Thursday, February 12, 2009

Prepping For Survival 3 - Ways

I just wanted to lay some plans out there for everyone on how we have set up our prepping. Everyone has a different set-up/scenario and most importantly different personalities. Take what you want from the following, but realize that this is what works for us in our area of the country and with our sets of skills and level of preps that we now have.

Background:
First of all, I began prepping while the hubster was overseas as a soldier in Iraq with the National Guard. He was over there and I was home and he could not get the same news info that we can here - the net was censored over there. Some articles that I sent in emails could get to him, but some could not and he could not get any live radio feeds or on-demand from sites like Infowars etc. He could also not get anything on youtube or google video. Needless to say when I first told him back in March of 2008 that the economy was going to crash and it would lead to major problems, he thought that I was just lonely and missing him too much and that I had gone a little around the bend!! Hehe! His ex wife also spoke with him on the phone at one point (yes, we are friends - don't ask) and told him that I had gone a little crazy - yeah, that went over really well. So anyway, once he was medevaced home from Iraq with medical problems and was in the hospital for 3 weeks, laid up and could not go anywhere, he was stuck with Ernie and her laptop with a wireless connection!! He caught up and on pretty dern fast after that. This was about the time that Georgia attacked Russia.

I had been prepping for months by this time not really knowing what I was doing or that there were others out there like me that we stocking up on food and other items needed for survival. I felt very alone and kind of weird! I already had a good supply of goods stocked up and had also purchased more camping gear (we already had tents, sleeping bags, camp stoves,lanterns etc because we like to camp), but I bought more.

Here was what I was thinking - I thought in my head that I need to prep for 3 different and maybe progressive scenarios: (this is not a total list of preps that we have)

1) Stay in our home with electricity on. So I stocked the freezers up to almost over-flowing. Let me just say that we have 5 acres with a large fishing pond in the country. The town is only about 1/2 mile away (small town of about 2000 people) and we are on a highway, but set pretty far back off the road - we feel that we will be okay here for a time as we can defend the house and property adequately between ourselves and others that will be coming here as well. Stocked up on things like:
mac-n-cheese
canned meats - tuna, chicken, salmon and turkey
canned fruits/veggies
flour/sugar/spices/veggie oil
spaghetti sauce/noodles
rice - lots of rice!
beans - lots of beans!
baking mixes
syrup/ketchup/soy sauce/steak sauce
misc dry noodles
hamburger/tuna helpers
toilet paper
shampoo/soaps/laundry soap/dish soap etc
female products/deodorants
first aid supplies - gauze, alocohol, bandaids, neosporin ointment, tape etc
matches/emergency candles/magnesium fire starters
ammo for our handguns and 22 LR
oil lamps/oil
sewing kit
vitamins
ascorbate acid - for vitamin C
Enerfood/coconut powder
koolaid
- and I can't remember now what else, but I had a pretty good stash going by the time he was stateside! Once he was home, we really stepped up the prepping and have gotten a dehydrator and pressure cooker.

2) Home with no power: we needed to be able to stay here off-grid, we have a wood burning stove for heating and cooking but needed some other items:
large stock pots
have dutch oven and iron cookware, but bought some more
heirloom seeds for a garden
fresnel lens - to heat water and to start fires
weapons/ammo
adding to the food stash as we go along

3) In the event that we need to leave our home:
tents
camping gear
sleeping bags
portable toilet
food stash will fit in vans/truck
Mountain House freeze-dried foods
MRE's
Berkey Light water filter
5 gallon buckets with painters straining clothes to use to filter water before goes through the Berkey
weapons/ammo
pellet guns - hunting small game
fishing gear
bow/arrows
sling-shots


We plan on holing up here as long as we can and if we need to leave then we will pack it up and go.We plan on taking our dogs if we have to leave as they are good watch dogs. If we can stay here, the dogs help patrol the property as they do now. We would like to find a used pop-up camper sometime real soon. This is not a complete list but you can get the idea. We have all of our stuff in one location so that if need be we can load and go quickly. Save things that you normally would not have before like lint from your dryer and toilet/paper towel rolls - used to start fires, popsicle sticks - to mark your crops in your garden, rolls of aluminum foil, baggies, plastic sacks and jars. Save phone books - to use when run out of toilet paper! You never know what may come in handy when you can't run down to the store to get it! And please add a sewing kit to your stash - how else are you going to mend your clothes? Water will be very important no matter where you are - so I decided to buy an above ground pool that holds about 7,000 gallons of water - viola! We also have a pond, but will take more to make it potable. Oh, and for those of you that are smokers, buy tobacco seeds and rolling papers!

No one really knows how this will go down and we have tried to prepare for all scenarios and all I can say is to prepare for whatever - whenever - however! That, my friends is the art of prepping!

God Bless and Prep On

Ernie