides only. His stove worked fine for three years with the stones on top of the walls and stove without mortar. If you piled the stones on the side I would imagine you would need a more solid, anchored wall to take the force of the stones. Perhaps a better solution would be the stones on top only, but with a clear space for cooking on a small part of the top.
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The article actually only shows the two walls, on either side. Plus nothing on the bottom as the floor was concrete. The back wall must be either a wall of cement blocks or other fireproof material. If you place several layers of block under the stove ( make sure the floor can take the weight ) filled with stone you increase the mass able to soak up heat, you keep from bending over as much to load, and you decrease the amount of chimney pipe you need. Yes, this is far less efficient than one of those fancy stoves with the complex masonry chimney that weighs a lot, needs professional building and heats the whole house all day after one burning, but it costs under $200. Stove, blocks, pipe all combined. And it greatly increases the efficiency of a regular metal stove ( no reason it has to be a barrel stove, could be a regular cast iron one ).
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In the future, wood is going to be a dear commodity. Today, every Joe Blow uses oil or gas to heat with. It is relatively cheap and care free. With Peak Oil around the corner we will all be rushing to add wood stoves to the house. There will not be enough wood to go around. Why do you think poor people wore clothing all winter long and never took baths? It wasn’t because they liked smelling and keeping vermin warm. They couldn’t afford wood. Or enough beyond cooking, anyway. Adding mass to your wood stove allows you to cut down on the wood you have to use. You could also set water filled metal drums ( with something in them to prevent rust ) alongside your woodstove to soak up the heat but it will cost more and be less efficient. But, hey, if you got the barrels on sale cheap or another type of container like a Jerry can just hanging around doing nothing it would work in a pinch. Any mass near the stove would work, it is just that the stones on top work best.
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pump n seal

PUMP N SEAL
A loyal minion pointed out a product that might just be preferable to an electric vacuum seal machine. www.pump-n-seal.com . I like the electric version due to the ability to dry can grain and beans in Mason jars. You get “free” storage and a stash of canning jars to use later. The big problem is the cost. The cheapest unit at Wal-Mart is about $50 and the bags for them are very expensive. Using the Pump N Seal you spend under twenty bucks. Buy one from me at my affiliates page
www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html
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With the PumpNSeal you can recycle used jars. The tree hugger granola crowd should love that part. Or all of us frugal types. The unit lets you punch a small hole in the lid. You put a little Band-Aid looking seal on it and attach a bicycle pump looking machine on the lid and pump away to create a vacuum in the container. You are also supposed to be able to use the thick type of Zip Lock bags with an adapter tool. All at once you saved over half on the machine cost and also no longer need to buy expensive rolls of plastic bags. And when I say they are expensive, I mean like about fifty cents a foot. Zip Locks are much cheaper. The Pump N Seal does suck at my original project, the dry canning of food. You need to punch a hole in the lid to get it to work, meaning you need to spend an extra ten cents to twenty cents on each jar buying a replacement lid for when you eventually use it for regular wet canning. So your cost of dry canning each pound and a half of food goes to 85 cents. Of course, it would take 300 jars before the electric pump paid for itself that way ( $25 difference in machines, plus $8 Mason jar attachment tool ).
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Now I know you are saying to yourself as I did that you don’t want to buy those replacement seals ( the Band Aid looking things to cover the hole ). They are supposed to be able to be reused many times. The ads say hundreds, I believe. But even after dozens of times ( if that is more realistic ) you still don’t want to buy new seals. They are twenty to fifty cents each if shipping and handling and lack of sales are taken into account. First off, the company might go out of business. Or, after the Apocalypse you can’t rely on the Post Office. They will be busy giving draft gangs the addresses of Select Service eligible youth. Plus, that is a rip-off price, like two or three bucks for a triple blade shaver replacement. But, I have an answer to that which I stole. If you were to stroll on down to a off-gridder from Wales web site www.judyofthewoods.net/pump.html you will find a way to make your own seals. The gist of it is that you take a strip of electrical tape and cover the sticky side with plastic and cut to length you have your cheap seal. Take the tape, sticky side up. Take a Wal-Mart type plastic bag and cut a strip the same length but only one third the width. Place down the middle. When you want a seal, cut off a piece. The two ends are sticky, the middle has plastic ( that part over the hole ). When you are pumping air out the tape piece is lifted up. After a vacuum is formed the tape piece is sucked down over the hole and forms a seal. You keep the two edges from sticking with the plastic so the air can be sucked out.
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The Pump N Seal is the easiest way to dry can. And the cheapest. And does away with the need for electrical ( good for off-grid, power outages, future power grid total failures ). And eliminates the need for expensive bags. And it is claimed has a much better vacuum. At first I discounted this machine because of the need to puncture the can lid. And the replacement seals. But I can see now that this is a far cheaper way to vacuum seal. You reuse cans and jars you would normally throw away. You can use cheap ziplocks if you wish. The seals are reusable, or can be cheaply substituted. Another instance where cheaper is better ( along with the cheapest grain grinder, the cheapest battle rifle, the cheapest storage food, etc. ).
END
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guest article

Acquiring Survival Skills

What would you give to learn some survival skills? There are many different types of survival skills you can learn, outdoor wilderness survival, Post TEOTWAWKI skills, medical skills, self-defense skills, and so many more. It can take a lifetime to acquire the number of skills you feel comfortable with to know you can survive TSHTF.
The science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein wrote that “Specialization is for insects.” For a survivalist that wants to remain as self sufficient as possible those are words to live by. I would state that I feel one or two key skills are necessary for the individual to have a barterable trade when TSHTF.
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Your current job will probably be your strongest skill set. That is great if you happen to be an EMT, carpenter, or farmer. If you are an assembly line worker or office wonk you might find yourself with little skills to offer. How do you learn what you need to make yourself more viable?
Let me add a couple of more things to that too. How do you learn those skills without spending a boatload of money and maybe even be able to make some money?
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Volunteerism is a great way to start building a skill set. If you want to learn outdoor skills like orienteering, cooking over a fire, knot tying you could help out a Boy Scout Troop. The leadership of a troop can always use help on a campout and you can learn a lot. Many of the survival book lists have the Boy Scout Manual as standard for a library of survival books.
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CERT (Community Emergency Response Training) Training will teach you how to deal with a disaster in your community. From simple first aid to cribbing, (lifting large objects off of a trapped survivor) to proper search techniques CERT classes will help you develop confidence that you will be able to help out your family and neighbors if disaster hits your area.
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Local police have programs that get the citizen involved. They run from Citizen On Patrol (COP), Auxiliary, Block Watch, and other names. Some departments teach you almost everything the officers know. Some even include basic self-defense techniques. Again, these courses lend a lot of self-confidence to you in an emergency.
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In a rural area you might find that joining the volunteer fire department will help you learn those skills. Some will send you to EMT school as part of your volunteering. Some people have been able to take their EMT training and get part time and full time jobs with it.
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One added bonus about all the aforementioned skills is that it will also plug you into the emergency response community in your area. If TSHTF you might find that you have access where others do not, or you will be near the top of the chain for supplies, or in a position to help your family.
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Learning a trade that you can use when TEOTWAWKI hits can also be accomplished by volunteering. You can learn a lot of home repair skills by working with Habitat for Humanity. The local pioneer village might be just the place to learn blacksmithing, running an old saw, how to hitch up a team of horses or churn butter.
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One of the saying that I really like goes something like this; “What a man does when he can determines what he will be when he can no longer help it.” When TSHTF it will be too late to learn the skills easily. From that point on all the learning will be hard knocks trial and error.
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While volunteering your valuable time to others isn’t the most ideal thing, it does offer the opportunity for you to learn new skills, meet new people, and develop a strong sense of self-confidence and leadership. Choose those skills you feel you want or need the most and work toward them. Survival, whether it is in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, the floor of Death Valley, or your home town after a disaster, is always going to come down to having the knowledge you need.
Wolverine.
END
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junk land and van living

JUNK LAND AND VAN LIVING
There is a lot of unease out there about a possible economic crash. Folks living in Michigan might already be experiencing one, although it speaks volumes about our education system that those folks didn’t see this coming a long time ago. Anyway, I thought now might be a good time to focus a bit more on emergency living situations in case any of you start your own economic depression sometime soon. I am going to share with you my personal experiences with junk land and van living. And everything that I did wrong. My extensive planning was faulty, my back-up plans were for the wrong contingency and my ultimate choices were manageable but rather uncomfortable.
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Over a year ago, the start of summer ’06, the casino I was working at laid off our entire department. They planned on rehiring 75%. Several people got transferred, I just up and quite in disgust. Mistake number one. This was my second layoff ( the first was to trim management ) and I let my emotions get in the way. In retrospect it was the right decision since the stress level there was rising as compensation was falling, but I did act rashly. Even worse was deciding to move to my land in Elko, 300 miles away. I sold my trailer rather than paying the extra to get it towed. Mistake number two. Once I got up there we only had the van to live out of. And the town was full up as the gold mine was booming. There were no storage units to be had at all. I had a van, was able to live in it except it was full of my crap. Then, the road to the property was far worse than I had anticipated. It would have been impossible to commute to town daily. After that, things just got worse. No trailer parks would take my 1968 van, it was too old. That was the for the few spots still open in parks. Despite having a lot of RV parks in the area.
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So I couldn’t live on the property full time, nor could I live in town part time. Instead of waiting around to see if a cheap RV would become available ( none at the time ), I just left town after a week. I didn’t want to deplete my savings and child support payments were due. If I had brought or bought a trailer I could have biked to the freeway and paid to park the van there. I moved back to Carson City and lived for five months in the van, parked in my stepdaughters driveway. Mistake number, three or five or seven ( I lost track ). I love the little gal but she is a control freak and five months later we were all ready to move back to the trailer park even if we couldn’t afford it ( and it helped I got a loaner trailer ). So since last winter we lived in an RV park, with the extra needed money coming out of my savings. Recently I shaved my spending and with the Bison profits I am able to leave my savings in the bank. After needing savings for a year.
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Lessons. Whatever can go wrong will. If you are living on the road, mechanic bills will kill you. And where do you live in the meantime? ( plus, the harassment factor with parking ). If you have a piece of land, your planning will fail to see emergencies or strange events unfolding. Whatever space you have, it isn’t enough for more than one person. You will not have enough savings, so don’t deplete it early on. It will be damn stressful, even though the lack of rent or a mortgage will counter-balance it. It is far from an easy answer.
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After the fear and stress are dwelt with, after unforeseen problems are solved, then it becomes easy and worth the money savings. But at first it is going to be a bear. If I believed in fate, perhaps I was not meant to rough it just yet. I have built up Bison to paying status and I have written a lot after getting the extra motivation from seeing my land ( a tease only, unfortunately ). It all worked out well. But I also lucked out on a lot to have a happy ending. Make sure you plan well enough that you won’t need luck.
END
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core inflation rate

CORE INFLATION RATEI recently came across an article demonstrating why the core inflation rate was less evil than common knowledge dictates ( http://www.wisebread.com/the-core-rate-is-not-an-evil-conspiracy ). It was acknowledged that the official inflation rate does ignore food and energy but that looked at over the long haul the figures are not as bad as is thought. Yes, it is a decidedly optimistic article. It doesn’t factor in paranoia over survival, global warming, Peak Oil or what have you. It merely states that from a pure economic outlook, over a decades time the core rate evens out the strong fluctuations of temporary price hikes. Drought effects food prices, hurricanes effect oil prices. But over the long run the core rate seems to give an inflation rate that is pretty close to actual prices.
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You might think this is silly, since it does factor out resource depletion and focuses simply on prices. Price hikes will dampen demand. It will give rise to investment in alternatives. Some things like oil cannot be substituted with other things ( ethanol is a poor substitute, for instance, having lower energy output and driving up grain prices ). But I thought that perhaps, baring catastrophic events, the economics made some sense. We are so focused on negative events and are so busy looking for the next chunk of sky that is set to fall on our heads, we fail to see how things keep moving along with minimal disruption. If we take off our tin foil hats it just might be that something like the core inflation rate might be a useful tool rather than a Central Bank conspiracy.
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Don’t get me wrong, I love a good conspiracy. I am guilty of spilling a lot of ink over the evil that banks and governments do. But I could be overstating the case most of the time. Remember, if you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail. If you are looking everywhere for a conspiracy, things start to look like the newest plan from the Illuminati. I am not saying paranoia is bad, just that perhaps I am guilty of harboring too much of it. We spend a lot of time screaming about oil running out and about hyperinflation, yet we drive to work everyday and can somehow afford dinner every night. Could we be wrong? Could bankers be greedy and manipulative, yet still be able to keep the game going by holding back from too much excess? It does behoove them to stop revolution in the streets from happening. It is good for business.
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I am not saying that in the end we won’t have too much inflation. It could happen. Yet, that argument was also made in the early eighties and here we are, still making ends meet. As much as it pains me to use logic, perhaps it is true that the simplest answer is the correct one and inflation isn’t as bad as we want to believe. Perhaps substitution of less expensive items, or decreased use or other market forces can work over the long haul. Perhaps a service economy can still make it, after the factories have moved overseas. I mean, look at Britain. Baring oil depletion, it does seem the economic tools used at this time are fairly accurate. Long term, despite current food price hikes now or similar hikes in the 70’s inflation does seem to come close to that which is officially recorded.
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You can point to things such as Chinese manufacture to explain the damper on prices. The price was hollowing out our manufacturing industry and our over dependence on government jobs as substitutes. None of it good short term. And oil availability is a wild card. But purely focusing on economics, things still seem to be holding together and less catastrophic than first seen. Not saying it will last, just saying we should beware of the blinders we put on ourselves in an effort to justify our fear and loathing. I’m saying, lets step back from time to time and look at the big picture.
END
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independent

INDEPENDENT
A general indicator of a society in crisis might be said to be behavior that is unsustainable. For decades now the multiple generational welfare family has been showcased as a prime example. Unfortunately, while true, this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Everywhere you look in society you will see a perverse form of “independence” that is proudly waved as a flag but is instead a sign of weakness and an indicator of how much trouble we are in as a society. Almost no existing social organization is healthy. I am not talking about weird and bizarre perversions such as homosexual marriages. Or illegal couples that live off of welfare since their child was born within our borders. I am not talking about illegal workers qualifying to buy a home. I am talking about everyone, your closest neighbor and probably you and me.
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Marriage might still be the norm, but the institution is actively discouraged. Tax policies and laws on the books frown on marriage. Divorce is rewarded economically. Dependence on families has been usurped by welfare programs. Now, while it is true that in “the good old days” being in a family unit could be a nightmare, and that realistically the family stayed together out of economic necessity rather than some abstract concept like love, it was still a more natural unit than what we have today. To survive and thrive, children must be reared in a stable environment. Not in one parent families, not with grandparents living two thousand miles away in a mobile home in a retirement community in Florida. Not adopted from China and being raised by a gay couple. Not with step-parents. Not with parents on their second or third marriage.
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The three generational household was the norm for the longest time. The family farm being handed down over the generations, or the family business being passed to the son after a period of learning through apprenticeship. Granted, slavery was the norm for the longest time. Just because something was normal for thousands of years doesn’t make it right. But it is hard to argue that our old standards of family were incorrect. A household with a stay at home mother with grandparents lending a helping hand with both learning and nurturing is a proper environment for children to be raised. Grandparents being supported by their children and helping the third generation to be raised is a natural family. Just because they stayed because they had no other economic choice does not negate this fact. Sometimes being forced to do something good is necessary.
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Divorced mothers living off welfare and alimony and child support. Teenaged mothers having children for a larger welfare check. Old people living off of Geriatric Welfare ( with the gentle euphemism of Social Security covering this unpleasant fact ). A lifetime of investment eaten away from inheritance taxes. All of these things are unnatural and unsustainable. We have totally given up dependence on the family and shifted our dependence to the government. Despite several generations living high off of the hog with this arrangement, it is not natural and can not last. Several generations lived off of an oil surplus ( the modern equivalent of Roman bread and circus welfare mobs living off of crop surpluses ). This will not, cannot last.
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You can see the total warped values everywhere. Women’s lib. Seniors escaping from family to warmer climes. Males leaving the wife and kids, trading in for a younger model. Latchkey kids that emulate “independent” behavior when they age. No family loyalty. We are totally dependent on bankers and government and dysfunctional corporations, yet act as if we are better off. We might have been, in a perverted way. Soon, even the economic benefits will have disappeared. We are a bunch of suckers.
END
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free corn

FREE CORN
I don’t know if it was one guy sending the same mail twice or if this is information making the rounds, but more than once I was sent an e-mail telling a story about wild pigs being tricked into being enclosed by a fence. Some foreign guy is in class, twists uncomfortably in chair, teacher asks why, I have a bullet in my back from being a guerilla fighter or some such trite BS. Then he tells the story about how to trap wild pigs. The wild pig part was interesting, the lead up to it sounds like a set up. I’m more inclined to believe this was just a modern embellishment of an Aesop type tale. But no matter, the fable was instructive none the less.
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To trap a wild pig ( presumably to get domesticated pigs instead of just a one time BBQ ) you pick a spot in the woods and put some corn down. The wild pigs are sufficiently paranoid and untrusting and so avoid the strange pile. But then they get used to seeing it and dig in for dinner. After they get used to the pile of corn you put up one side of a fence next to the corn. They will at first shy away but as soon as they are used to the fence section they will return to the corn. Then you put up the next section, etcetera until everything is there except the gate. Then the pigs get used to that and enter the fenced in area to eat the corn. You rush in and throw up a gate to trap the pigs inside the enclosure thus making them captive little breeding bacon machines. Right alongside the fable of the frog in boiling water. Small baby steps restricting freedom while at the same time rewarding those accepting the steps.
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Well, we all know what the fable is saying. The government bribes us, slowly increasing the bribes as it restricts freedom. In the end we have no freedom and are dependant on the government for our corn. Oh, such a sad tale. Not that we mighty freedom loving Americans would ever fall for that kind of nonsense. The Federal government waves the flag and tells us we are free, so it must be true. Free to do exactly as they say. Well, I got news for everybody. Unless you can return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, you are living under the yoke of some kind of government. Some might be less oppressive than others, but in the end they all become a tyranny if only because there is no other way to prolong the society until the inevitable collapse from resource depletion. We have already enjoyed our moment of relative freedom here in this country and now it is time for the collapse. We used up all of the easy resources and now it is time to increase complexity so we can survive a little longer.
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It is human nature to become domesticated for a steady supply of food. A few can live like wild dogs but most of us are as passive and dependant as a poodle. A big strong Pit Bull might scare others but he is still under the yoke. A slave to others whims. You might impress the other dogs but you too must heel and do other tricks in order to be fed. How utterly depressing. We talk tough and think we are independent but most of us are still doing tricks for our bowel of Kibble. At least the wild pigs were tricked into slavery. What is our excuse, other than displeasure at going hungry? Yes, self preservation. We will die if we don’t perform for our corn. But in general, it speaks badly of the human race that we are so easily trapped and domesticated and will do backwards flips from a trampoline for a few pleasant tasting doggy treats. Hmmm. Liver and cheese flavor. END
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neat, no ice

NEAT, NO ICE
All of our wonderful scientists, the ones sticking their noses as far up the Federal rear orifice as necessary to find grant money, have once again demonstrated that scientific objectivity and supporting the banker/political/military complex doesn’t mix well. This time it is actually quite funny. The idiots were so busy trying to fabricate evidence that global warming is man made instead of from natural causes like increased solar activity that they screwed up their calculations on Artic ice melt. The ice is melting so fast we are now at the level we shouldn’t be seeing for another hundred years. How do you get off the mark by a century? How do you miss feedback loops? I guess the rest of their time was spent filling out grant paperwork, when they weren’t pimping for Al Gore on his private jet.
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The television is putting a nice spin on it. Oh, look at these wonderful gardeners. They can now grow orchids in New England. Those silly Ag guys really should revise the zone charts so folks in Houston can start growing rubber trees, heehee. It is all happy faces and ah shucks grins. Let’s not focus on potential food lose. It’s okay to feature stories on the dollar weakness cutting the amount of food aid the UN can deliver, that just inoculates the taxpayers against being upset when his own grocery bill doubles ( it’s okay, Edna, at least we aren’t bloated and starving as we eat rice gruel while dozens of flies lay eggs in our open festering wounds ). Our wheat harvests and grain storage amounts are lower than fifty years ago when we had half the population, but not to panic. Just because little black kids are starving from African droughts doesn’t mean your gas guzzling SUV driving eating out at Friday’s butt will be in any danger at all. Keep on sucking up resources worldwide as we print up worthless paper to pay for it all, we must keep the bankers rolling in obscene profits.
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Gardening zones are moving up. The southern areas are getting hotter and the northern areas are getting warmer. Artic ice is melting so fast we are already jockeying for positions to mine the uncovering beds for oil and other resources. Gardeners love to experiment with new plants and most of us are hoping for an ever milder winter to save on heating oil costs ( projected to increase 20% this winter ). If it gets 20% warmer, we will break even economically. Wood pellets are up 25%, even at Wal-Mart. Stock up now before the rush. I understand there is nothing we can do about warming. If your position is that increased warming is natural ( there were no Cadillac’s around to heat up Greenland 700 years ago ) than there is nothing we can do about it. My point of contention is that no main stream source is in the least bit worried. Our entire food growing system is in danger ( not to mention water distribution ) and nobody seems in the least bit concerned.
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Food storage is now more important than ever. We are close to seeing huge food price increases. Not the regular 20%-30% we have seen, but much higher. We just had a global wheat crop decrease. Global. No one could spare us much of a surplus to overcome our shortages. I expect this to get worse as the weather changes even more ( and if warming doesn’t bother you, consider the possibility of melting ice diluting the sea water and altering the ocean conveyer system- the system warming Europe and to some degree the East Coast ). I would seriously consider storing at least several years worth of food. It ain’t getting cheaper. Our inflation is rising, oil peaked in 2005 ( total liquid sources peaked in 2006 ), the warming is increasing, the ice is melting faster. Ah, what a wonderful time to be alive.
END
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book review-long term survival

BOOK REVIEW-LONG TERM SURVIVAL
Long Term Survival In The Coming Dark Age- Preparing To Live After Society Crumbles by James Ballou. Well, let me just tell you, I was breathlessly waiting for the arrival of this book. I had first read a review of it in Backwoodsman magazine. Not that they said much, just a blurb from the back page. And then there was no reviews on Amazon, just the same publishers advertisement. But the premise of the book had me hooked. I just had to read about how to survive long term after a collapse.
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Well, I was not disappointed, but I was feeling rather violated. The book was a bit on the light side and offered little detail in the way of needed skills to the well read survivalist, but it did blaze the trail here. Almost no one addresses long term survival except Stone Age skill guys and that leaves a lot to be desired. You eat birds you trapped with woven grass rope and go kamikaze on your enemies with a stone head ax, but then they kill you with a rimfire zip gun or a flintlock rifle. Stone Age survival is great as far as tanning hide and what not but tactically is ill advised. Okay, so this book tries to give you pointers on long term survival. It did a good job in the salvaged and reworked metal part, the tanning and cordage section were not bad, but the rest was rehashed, reworked, been-there-done-that survival skills such as caches and barter. My complaint is basically the high priced information.
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$25 is a lot to pay for generalized information. Some parts were great if you weren’t familiar with them. As I said, the metal section was really good. But the photos weren’t really necessary and just padded the book to 120 pages. Typical Paladin Press. I don’t fault the author as much as the publisher. Allow me to summarize. Cache a bunch of supplies. This by following a list provided. After your supplies run out, live primitively. But with metal instead of stone. Not a bad strategy. You could do a lot worse. I think if the author was able to publish elsewhere the book would have been much better. Not that you have much choice anymore. It almost seemed like this was an assembly of magazine articles. I like the plan, I like the metal/blacksmithing information, but no way is this worth the money.
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Chapter One, basic supplies to gather. Two- caching supplies. Not too bad, as it focuses on needed tools for future workshop use. Three- the survival workshop. This is about the best chapter, on improvised metal tools, workshop, fabrication, etc. Four- recycle and salvage everything. Just basic dumpster diving, frugal living advice. No details on, say, stripping a car of useful items. Five- making fire. Six- making cordage. Seven- making clothing. Eight- barter. As I said, not bad. A great start on long term planning. But this book is way overpriced. Better to buy a few used volumes on primitive living skills and metal working.
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Like a lot of things in life, a great concept with not so great execution. A lot less pictures with smaller print to pack a lot more details in the same space would have been nicer than a slick pretty coffee table browsing book.
END
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more home canning

MORE HOME CANNING
No, no, not canning foul gastronomical abortions like mushrooms or cow brains but dry canning. We have already covered canning wheat in metal paint cans, a practice I’m not totally sold on due to the unknown interior coating. If you have not read all of my drivel it was covered in Bison Blog #1. Here I will give you the economics of canning wheat or rice or beans ( or whatever ) using glass canning jars. You do need a vacuum sealing machine, about $50 at China Mart, along with the jar adaptor for another $8 or so. The jar adaptor covers wide mouth Mason jars, hooking to the machine hose port.
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If you are only concerned with short term disasters and want a small amount of food, this method is not viable economically. It is cheaper to just buy five gallon plastic buckets or the number ten metal cans. My favorite company is Emergency Essentials, web site www.beprepared.com . The majority of their shipping cost is factored into the product price with an additional shipping cost of $6 for orders up to $60, $9 up to $120 and $12 for all orders over $120. Thus, a year supply of wheat is $380 plus $12 shipping. Not as cheap as it used to be but not bad considering the prices of wheat lately. But let’s compare small units of rice and pinto beans, mail order verses home made. A can of rice is about $11, factoring in shipping on a small six can order. To make it yourself it will be about $13. Each canning jar is sixty seven cents and rice is forty cents a pound at Wal-Mart. Buying mail order pinto beans is $13 with shipping, $16 to do it yourself with jars and beans at sixty cents a pound. This is about twelve pounds for either the grain or beans.
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You are not factoring in the cost of the vacuum sealer. Obviously this is only going to work if you can use the machine for other items instead of just a few cases of dry stored food. If you feel that canning jars will be used in the future after a near total collapse, then the extra cost is justified. Both for the machine and for the jars. By itself the cost of the food is under five bucks for the rice and just over $7 for the beans. So canning doubles the cost. With mail order the metal cans are only slightly lower. Enough of a difference if you buy a lot, true. And metal is more durable than glass. Plus the cans are nitrogen flushed whereas the glass is just air evacuated.
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The extra cost can be justified one of two ways. First, they are rodent proof where poly buckets are not. Second, the canning is free if you are stockpiling Mason jars anyway. Each Mason jar holds a pound and a half of food. It will take three hundred jars for a year supply of food, twenty five cases of jars. Yes, this seems excessive. But think about what you can do with that many glass canning jars. Plenty for yourself to use, with perhaps some for barter. And you only need to buy it a case at a time. Half rice and half beans your cost will be just under $20 and be at least two weeks worth of food for one person. Looking at it yearly will stop your pacemaker and induce dry shakes. Looked at as a bi-weekly project the cost will be negligible. Every month you are buying a month supply of food for $40.
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Not that you need to store that much using this method. There is nothing saying your bulk supplies can’t be stored in poly buckets and you use this method to supplement. This is not the cheapest way to do things unless you already plan on storing canning jars anyway. Then it is almost the cheapest, the jars are already a separate cost and the food gets “free” storage containers. Just food for thought.
END
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ground control to major tom

GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM
While strolling through the TB2K chat room I stumbled upon a phrase that struck me as wonderful and apropos. Immediately I knew I had to share it with you, another beautiful idea being masqueraded as my own whit and wisdom. A comment was made to the effect that we are like a spacecraft, thousands of miles from our supplies that must be shipped up continuously in order that we might survive. I don’t remember the context of the comment, perhaps Peak Oil, but if you think about it for like three seconds instead of picking your orifices you will get the same imagery as I did. A lonely fragile craft, drifting through space, dependent on a very fuel inefficient method of resupply without which everyone dies. Not one resupply mission can fail as there is no way to grow or make anything they need. Now, obviously, we have our own air supply ( at least until we choke the oceans with pollution and burn down all the forests ). And we could live in a hole in the ground covered with dead vegetation for a crude but serviceable shelter for winter warmth. Perhaps eat each other and kill feral dogs for some meat. The point is that as a civilization we have become dependant on all of our food and fuel being exported from distant lands and any break in that structure spells our doom.
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Hogwash, old boy, you sputter and strut about waving your umbrella and jerking your bowler hat from your head in agitation. Why, most countries could be agriculturally self sufficient if they reprioritized exporting luxury goods ( coffee, sugar, cocoa, etc ). True enough. The question is, would they have the resources to do so as the conventional fuel supply dried up. The transition period would be the killer. But enough about disease infested Third World hellholes. We are honestly only concerned with ourselves. Could the US feed itself under fuel scarcity conditions? Could our fragile spacecraft be resupply? The answer is of course, yes. But, again, the transition time would be the killer. To stick with the analogy, we would run out of air before an alternate supply system could be worked out.
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Despite our scandalous waste, this country is still blessed with over abundance. No longer in energy perhaps ( even that is debatable, but under current conditions it can safely be said ) but certainly in agriculture. Yes, a lot of farmland is paved over, a lot of soil is depleted and a lot of water is mismanaged. However, given time and a half way honest and intelligent government all that could be reversed and fixed. I know, good luck with any logic or honesty from DC. That has always been our major obstacle, the idiocy of our leaders. However, baring an actual plan to kill off the majority of the population we could easily feed ourselves even without oil or industrial plant easily enough if we decided to do the necessary work. The problem is you need to survive until then.
*
Our country is almost like a zoned neighborhood. Agriculture is relegated to certain areas, even highly unsuitable ones like the Arizona desert. Petroleum input is needed every step of the way, from fertilizers to water transport to trucking the goods three thousand miles away. Natural farm land is covered in condos and town homes. Instead of city cores being surrounded by farmland ( the best of all worlds ) we have vast suburbs hundreds of miles from farmland, the stinky mess tucked safely out of sight. I know, I generalize here. Plenty of places have nearby farms. My point is that the majority of homes are too far away from farmland. Without vast energy inputs that is not a viable strategy. You must make plans of being a marooned crew and have supplies and skills to see you through without resupply. A perfect example is shoes. They all come from China. What do you do? Multiply that by dozens of examples. Ammunition. Batteries. Most foodstuff. Clothing, heating fuel. Etc. If all of your needs are thousands of miles away, what happens when the fuel runs out?
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book reviews-sea & engineer

BOOK REVIEWS
Today, a few book reviews. While I always prefer non-fiction for my reading pleasure, the unpleasant fact is that most non-fiction is poorly written. They are like the dull, old, boring teacher you had back in the day that droned on and on and had very little spark left about their subject. Years of unimaginative repetition of the subject matter had killed any love they may have once had for what they were teaching. The majority of non-fiction books are not quite that bad as you need love to undertake the task of writing, but they do give very little thought as to how they present their information. You are supposed to be thrilled with their knowledge alone even if their presentation is dull and boring. So after forcing myself to plow through a lot of books like that every once in awhile I need to give my brain a break and delight my senses by reading fiction. Since there is little in the way of post-apocalyptic fiction being put out nowadays you need to sometimes go back a few decades.
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I don’t know why this book caught my eye as I was digging through the trash. I suppose I subconsciously remembered the title. Down To A Sunless Sea by David Graham was from the early Eighties and uses the timeless classic of nuclear war decimating all of the population except a few that make it down to the Antarctic. Offhand that sounds familiarly like a Hollywood movie but I don’t know which came first. Not Miracle Mile, with the kid that accidentally got a phone call from a SAC base that the balloon was about to go up and a few diner customers plan to get a helicopter ride to the airport and fly south. Darn good movie. I swore I read a review of an earlier movie about just a few survivors either heading to or at Antarctica. Anyway, this book was actually quite good. Yes, it was made better by the fact that it was free but I also would have enjoyed it if I had paid cash money for it. The writing style is quite good and he fills over three hundred pages with little more than two plane trips across the Atlantic.
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Your interest is kept most of the time. There is little wandering in the story. You know how Steven King can take a simple premise and make it last 500 pages and keep you enthralled? This book is like that. The central idea is that once America ran out of its own oil its economy crashed. England ( the writer is a Brit ) wisely uses its North Sea oil to stay afloat. Shortly after the US topples there is a worldwide nuclear war. End of civilization. Our hero flies a plane full of survivors safely south. Trust me, the details fleshing it all out are interesting enough. Now, while I recommend this book I don’t think it is worth fantastic sums of money. It is definitely dated. It is good for a nostalgia trip back to the late Seventies and the paranoia Russia gave us. If you can find it at a reasonable price you should enjoy.
*
The Cross-Time Engineer by Leo Frankowski is a great “rebuild an industrial society from the ground up” type of book. Our hero is transported back through time to 13th century Poland and must use his engineering skills to begin transforming the country into a united prosperous industrial society in order to fight off an imminent Mongol invasion ( in eleven years, plenty of time for four more books ). The book started out slow with a weird writing style as the character claims to be Polish but comes off as an American. And the book takes over a hundred pages to start showing off its primitive engineering methods. But once past the slow start I was hooked and read all afternoon and into the evening to finish it in one setting. It was so good I was able to concentrate over the TV noise. I will definitely get the other books in this series. My main complaint is you are hooked and feel compelled to buy more books since it leaves you hanging. At only 250 pages it was obviously a commercial gimmick to take two or at most three books and turn it into five books, each at full paperback price. Kind of like the latest Steven King book at $7.99 that is a fluffed up novella The Mist. Great story ( better than The Stand ), rip off price. Oh, well. Entertainment and enlightenment come at a price ( great info on primitive tech ).
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I want to once again thank those that made the second book purchase possible. My biggest money maker is my e-books, so thanks and keep buying those buggers. Those that patronize the companies that Google ad on the site bring in income every month, thank you for that. And those that buy books and gear through my affiliates pages allow me to order two or three books every month or so and allow me to keep adding to my library. Thanks, guys. All of your generous purchases keep me motivated enough to keep posting. It might only be $75-$100 a month all together but to me it is a great deal of money and this from only five to six hundred readers! I love you all.
END
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stationary targets

STATIONARY TARGETS
I know most of you just love my writing all to pieces. You set your alarm clocks so you can read my begrudgingly dropped pearls of wisdom, buy everything I sell to continually bask in my glow after the daily blog has been read, recommend me to all your friends, hound your publishing contacts to put me into print and pledge at least five percent of your incomes to further my standard of living. Okay, no one does any of that. In fact, I wager your read Rawles first and then only go to my site since you are bored and the official football and drinking hour hasn’t yet begun. But surely you are familiar with my attitude towards farming. It is a great self-sufficiency tool but unfortunately is fraught with many dangers. Not that most other survival strategies are any better, just that farming is not the magical talisman that most folks think it is.
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Yesterday on National Pravda Radio was a segment on a displaced farmer. Iraqi, of course. Who else are we displacing in huge numbers, either through direct military action or inaction through the militia fighting? Oh, sure, millions of our fellow countrymen are being economically displaced through the deliberate actions of the Powers That Be, but at least here we have the option of towing the company line, selling our soul to the devil, going to work for the Gestapo for a paycheck. Over there, anyone economically displaced ends up living under a one blanket lean-to in the middle of a plant-less desert wasteland waiting for the next Red Crescent tinned food shipment, totally dependant on the kindness of strangers which will only last as long as the oil does since it allows an energy surplus to supply that kindness.
*
My point? Generations of farmers husbanded their land, worked hard and were able to feed themselves. Now that food security means nothing. A bigger bandit came along and stole the resources. Human nature. If we didn’t do it someone else would have. Farming does not mean you are secure. Farming does not mean you can feed yourself. Devoting thirty years to the bank and a mortgage to buy a farm does not mean that your grandchildren are safe and secure. Farmers are at the mercy of the whims of the rulers. Either his or the neighboring one. You are a target. It is okay to be growing your food. It is a partial answer to food being used as a weapon against you. Just be aware of the dangers you are facing.
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Another solution that is not too much of an answer is wild game and plants. We have 330 ( 300 official plus three times the number of admitted illegals since all government figures are lies and a good rule of thumb is to double or triple that official number-works good for inflation or unemployment or illegal immigrants ) million damn people in this country. Granted, most live within a few miles of the coasts or a waterway which leaves a lot less to try to live off the land if you are inland. But the raw numbers alone still dictate that it will be unfeasible. Herding will be feasible in large arid areas. In densely populated areas the only solution I can think is going to be all farmers cooperating to form a militia and also producing enough of a surplus to buy a core group of professionals to supplement that. If fighting doesn’t kill you maybe the extra work growing a surplus will. But lone farmers fighting attackers will not work. See how well that worked in Rhodesia or South Africa.
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We are not Gods chosen people, believe it or not. The bad things that happen elsewhere can also happen here. The hatred between Latinos and Blacks or Whites and anyone with a tan or between some religious groups or between Rednecks and Yuppies will be just as fierce and dangerous once an economic downturn happens as they are now between Shiites and Sunnis. Just food for thought, zucchini growers.
END
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shipping box house

SHIPPING BOX HOUSE
Recently there was a mass of submitted articles over at the Yuppie Survival Blog. One of the great things about Rawles’ site is since it reaches such a massive audience there are experts at pretty much everything amongst the readers. Unlike here where the audience is so small that we would need a heck of a lot of zeros to place it in the proper percentage of the population ( all to the right of the decimal point ). Not that I am complaining too much, since here is where you hear the unpleasant truth rather than mass market pabulum. I will, if offered, sell out for a buck, but I will remain intellectually honest while I do so. The articles were about the feasibility of burying shipping containers for shelters/storage etc.
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I have been guilty in the past of making flippant suggestions regarding burying these metal containers myself. Just bury one, don’t put too much dirt on the top. Well, obviously I was way off the mark. Even without a lot of roof weight in the end you would have inward bulging walls and rusting. It seems the only sure way of burying these things involves a lot of cement and rebar and internal bracing. After that the initial cost savings of the shipping container is negated. The only cheap way I can think of is salvaged internal lumber for bracing, only burying deep enough to berm the walls and placing an insulated roof over it ( with asphalted outer surfaces and pebble wall drainage ). Even this is too expensive and doesn’t take into account outer insulation if you are heating with solar gain.
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A far better way than burying your shipping container is going to be to place it above ground and surround it with straw bales. The sides would need no bracing and the roof only a minimal amount. Then you only need to stucco one side of the bales. If you want more room than a travel trailer can provide, or if you want to design the interior to your needs rather than those of senior retirees, a shipping container might be worth the costs. The straw bales and cement footing and stucco will be about as much. Not the cheapest housing method but close. And while not as insulating as earth, a lot cheaper than cement and more efficient than stick built with conventional insulation. Once the imported oil runs out you will be glad you spent the extra on insulation.
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If you are really poor, nothing beats a straw baled cab-over camper. Cab-over campers are the trailers that sit in the back of pick-up trucks with the bed overhanging the truck cab. They are eight foot long. Place one on supports, then surround with bales. Construct a four foot porch at the door end ( have access to the space under the bed for storage ) so you have not only a porch but a shower and toilet area if unavailable inside. And a glass door if facing south will provide a lot of heat ( curtain at night ). A few 4 by 4 supports for a roof of bales. Stucco in and out ( there are Internet sites on straw bale construction but most seem skimpy so most likely you will need to drop $30 on a book about it ). You now have a six by twelve super insulated cabin for, most likely, under a thousand bucks. And don’t forget air intakes in your construction. It would be embarrassing to kill yourself with the propane cooking.
END
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internal travel controls

INTERNAL TRAVEL CONTROL
The Department Of Fatherland Security has a proposed ruling that will require that all citizens of our great and fair nation get permission before they can fly within the country. That’s right, internal travel restrictions. Just like Communist Russia used to do. It used to just be ridiculous, such as when I traveled many moons ago by greyhound bus and we were pulled over near El Paso. Each passenger was asked where they were born. When I replied “L.A.” they told me to say it in its complete form, presumably because a Mexican could say LA in passable English but not Los Angeles. Forget the fact I am as white as a ghost, I needed to clear the verbal check. Well, that was twenty years ago. Now I have to take my shoes off to get on a plane because as we now know all terrorists have a fetish about using shoe explosives. It is degrading and unnecessary but we just bellow out a bovine grunt and chew our cud and move along in line towards the slaughter chute.
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I have little doubt the proposed rules will go into effect. Since national ID is only a matter of money to implement, since any citizen can now be declared an enemy combatant and be tortured, since military troops can now replace the cops, this is just another minor change to the Constitution that will be rubberstamped by a disgustingly obsequious Congress. Our “elected” officials, and I use that term loosely since elections have long been shown to be bogus, fixed, rigged and eye-candy-only, are so willing to be led around by a nose ring by anyone with a bag full of cash or a few snapshots showing compromising positions with farm animals. Don’t get me wrong, today’s politicians are no less immoral than one two hundred years ago ( think Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion ). It is just that while you could find a few folks that believed in the Constitution back then, today you couldn’t get a politician elected unless he was totally un-Constitutional.
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Today there are plenty of people willing to whine and bitch about lost freedoms, but none of us are going to do anything about it. Almost everyone is on welfare or soon to get it and no one wants to jeopardize payday so we are all servile and dependant. Or we know better than to go against the tide. Half of us are totally brainwashed. We think it noble and good to have a standing army and to join it. Military service welfare. We think it okay to work as a civil servant. Government service welfare. Or a military contractor. Government paid private service welfare. Or work in the Socialized Medicine sector, living off of the government teet. Or geriatric welfare. You name it, most of us are dependant on government. History will not be kind, calling all of us weak and unwilling to resist tyranny. We call it unwilling to sacrifice ourselves for a population that wants to be led and controlled. Well, that’s how I am able to sleep at night anyway. Face it, we are all pathetic. None of us have the backbone to resist, myself included. We are herd animals.
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So now, more totalitarian controls. First, we need permission, pretty please, to fly within our borders. Next, interstate vehicle travel will be controlled. Need to get to your retreat? NYET!! Where are your travel papers, comrade? Before you know it you will need Federal control to travel to the next town, with checkpoints everywhere. Good thing we are going to bomb Iran so the oil supply will stay safely in the ground until our masters need it and there will be a good excuse for a total travel control system.
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bob gold

BOB GOLD
Very few of us are self-sufficient in anything. Even farmers must fear the break down of law and order where they will be unable to grow crops. Primitive living experts can expect a now empty wilderness to be stripped bare by marauding city dwellers. Bomb shelter occupants can expect to run out of supplies eventually and reenter society as beggars. Even very skilled individuals can end up in a cannibals stew pot before a group needing his skills finds and protects him. All of our efforts and investments only increase our odds of survival, they do nothing to guarantee it. So we are all sitting around with rather long faces and acting all butt hurt that the universe is not very fair and we are getting a raw deal. We focus on the essentials and ignore what we deem to be unneeded items.
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I am more guilty than most since I look at everything through the lens of frugal preparations. I put a lot of effort into paring down to the bare necessities. There is nothing wrong with that, most folks can’t afford to be Yuppie Survivalists. A few buckets of wheat, a grinder, a rimfire with a few thousand rounds and a water filter will go a long way to helping you survive a lot longer than the average idiot with his head in the sand. That being said, since it doesn’t take a whole lot to be minimally prepared I also cover extras. No, you don’t absolutely need them. But it would be nice to have them.
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Gold is not absolutely necessary. You can’t eat it, or fight with it or treat wounds with it. Trade will take awhile to start back up after society collapses. Until then it does you little good. During a slow decline its main purpose is to preserve your wealth, your buying power. But there is also another consideration here. Especially in light of the beginning Great Dollar Free Fall Ending In A Belly Flop. Before the current regime had no hope of paying the extra bills, so they just devalued the dollar. Taking Greenbacks to a Third World country used to be a way to buy a new life. Now, that life will be a lot shorter. In case you need to depart from our fair shores, nothing transports your wealth better than gold. You may need gold for a BOB.
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Diamonds are grossly overvalued at retail and you need a specialists to buy them. Gold only sells with a small commission and almost any area will have a merchant willing to take the coins. It is a lot of portable wealth in a small package. Right now it does seem that most other areas really suck compared to the US ( a few exceptions and they are hard to reach and be accepted at unless you are rich ). But who knows what our fearless leaders will do to stay in power. This once great land of ours could really turn into a crap hole. And if that is the case you will want to leave. Then all the guns and storage food in the world will do you no good ( unless the Apocalypse has already started and you are going by armed convoy ). You need wealth that will go in a hollowed out boot heel or a waist belt. In a get out quick scenario tangible goods become a liability.
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Gold right now is insanely expensive. And getting more that way every week. Sure, buy on the dips, but the long term trend is just going to go up. You might as well try to buy now, if you are at all able to. You don’t need to come up with $800 at a pop ( commission and sales tax on top of that $750 ). You can buy lower weight coins. It doesn’t have to be an ounce. It might suck to spend a hundred bucks on a one tenth ounce coin when an ounce is three quarters that price when broken down, but it beats having no gold at all if you think it will come in handy for you. Remember, not all calamities are total collapse. You still might need to survive in a sane world while your part of it goes insane. Are a billion Hindus wrong ( the wearable wealth part, not the no eating cow part )?
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fake butter

FAKE BUTTER
I ran across a recipe for fake butter/margarine over at TB2K. At first, I thought nothing of it. But my inner voice, the one that talks to me out of the blue with no warning, usually whispering in a seductive voice ( they are out to get you, run away, run away ) mumbled something to the effect that while this was in fact close to useless information so I should jump all over it since that is my favorite kind. I copied the recipe and sure enough later that day even though I was reading a very good book I got restless with that same voice trying to poke me in the rear so I would get up and try the darn thing ( you know you want to, you know you need to ). I grumbled a bit at the interruption but my concentration was spoiled and I had to heed the little voice. I dirtied up a lot of dishes and was then compelled to do an extra load of washing. And let me tell you, it tasted like crap. Not so bad I won’t keep the recipe but bad enough I wont try it unless I get really desperate.
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When butter gets over $3 a pound and my stash runs out, I might consider making this slop again. But I might just go back to store bought margarine since it will be cheaper. But I had the extra ingredients that were just sitting around so I tried it. If the negative heath effects of margarine are a concern and this recipe is cheaper than real butter, than try it. But to my way of thinking this is only good as storage food. If you stock liquid oil and powdered milk. I suppose if you are mostly eating stored wheat and beans than this spread will taste a lot better than it does now while butter is readily available. Once it runs out this stuff might make sense.
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Take a half cup of dried skim powdered milk. Take 2/3 cup of water and make up the milk. Place in a blender or mixer on low speed. Add one and a half cup of liquid oil slowly, a little at a time as the machine is on. If the margarine turns out too thin add a bit more milk powder. You get what looks like white lumpy cream cheese you have your margarine. It pretty much tasted like what it was, oily milk. I added a slab of butter to try to improve the taste but it still tasted the same, like oily milk. It didn’t gross me out, it was edible, it just tasted a lot worse than butter. Well, so does margarine, but this stuff was even worse than that.
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Again, not bad if it is all you have, and healthier than hydrogenated oil. Something to keep in mind if it is all you have. Also, I used soy oil which is what I had. Perhaps olive oil or another oil would make it taste better. Or, if you make the milk according to the instructions and let sit refrigerated overnight instead of using right away it might taste better. This really is one of those “it is healthy for me so I’ll develop a taste for it” kind of things. I don’t hold butter in horror like some tree huggers, but there might come a day due to economics I might have to give it up. And, beware making half recipes. The ingredient level too low and the blades just push them up to the side and away. I imagine a whisk or a jar for shaking might work if the electricity is out.
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police state blues

POLICE STATE BLUES
Deniers of the current US police state point to, say, the Nixon administration and point out how we all thought Nixon was trying to implement such a plan and we still have our freedoms. Or, the say that every administration gets heavy handed and then the next one taking over abolishes the excesses and life goes on in the land of the free. These are the true believers in the two party system. They actually think change within the system is possible. Silly parents, political reform is for kids. Look, the two party system is a polite fiction. No matter who wins, the same people stay in power. It might sooth your psyche if anyone other than The Botox Bitch is elected President, but in the end it is all the same. Multiple layers of government, corporations and bankers will all screw you over, and they all work together. No conspiracy here, just moneyed interests guarding the estate and adding to the treasure.
*
What is a police state? The powers that be use any level of force needed to stay in power as they pretty much do as they please. You only have the rights they choose to grant you on a temporary basis. The state comes before the individual. A written Constitution is regularly ignored and that fact is given feel-good lip service by state paid lawyers ( a current glut in lawyers is seeing a lot of them underpaid, unable to pay off college-HA! Suck on it, bastards! ). Does any of this ring a bell? Any of it sound familiar? Democrats take over the house/senate, and everything stays the same. All political promises thrown out the window. Does this sound like a two party system or a rubber stamping forum. Et Tu, Brutus?
*
If you think you have Constitutional rights, try one of the following. Keep and bear arms in New York City. Argue about the legality of the Income Tax, then don’t pay it. Argue with the judge about the right of the jury to abolish unjust laws. Grow marijuana for your own use. Start a business without the required permits. Do what you want on your own property. Become a pro-Arab speaker. Argue about free speech as you discuss bombs in an airport. Offer your own currency, refuse to take dollars. Go buy a car with cash. I could go on forever. The point is, we are no longer living under the Constitution. That document gave us all the powers not specifically granted to the Feds. Does that sound like how we live today? Or does this- unless it is specifically allowed by us, it is illegal to do. Furthermore, you must be aware and follow hundreds of thousands of pages worth of laws or you are guilty of breaking the law.
*
Any American citizen can now be declared an enemy combatant. And detained indefinitely without a trial. They tried a Lite version of that in WWI and it never left the law books. And used it when needed. Remember, an enemy combatant is not just a towel head. It could be you, if they say so. Paranoid? The telephone tax bill stayed on the books over a hundred years, originally sold as a soak the rich only law. The Social Security number was promised to never be used for identification numbers. Damn lies! When you have no natural rights, when those in charge change the rules to suit them, when force levels are degreed at whim, you are in a police state. The fact it is called something else, the fact that laws are selectively enforced, means nothing. It means that window dressing is applied and that you haven’t become a target yet. We are all a punks bitches, so get used to it.
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weevils wobble

WEEVILS WOBBLE
Weevils, about the only life form that grows fat off of white flour. Don’t get me wrong, some things only taste good with white flour. Whole wheat pasta, for instance, tastes like rancid cardboard. And some things like biscuits need at least half white flour to taste like a biscuit. But white flour should compliment your whole grain products, not replace them. Use it with whole wheat, not instead of. By the way, I just shopped at Wally World and a bag of flour is up to $1.28. When I go back in a week or two I’m sure it will be even more. $10 a bushel wheat is just around the corner. I actually don’t mind this time. Usually I curse and bewail rising prices, but perhaps if we are lucky this time next year will see more acreage planted in wheat because of the price increases. I understand some areas were running out of storage for their wheat surplus, I’m just talking about the nation as a whole here.
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Whenever dinner is being prepared and my wife finds a weevil in a packaged food she screams in a irritating manner, clutches her head in a manner akin to an Iraqi seeing a bomb falling from the sky toward them, instructs me to immediately throw away the offending foodstuff and starts heading towards the cupboard with evil intent to throw away all of the same food that had just offended her. I think this is a bit dramatic myself. It’s not like they were roaches or something. Just extra protein. Even if you are on a carb diet, just skim the buggers off the top of the water as they cook and float up. Sheesh! Well, some things I can get by with, telling the old ball and chain to shut up about. You’re spending too much on prep items! Piss off. You’re spending too much on books! Piss up a rope. I want an allowance! People in Hell want air conditioning. But the one thing I listen to her about is food. I fend for myself breakfast and lunch, she cooks dinner. I won’t let anything jeopardize dinner, my only filling and tasty meal. She says get rid of weevils, that’s what I do.
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While on TB2K forum I ran across a post on treating for weevils. I deemed it Rip Off Worthy. The most important thing is to get rid of the original packaging if it isn’t air tight. Personally, I get really peeved when an item comes in cardboard without a plastic sealed bag inside. Like macaroni and cheese. A great prepper item, ruined by its crap packing. They can sell Top Ramen in plastic for ten cents, but they can’t use plastic on mac and cheese? Cheap bastards. Place in a zip-lock bag, at least. Better yet, freeze for a few days. Best, place in a Mason jar and if you have a vacuum seal machine get the attachment to suck out the air. By doing this you are forcing yourself to buy more jars, something that in the future will be worth more than junk silver coins ( although perhaps not worth more than ammo ).
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Adding diatomaceous earth will kill the little bastards, but that is expensive. Save that for your whole grain/legume stash. One great idea was to add salt to the product. That will dry out the little bastards. When ready to use, strain through a colander. The pasta will stay in the container, the salt will fall through ( catch and reuse ). And dust all shelves with salt or DE as a frontal assault. For flour, add bay leaves or just leave the package in the freezer. I don’t like vacuum sealing flour as it gets into the machine. You could place unopened bags of flour in a vac seal bag to store it long term. Since the days of 79 cent bags of flour are long gone, it now pays to store them more carefully. Use a much longer bag than needed. When ready, open just under the top seal. Take out bag to use, insert a new bag and seal up at the top. You will get several uses out of the bag this way, since the sealing process eats several inches of bag each time. Or just use Mason jars. Some flour gets sucked into the machine but it is cheaper than plastic bags and is recyclable.
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