Getting Back in the Harness

It has been a long time since I did any blogging, especially on this site.  In the time since my last post we have turned our lives upside down and moves to SW Oregon, and retired.

We now are on a 5.5 acre 'farm'...or more accurately, very large yard badly overgrown with blackberries.  But we don't mind that so much.  As weeds go, blackberries are pretty great, still there can too much of a good thing.  We also left our great food storage cellars behind, as well as our productive raised bed planters.

So there is a lot to do just to get back to the line of scrimmage so to speak.  We also have somewhat different preparedness needs here than we did back in Delta.  We are also getting older, so that is something that has to be taken into account as well.

I guess that is the main thought to this post.  Things change in all of our lives.  Sometimes we don't see that change for a while because life is so busy.  Annie and I got several reminders of how much things had changed as we packed and went through the backs of the closets.  One of the most striking things that we came across were old 72 Hour backpacks for the kids that still had their children's clothes in them.  And they are grown moms and dads themselves.

It would be nice to 'get prepared' and then put it on automatic and go about life.  There are certainly milestones that can be accomplished, but in large part it is a pattern of living, a pattern of thought that has to be cultivated much like a garden.

Well, time to get busy.  I have a wood stove to install, bills to pay, church work to do.  No rest for the wicked.  Hope you all have a nice day.

Get Ready, Get Set.......Garden

We have a lot of snow on the ground right now, and I think that more is coming.  But I can't help but feel good about spring. 

The garden books have been coming fairly regularly, and even worse, the baby chick catalogs.  I'm not really thinking of getting any chicks yet, but I know that it is about time to get ready to plant the early garden.

I was just in a planning meeting for our coming spring outage.  We will be totally concentrated on the outage work from about March 16 until the end of April.  So I know I only have about 6 weeks to get in the cool weather crops.  If I don't get them in before the outage, they will still grow, but it will get hot, and they won't really like it.

What to plant for the early garden?  You can plant these crops as early as you can turn the soil.  It doesn't matter if there is still some frost in it.

• Lettuce
• Arugula
• Peas, both garden and snow
• Onions, both seed or sets
• Carrots 
• Beets
• Swiss Chard

I think you could also plant 

• Cabbage
• Kale
• Turnips
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Potatoes

I'm a little nervous about the potatoes that early, but I think the rest of them would be OK.  The thing is, the seeds won't germinate until the soil warms up, and then when the little plants come up, they are already pretty used to the outdoors and are tougher then if you got them from a green house and transplanted them (think broccoli, cauliflower,  and cabbage).  I'm sure that you could get a hard enough cold snap late in the spring to kill them, but they are pretty tough.  Not like apricot blossoms or tomatoes.


Anyway, this is just a little reminder to my Nearest and Dearest.  I like to buy my seed from Mountain Valley Seeds.  They come in a foil pouch, and are resealable, and you can buy in quantity at a reasonable price.  Happy digging!

Home Made Batteries

Here is a fun little video on how to make batteries from pennies, cardboard and vinegar, or pennies, washers, cardboard and vinegar.  Oh, and of course, electrical tape.  Seriously this could be a handy thing if you badly needed a battery.  It's probably  a lot easier to keep some extra batteries around the house, but this was pretty impressive anyway.




This guy has a lot of interesting things on his site.  This project reminded me of Phoebe's brother melting things....  :)






this:

Anatomy of a Breakdown

Anatomy of a Breakdown

I thought this was a great article.  Tess Pennington analyzes just what happens when you are caught up in a large scale disaster.  

She outlines the stages that are experienced when people are separated from the electrical grid, from clean water, sewage, transportation and/or gasoline, and normal food and water distribution.  You should probably read the article as it is good and informative, but not hard, but I'm going to give a short outline of it if you are pressed for time.

1.  The Warning: 

There usually is a warning, and often times the warning comes several days in advance of the disaster, earthquakes being exempted from this generalization.  Tornadoes sometimes only have scant warning.  For one reason or another there is a part of the population that decides to stay behind.

2. Shock and Awe: (1 to 2 days)

What a great phrase, but accurate.  It is hard to wrap your mind around the colossal forces that are unleased by these huge and/or violent storms, or the earth moving around like a carnival ride.  It is so far out of our experience that we can't comprehend it.  Those that stay behind are almost always somewhat unprepared for what overtakes them, and the majority are very unprepared.

3. The Breakdown: (3-7 days)

Here is the time when people run out of water, out of food, out of fuel.  The find themselves stranded and shocked by the loss of home and community.  Many of these unfortunate are the ones that the news guy sticks the mic in front of and asks how they feel.  Duh....not great.  Those news guys can be so annoying.

People are expecting things to go back to normal, but with powerlines down, substations trashed, often water mains broken, pumping stations damaged, things don't come back to normal very soon.  The roads might be torn up, rescue resources are stretched to the max and people are hungry, thirsty, cold/hot and very pissed off that their entitled needs aren't met.  Looting begins. You are pretty much on your own then.

4. Recovery: (8-30+ days)

Sometimes this takes years, and things are never the same.

We have a long history of self sufficiency, but we often are lulled into complacency as well.  Lots of times we think that a year's supply of food is a ridiculous amount to have, or we despair that we can hardly afford to pay for this weeks food, yet alone to build up a reserve.

We can't do it all at once.  It is a day-by-day process.  We have to learn to eat differently.  We have to take advantage of all the little resources that are at hand.  Often a good source of food is to process the food that we normally would throw away as being out-of-date, or fruit that is a little soft or bruised.

You can dry it, bottle it, make soup out of it, and bottle the soup.  We throw away hundreds of milk and beverage conatiners that would work just fine to store water in.  We throw away many glass jars that can be used to can jellys and jams, many with pop up lids can be used again and again (we will talk another time about what can be safely bottled in what jar), but you don't always have to buy brand new jars.

WalMart has a hundred camping items that will work pretty well in an emergency.  Buy one per week. 

Try to get by even for a night eating out of your food storage, cooking and lighting with your alternate sources of heat and light.  We had a power outage for a couple of hours early in the Spring.  We were fine for the essentials but couldn't sew, couldn't blog, couldn't surf, couldn't watch TV.....how embarrassing that was.

The truth is that is we don't prepare ourselves for troubled times, we will be unprepared, we will be afraid, and we will probably have to go out into the crowds of frightened and anxious people and won't be able to stay quietly in our homes.

Just a few thoughts.  Read the article, there is a lot more there than I have.

Fall Planting Guide

This year's garden wasn't as big in square footage as some of our past gardens for a variety of reasons (big tree removal and a busy summer), but it was somewhat saved by a three row, late summer planting of beets, chard, and arugula.

I don't know how many of you like to eat boiled greens, and actually there should be a fancy French term that would make them sound better.  Boiled Greens.....if I didn't know that they were so good, I wouldn't have anything to do with them either.  What is so good about them, you might ask?  Well they are easy to grow, fresh, and full of vitamins, a good source of calcium and fiber.  And.....basically not fattening at all if you don't put a pound of butter on them.

There are a lot of crops that you can plant in the late summer/early fall that will give you another crop.  Most people look at you strangely if you tell them you just planted another row or two in your garden, and it is late August or early September.  But that is fine.  The weather is typically warm enough to allow the seeds to germinate quickly and to grow well, but not so hot that they plants get stressed from lack of water, or become strong flavored from the heat.  You won't get a second crop of sweet corn, or any watermelon etc, so don't even think about it.  You can get great crops of salad greens (lettuce, cabbage, arugula etc.), and boiled greens (verts bouillis..... as the FrAnch are fond of saying...) (chard, collard greens, beets, spinach, mustard greens etc.).  If you had known and planned well, or have a time machine, you could probably get a second crop of peas.  Onions will over winter...beets and chard will be very mild flavored from growing in cooler weather.  We have had chard overwinter, but it usually in the really cold weather.

Sometimes, in late summer or early fall the stores have moved the seeds to the back of their storage room, or have gotten rid of their stock of seeds completely.  This can be a frustration.  We get our seeds from Mountain Valley Seeds, and they are always ready to ship.  They ship all of their seeds in airtight mylar covered zip baggys, so they are protected from light and moisture.  If you keep them in a cool place the seeds will last for a long time.  Also, Mountain Valley ships in quantity if you want.  So if you think you will be eating a lot of one variety, or want to plant a small field, they are the ones to order from.

Here is a good guide to fall planting that you can save to your computer as a PDF or print or not.  Not only does it give you an idea of days to harvest, but also of frost tolerance and of other characteristics.  For instance, it shows that beets have a better flavor when grown in cool weather.  We have noticed that broccoli is mild and sweet when grown in cooler weather, and gets a really strong taste in the heat of the summer.  I haven't planted a late crop of broccoli, but we noticed that the second growth after the main harvest was always better tasting than the main crop.  I don't know if our plants were water deprived in the heat, or if it was the heat itself that gave it the strong taste, but the second growth was always better.

I guess that is about it for now.  Happy harvesting! 

Why Bother?

It is the end of the season, just about.  Our garden was interrupted by  the partial removal of a large locust tree, and as a result of a busy spring and summer, and other projects around the house, I didn't plant the garden that we have had for the last few years.  We did get the raised beds planted, and I got some late chard, beets, and arugula planted in the main garden.  But that is OK.  Now we are contemplating a move to a house with a small farm, or a really, really large and overgrown yard.  We are contemplating raising chickens, milking goats, raising and even more of our own food, and I have to ask myself why I bother.  It is better that I ask that question first, and have some kind of an answer ready, because a lot of people ask me why, and sometimes I flounder with my answers.
 
When I started this blog several years ago,  there were multiple, immediate crisis' going on in the financial world and I felt that this might be a way to help make family members more aware of how dependent we all are to institutions and infrastructure that might fail, or that we might not be able to access, for any reason.

Time has moved on.  The crisis of Lehman Brothers has morphed into the Eurozone crisis..... and that will probably move on to something else.  More immediately,  we have had children out of work for extended periods of time, others that struggle to make ends meet as they raise families and try to complete their schooling.   So our family wasn't at the economic center of the hurricane, but they got plenty of wind and rain and 'power outages'.  

So in the here and now I find myself contemplating the future, contemplating a move, retirement, and a completely different life.  And so the question:  'Why bother?  Why do you want to tie yourself down.  Don't you know that you can drive to Costco (at probably any given distance) and get more food cheaper than you can raise it, and much easier?  Why do you want to bother?'

Part of my love for the rural and pastoral is a love for peace and quiet.  Part of raising a garden or raising stock is about a connection with my past, with Grandparents, and Great-Grandparents, patient, hardworking, full of faith and hope.  When I am digging, hoeing, planting, gathering, weeding, building....I remember stories of lives and times gone by, and I hope that I can live up to their standards of conduct and faith.  

Part of it is the good things that you raise. And you know how clean the lettuce is.  You know how much (if any) sprays were used.  What you pick is fresh and at it's peak of flavor and nutrition.   It is good not to have to run to the store every time you need an apple or an onion- you always end up buying other things too.  

Economy, nutrition, nostalgia, contemplation, and peace of mind.  Your mileage may vary, and gardens and stock care might be just a big pain in your backside, but I guess these are some of the reasons why I bother to raise a garden, and why I'll probably go to the bother of gathering eggs, and milking until I'm too old to raise a shovel.

(P.S. Here is a Prairie Home Companion audio clip on small town life and gardens supplied by Mike - {Thanks Mike} )

FYI - Not Much Rain This Summer

Just a quick note - huge areas of corn have been affected by the dry weather in the mid-west this year.  Our whole food system is based on there being plentiful corn.  Meat, dairy, poultry, and ethanol for a gasoline additive all depend on the abundance  and cheapness of corn.

What the ultimate effects of the drought will be, I don't know, but I can't imagine food becoming cheaper, or gas for that matter either.  It seems like once food prices go up, they are sticky, and they tend to stay up as long as the businesses can keep them up.

Just sayin'.........as an old friend said once, after looking at the results of my hay stacking efforts 'Well, it looks like h--- now, but it'll look better in a snow drift'.  And so it is with our efforts to fill the pantry during the harvest.  It may not seem like much now, but you will be glad you did later on.

Here is an animated drought map for the last 12 weeks.

On Your Mark, Get Set......... Plant!

When the weather is cold, and the snow is deep, the seed companies send out the catalogs.  I'm always glad to see them.  I don't mind the winter cold so much, but the yard looks dreary is generally improved by a good snow.  Even though the early pitch to gardeners is probably mostly motivated by trying to beat out the competition on getting the first order of the sun deprived gardeners of the country, it is still a nice service to all of us.

Gardening is a funny pass time.  It doesn't beckon and call you out, or even invite you to think much about the coming season until it finally gets warm.  It's hard to get excited about getting the early, cool weather seeds in the ground when the weather hasn't even gotten to the cool stage yet.  It seems much better to tackle an indoor project, or just goof around with a game or YouTube when the temperature is low and the wind is blowing.  And after last night's storm, I know I will be inside for a while - you do have to be able to see the ground before you can do much digging.

So, on a snowy day what is there to do?  Well, a couple of weeks ago when it was still dry, but we were getting ready to take down a dead tree, I thought it might be time to stop using the rototiller for a lawn/garden ornament and took it, the lawn mower and the weed whip down to a small engine repair place to be repaired.  He was able to get to work on them right away, and will have them back to me in plenty of time to put them to work.  Also, the tree removal people gave us a 50% off price on removing a dead locust tree because they needed the work and it was not too busy.  You know that the first nice weekend in April there will be the start of the tidal wave of garden interest.  The stores will be packed, the small engine guys will be over loaded and the tree trimmers will be more expensive.

We got the tree down, many of the branches converted to firewood, and the trunk loaded and transported to a friend that has a sawmill.

 Early spring is a good time to start your gardening.  As soon as the soil is thawed you can start to plant your early season crops - peas, carrots, beets, potatoes, onions, chard, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, kale, turnips.  We are talking seeds - don't rush out to buy the early plants from the green house because they will get killed as we are still in frost season.

Another thing that I like about early spring is you don't have to do it all..... later in the year it is so much work.  Work, work work...dig, plant,  water, weed.  Now it is cool.  You can get a bag or two of steer manure from Home Depot or Wal-Mart or from the steer (if there are any in your neighborhood), spread it out on the row you are going to work on and do a little digging- you want to break up the soil and mix in the manure,  then break up the clods with the rake until you have a nice seed bed, then plant the seeds, cover them to the appropriate depth and call it a day.  You don't even have to water.  It is kind of surprising later in the season,  when it gets warm, how much you got done.  The cool weather crops will be very happy, and they will grow well for you.  Don't expect any peas if you plant them on June 1.

There is a lot of work to be done in the spring.   Digging in the garden, especially early in the spring often reminds me of a story that Grandma told me.  She probably told it only once or twice but since spending the years that we spent on the farm, it made a huge impression on me.  The story is pretty short - It was that my Grandpa always used to go out early in the spring to get the ditches in shape.  His ditches weren't leveled by laser, there was no concrete lining or steel head gates.  They ran along the highest part of a field, and were usually sod.  He would go along each spring and shape the sod, clean out the sand and silt, and shovel smaller lateral ditches to further divide the water to the rows.  Grandma said that he put a file in his back pocket and would go out and shovel all day.  That's the story, but this is how it plays in my mind....

I imagine that the shovel was kept almost as sharp as a bread knife - you can't cut sod with a dull shovel.  So I see him out there, all alone, the grass just coming up, wind blowing a little.  It's cold if you are standing around, but he isn't.  The shovel flashes regularly in the sun.  His arms are corded with muscle.  His hat is pulled down around his ears.  He works steadily, hour after hour, a break at noon, more shoveling in the afternoon until about 4 p.m.  Then he comes in and forks hay to the cows, milks 3 or 4 cows, feeds the chickens, chops and saws some wood for the stove and then comes in for dinner.  He sits down and Grandma and Harlan, little children then, climb onto his lap.  He eats his supper in the warm kitchen with his sweet little family.  He is so tired, but happy with his work and his life.  They put the kids to bed, maybe they read from the Bible.  They might have a radio....I don't know.  But soon it is morning again, the sun up just a little earlier, milk, feed stock, take the shovel and head back to the ditches.  And all without an iPod..........

I guess that is about it.  Back to taxes..... Some of you have told me that you wanted a reminder of when to get your gardens started.  Now is the time.  Start small, make it easy.   It should be a happy hobby that gives you some peace, some exercise, and some good food.   

Ward Christmas Party Chicken Slaughter

(This was actually written about December 20, 2011, so if it seems a little dated, it is.)

Got your attention?  It's not exactly bait and switch title, but close.  There was a chicken massacre before the Ward Christmas party, but I don't know where or when it actually took place, a chicken gulag somewhere.  I use a little more care when I volunteer offhandedly to help with Ward parties.  I spoke at the wrong time to the wrong person (R.S. President) and before I knew it (seriously - in 3 minutes she had talked to the Bishop and changed the menu from the traditional ham to dutch oven chicken - it was official) , I was in charge of the meat for the Ward Christmas party - about 200 people.

I know there was a chicken massacre because Annie and I bought 29 trays of drumsticks, thighs and breasts in preparation.  We actually kind of lost count of the number until we went to the dump.  It got to be a blur.  Three trays (styrofoam) filled a dutch oven, so that makes 9-2/3 ovens packed with chicken.

Unfortunately, I only have two ovens of any size, and since it was pretty bitterly cold I thought it best to cook them inside - ahead of time- rather than outside on the day of the party like you might do in the summer.  We did this once before, maybe 25 years ago - and it worked out well.  I just borrowed a bunch of ovens and stacked them.

In cold weather, and especially if there is wind, it is a lot harder to get the chicken done to falling-off-the-bone tender.  If you'll pardon the expression, I chickened out.  The sequence went like this: I packed one dutch oven with chicken parts, cooked it, put a new dutch oven in the big oven.  Put the hot one outside to cool, deboned the chicken, made gravy from the juice, packed meat and gravy in a 1 gallon ziplock and repacked the oven with raw chicken, put the new hot one outside.......lather-rinse-repeat.  It took a couple of days to get them all done, and then it was time to thaw the bags of chicken and gravy.  But, you can feed a big family or small army with dutch ovens.  The more the merrier. In the end we fed the ward and there was some left over.

It was a long introduction, but what I really wanted to post about was the left-overs.  We had two big dutch ovens, and three of our biggest Farberware kettles full of de-boned chicken when the party started.  When it ended, there was probably almost 2 gallons of chicken still in one kettle.  I tried to get everyone to take some home, but they were surprisingly reluctant and in the end we took it home.  In addition to the cooked chicken, there was the bones.  29 trays of chicken will create a bunch of bones - our turkey roaster was crammed-jammed full of them.  I could barely get the lid on.  The first boiling gave us about 8 quarts of rich broth.  What to do with all of this good food?!  Our freezer is pretty well full, and needs to be defrosted anyway, so freezing it would probably work, but it is a lot of work.

Last night I brought in two of the kettles and stuffed 7 quarts full of chicken and broth, and after about an hour of  gentle heating in hot water, I pressure canned them.  I'm not sure how much there will be in the end.  I'm sure that there is another 7 quarts that will be ready to go tonight, and then I will boil the bones one more time, and I think I will get at least one more 7 quart batch.

I guess that the reason for this post is to illustrate that food is available for storage when you least expect it.  Since we had the ward dinner and ended up with the left-over chicken and all the bones and broth, we found that a friend in our ward has a contact at one of the local grocery stores and gets ripe-to-over-ripe fruits and vegetables on a routine basis.  Sometimes she calls us at about 8 pm - you are not really thinking about food storage at that time of night.  We go over and she has a wide variety if produce in anywhere from good-but-ripe, to cut-out-the-bruise to hmmmm-this-should-go-on-the-garden condition.  It's not likely that you will be able to get access to the cast-off's of your local store, but the point is that you don't have to buy everything at full price.  When corn is 10-for-$1, it's time to bottle/freeze corn.  Do the strawberries look a little ripe?  You might be able to strike a deal, especially at a stand or smaller store.

Note: In the end we had 18 quarts of chicken and broth.

Production and Storage

We have heard a lot about food storage, but equally important is home production. You might never end up producing like the Dervaes (Urbanhomestead.org ) family does, but their example shows us what is possible.

You might look at this as being as extreme as Walt Nelson, and if you think that our economy is going to be healed, you will think it is totally silly. I guess it is a lot about what you think the future will bring. If you want to see how the Great Depression affected people watch 'Sea Biscuit' and then back-to-back watch 'Cinderella Man'. Let me tell you that you will experience a 'Great Depression' right there. Yikes! Everyone didn't wakeup poor one morning, although some did. But it wore them down.

When you have an sick economy one of two things happen. Either you have a deflation, much like what is going on now, and people can't find jobs, many are out of work and while there might be food in the locality, people can't afford to buy it because they can't get the money. Roughly 2 billion people in the world live like this every day. They get by on less than $2.50/day. And this deflation is pushing them to starvation.

The other thing that happens is that you get an inflation, and the inflation rate gets pretty high. If you don't have a job, so much the worse for you, but if you do have a job the money that you get isn't worth anything.

Some of these problems can be blunted by home production. In an inflation or deflation there are less opportunities to actually create wealth. You can't work overtime, or might not even have a job. The only opportunities that you have are those that you create yourself. Home production might be the single easiest way to have that second job.

You can't do this overnight. You can't wait until the wolf is at the door to have a productive yard and garden. My goal is to bring more of my lawn under production each year. We planted five grape plants this year, and Annie found a bunch of great information on pruning and starting new plants. We planted two thornless black berries as well, and I have about 10 little plums and apricots ready to be transplanted. We built cast block raised beds in the sunniest part of the yard, and had a wonderful crop. After removing a shade tree, we actually got sweetcorn and had a great squash year. It doesn't happen at once. Start now. Spade, rototill or plow under some of the Kentucky Blue. You don't have to take the whole yard, or even change the looks of the yard. Just come out from the fence 4-8 feet, depending you the size of your yard. Put as many leaves, grass clippings and garden scraps as you can on the soil. Whether you can buy bulk manure or have to buy the bagged stuff from Walmart, put about 2-3" of manure on these new beds. It will take several years to build up the fertility, but your yard will surprise you with the produce that it will supply you with.

TEOWAWKI and the List of Lists

A friend of mine sent me this link. I had thought that we were fairly prepared, but I guess that there is no end to the depth of preparedness that you can go to. Still, it is not a bad idea to read through things and jog your memory, or make a note about something that you think is a good idea.

James Herriot, the British veterinarian and author wrote that 'an enthusiast is appealing, but a fanatic is irresistible." He was writing a story about one of the farmers that he knew that made dozens and dozens of different home-made wines. Still, the concept is the same. These guys that made this list are pretty far out on the edge. But when you are looking for information, go to the people who think about stuff day and night for years. They will have thought of just about everything.

A long time ago when the kids were little we lived for a week or so on our food storage. We cooked outside but Annie still used the washer and clothsline for the diapers, and we still showered inside. But we learned a lot about what conditions might be like in the event of a natural disaster. We didn't have dutch ovens, we didn't have a Coleman stove or lantern, and we learned that we really, really didn't like TVP, of which we had several big buckets.

The Survivalblog guys call this a TEOWAWKI weekend - The End Of The World As We Know It. Try it, you might not like it, but you will learn a lot. And it is a lot better to learn that you don't like TVP (example) under controlled conditions, then when you are trying to get your family to eat strange food in a stressful situation. ( TVP does make good pig food however).

Several years later, we ended up eating out of our food storage for about three weeks while we were in the middle of a labor union strike. We were fairly ready. We had just moved, and we hadn't bottled any fruit that year, but we had a bucket of brown sugar and the kids ate a lot of whole wheat pancakes and a lot of whole wheat bread. We had dried milk. We had beans and rice. We had a wheat grinder, and a lot of wheat. Annie is a whiz at bread baking, and with the wheat, some garden veggies that a neighbor gave to us, and some help from the union, we got by pretty well. We were glad that it was over, but we never really wondered what we were going to eat.

Even though you might think it is a good idea to try this, there is a huge reluctance to actually not use the electricity, etc. I am not sure why our minds work the way they do, but on one level we can say, "yes, it is good to be prepared, it is rational and reasonable", but on another level, trying out preparedness food and equipment means that someday we might have to use them. And that is something we don't even want to acknowledge in the slightest way - it makes us feel sort of paranoid and possibly insane.

Here is a copy and paste if you don't want to follow the link:

"From the SurvivalBlog Archives: Start With a "List of Lists"

"Start your retreat stocking effort by first composing a List of Lists, then draft prioritized lists for each subject, on separate sheets of paper. (Or in a spreadsheet if you are a techno-nerd like me. Just be sure to print out a hard copy for use when the power grid goes down!) It is important to tailor your lists to suit your particular geography, climate, and population density as well as your peculiar needs and likes/dislikes. Someone setting up a retreat in a coastal area is likely to have a far different list than someone living in the Rockies.

As I often mention in my lectures and radio interviews, a great way to create truly commonsense preparedness lists is to take a three-day weekend TEOTWAWKI Weekend Experiment” with your family. When you come home from work on Friday evening, turn off your main circuit breaker, turn off your gas main (or propane tank), and shut your main water valve (or turn off your well pump.) Spend that weekend in primitive conditions. Practice using only your storage food, preparing it on a wood stove (or camping stove.)

A “TEOTWAWKI Weekend Experiment” will surprise you. Things that you take for granted will suddenly become labor intensive. False assumptions will be shattered. Your family will grow closer and more confident. Most importantly, some of the most thorough lists that you will ever make will be those written by candlelight.

Your List of Lists should include: (Sorry that this post is in outline form, but it would take a full length book to discus all of the following in great detail)

Water List
Food Storage List
Food Preparation List
Personal List
First Aid /Minor Surgery List
Nuke Defense List
Biological Warfare Defense List
Gardening List
Hygiene List/Sanitation List
Hunting/Fishing/Trapping List
Power/Lighting/Batteries List
Fuels List
Firefighting List
Tactical Living List
Security-General
Security-Firearms
Communications/Monitoring List
Tools List
Sundries List
Survival Bookshelf List
Barter and Charity List

JWR’s Specific Recommendations For Developing Your Lists:

Water List
House downspout conversion sheet metal work and barrels. (BTW, this is another good reason to upgrade your retreat to a fireproof metal roof.)
Drawing water from open sources. Buy extra containers. Don’t buy big barrels, since five gallon food grade buckets are the largest size that most people can handle without back strain.
For transporting water if and when gas is too precious to waste, buy a couple of heavy duty two wheel garden carts--convert the wheels to foam filled "no flats" tires. (BTW, you will find lots of other uses for those carts around your retreat, such as hauling hay, firewood, manure, fertilizer, et cetera.)
Treating water. Buy plain Clorox hypochlorite bleach. A little goes a long way. Buy some extra half-gallon bottles for barter and charity. If you can afford it, buy a “Big Berky” British Berkefeld ceramic water filter. (Available from Ready Made Resources and several other Internet vendors. Even if you have pure spring water at your retreat, you never know where you may end up, and a good filter could be a lifesaver.)

Food Storage List
See my post tomorrow which will be devoted to food storage. Also see the recent letter from David in Israel on this subject.

Food Preparation List
Having more people under your roof will necessitate having an oversize skillet and a huge stew pot. BTW, you will want to buy several huge kettles, because odds are you will have to heat water on your wood stove for bathing, dish washing, and clothes washing. You will also need even more kettles, barrels, and 5 or 6 gallon PVC buckets--for water hauling, rendering, soap making, and dying. They will also make great barter or charity items. (To quote my mentor Dr. Gary North: “Nails: buy a barrel of them. Barrels: Buy a barrel of them!”)
Don’t overlook skinning knives, gut-buckets, gambrels, and meat saws.

Personal List
(Make a separate personal list for each family member and individual expected to arrive at your retreat.)
Spare glasses.
Prescription and nonprescription medications.
Birth control.
Keep dentistry up to date.
Any elective surgery that you've been postponing
Work off that gut.
Stay in shape.
Back strength and health—particularly important, given the heavy manual tasks required for self-sufficiency.
Educate yourself on survival topics, and practice them. For example, even if you don’t presently live at your retreat, you should plant a vegetable garden every year. It is better to learn through experience and make mistakes now, when the loss of crop is an annoyance rather than a crucial event.
“Comfort” items to help get through high stress times. (Books, games, CDs, chocolates, etc.)

First Aid /Minor Surgery List
When tailoring this list, consider your neighborhood going for many months without power, extensive use of open flames, and sentries standing picket shifts exposed in the elements. Then consider axes, chainsaws and tractors being wielded by newbies, and a greater likelihood of gunshot wounds. With all of this, add the possibility of no access to doctors or high tech medical diagnostic equipment. Put a strong emphasis on burn treatment first aid supplies. Don’t overlook do-it-yourself dentistry! (Oil of cloves, temporary filling kit, extraction tools, et cetera.) Buy a full minor surgery outfit (inexpensive Pakistani stainless steel instruments), even if you don’t know how to use them all yet. You may have to learn, or you will have the opportunity to put them in the hands of someone experienced who needs them.) This is going to be a big list!

Chem/Nuke Defense List
Dosimeter and rate meter, and charger, radiac meter (hand held Geiger counter), rolls of sheet plastic (for isolating airflow to air filter inlets and for covering window frames in the event that windows are broken due to blast effects), duct tape, HEPA filters (ands spares) for your shelter. Potassium iodate (KI) tablets to prevent thyroid damage.(See my recent post on that subject.) Outdoor shower rig for just outside your shelter entrance.

Biological Warfare Defense List
Disinfectants
Hand Sanitizer
Sneeze masks
Colloidal silver generator and spare supplies (distilled water and .999 fine silver rod.)
Natural antibiotics (Echinacea, Tea Tree oil, …)

Gardening List
One important item for your gardening list is the construction of a very tall deer-proof and rabbit-proof fence. Under current circumstances, a raid by deer on your garden is probably just an inconvenience. After the balloon goes up, it could mean the difference between eating well, and starvation.
Top Soil/Amendments/Fertilizers.
Tools+ spares for barter/charity
Long-term storage non hybrid (open pollinated) seed. (Non-hybrid “heirloom” seed assortments tailors to different climate zones are available from The Ark Institute
Herbs: Get started with medicinal herbs such as aloe vera (for burns), echinacea (purple cone flower), valerian, et cetera.

Hygiene/Sanitation List
Sacks of powdered lime for the outhouse. Buy plenty!
TP in quantity (Stores well if kept dry and away from vermin and it is lightweight, but it is very bulky. This is a good item to store in the attic. See my novel about stocking up on used phone books for use as TP.
Soap in quantity (hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, cleansers, etc.)
Bottled lye for soap making.
Ladies’ supplies.
Toothpaste (or powder).
Floss.
Fluoride rinse. (Unless you have health objections to the use of fluoride.)
Sunscreen.
Livestock List:
Hoof rasp, hoof nippers, hoof pick, horse brushes, hand sheep shears, styptic, carding combs, goat milking stand, teat dip, udder wash, Bag Balm, elastrator and bands, SWOT fly repellent, nail clippers (various sizes), Copper-tox, leads, leashes, collars, halters, hay hooks, hay fork, manure shovel, feed buckets, bulk grain and C-O-B sweet feed (store in galvanized trash cans with tight fitting lids to keep the mice out), various tack and saddles, tack repair tools, et cetera. If your region has selenium deficient soil (ask your local Agricultural extension office) then be sure to get selenium-fortified salt blocks rather than plain white salt blocks--at least for those that you are going to set aside strictly for your livestock.

Hunting/Fishing/Trapping List
“Buckshot” Bruce Hemming has produced an excellent series of videos on trapping and making improvised traps. (He also sells traps and scents at very reasonable prices.)
Night vision gear, spares, maintenance, and battery charging
Salt. Post-TEOTWAWKI, don’t “go hunting.” That would be a waste of effort. Have the game come to you. Buy 20 or more salt blocks. They will also make very valuable barter items.
Sell your fly fishing gear (all but perhaps a few flies) and buy practical spin casting equipment.
Extra tackle may be useful for barter, but probably only in a very long term Crunch.
Buy some frog gigs if you have bullfrogs in your area. Buy some crawfish traps if you have crawfish in your area.
Learn how to rig trot lines and make fish traps for non-labor intensive fishing WTSHTF.

Power/Lighting/Batteries List
One proviso: In the event of a “grid down” situation, if you are the only family in the area with power, it could turn your house into a “come loot me” beacon at night. At the same time, your house lighting will ruin the night vision of your LP/OP pickets. Make plans and buy materials in advance for making blackout screens or fully opaque curtains for your windows.
When possible, buy nickel metal hydride batteries. (Unlike the older nickel cadmium technology, these have no adverse charge level “memory” effect.)
If your home has propane appliances, get a “tri-fuel” generator--with a carburetor that is selectable between gasoline, propane, and natural gas. If you heat your home with home heating oil, then get a diesel-burning generator. (And plan on getting at least one diesel burning pickup and/or tractor). In a pinch, you can run your diesel generator and diesel vehicles on home heating oil.
Kerosene lamps; plenty of extra wicks, mantles, and chimneys. (These will also make great barter items.)
Greater detail on do-it-yourself power will be included in my forthcoming blog posts.

Fuels List
Buy the biggest propane, home heating oil, gas, or diesel tanks that your local ordinances permit and that you can afford. Always keep them at least two-thirds full. For privacy concerns, ballistic impact concerns, and fire concerns, underground tanks are best if you local water table allows it. In any case, do not buy an aboveground fuel tank that would visible from any public road or navigable waterway. Buy plenty of extra fuel for barter. Don’t overlook buying plenty of kerosene. (For barter, you will want some in one or two gallon cans.) Stock up on firewood or coal. (See my previous blog posts.) Get the best quality chainsaw you can afford. I prefer Stihls and Husqavarnas. If you can afford it, buy two of the same model. Buy extra chains, critical spare parts, and plenty of two-cycle oil. (Two-cycle oil will be great for barter!) Get a pair of Kevlar chainsaw safety chaps. They are expensive but they might save yourself a trip to the emergency room. Always wear gloves, goggles, and ear-muffs. Wear a logger’s helmet when felling. Have someone who is well experienced teach you how to re-sharpen chains. BTW, don’t cut up your wood into rounds near any rocks or you will destroy a chain in a hurry.

Firefighting List
Now that you have all of those flammables on hand (see the previous list) and the prospect of looters shooting tracer ammo or throwing Molotov cocktails at your house, think in terms of fire fighting from start to finish without the aid of a fire department. Even without looters to consider, you should be ready for uncontrolled brush or residential fires, as well as the greater fire risk associated with greenhorns who have just arrived at your retreat working with wood stoves and kerosene lamps!
Upgrade your retreat with a fireproof metal roof.
2” water line from your gravity-fed storage tank (to provide large water volume for firefighting)
Fire fighting rig with an adjustable stream/mist head.
Smoke and CO detectors.

Tactical Living List
Adjust your wardrobe buying toward sturdy earth-tone clothing. (Frequent your local thrift store and buy extras for retreat newcomers, charity, and barter.)
Dyes. Stock up on some boxes of green and brown cloth dye. Buy some extra for barter. With dye, you can turn most light colored clothes into semi-tactical clothing on short notice.
Two-inch wide burlap strip material in green and brown. This burlap is available in large spools from Gun Parts Corp. Even if you don’t have time now, stock up so that you can make camouflage ghillie suits post-TEOTWAWKI.
Save those wine corks! (Burned cork makes quick and cheap face camouflage.)
Cold weather and foul weather gear—buy plenty, since you will be doing more outdoor chores, hunting, and standing guard duty.
Don’t overlook ponchos and gaiters.
Mosquito repellent.
Synthetic double-bag (modular) sleeping bags for each person at the retreat, plus a couple of spares. The Wiggy’s brand Flexible Temperature Range Sleep System (FTRSS) made by Wiggy's of Grand Junction, Colorado is highly recommended.
Night vision gear + IR floodlights for your retreat house
Subdued flashlights and penlights.
Noise, light, and litter discipline. (More on this in future posts--or perhaps a reader would like to send a brief article on this subject)
Security-General: Locks, intrusion detection/alarm systems, exterior obstacles (fences, gates, 5/8” diameter (or larger) locking road cables, rosebush plantings, “decorative” ponds (moats), ballistic protection (personal and residential), anti-vehicular ditches/berms, anti-vehicular concrete “planter boxes”, razor wire, etc.)
Starlight electronic light amplification scopes are critical tools for retreat security.
A Starlight scope (or goggles, or a monocular) literally amplifies low ambient light by up to 100,000 times, turning nighttime darkness into daylight--albeit a green and fuzzy view. Starlight light amplification technology was first developed during the Vietnam War. Late issue Third Generation (also called or “Third Gen” or “Gen 3”) starlight scopes can cost up to $3,500 each. Rebuilt first gen (early 1970s technology scopes can often be had for as little as $500. Russian-made monoculars (with lousy optics) can be had for under $100. One Russian model that uses a piezoelectric generator instead of batteries is the best of this low-cost breed. These are best used as backups (in case your expensive American made scopes fail. They should not be purchased for use as your primary night vision devices unless you are on a very restrictive budget. (They are better than nothing.) Buy the best starlight scopes, goggles, and monoculars you can afford. They may be life-savers! If you can afford to buy only one, make it a weapon sight such as an AN/PVS-4, with a Gen 2 (or better) tube. Make sure to specify that that the tube is new or “low hours”, has a high “line pair” count, and minimal scintillation. It is important to buy your Starlight gear from a reputable dealer. The market is crowded with rip-off artists and scammers. One dealer that I trust, is Al Glanze (spoken “Glan-zee”) who runs STANO Components, Inc. in Silver City, Nevada. Note: In a subsequent blog posts I will discuss the relationship and implications to IR illuminators and tritium sights.
Range cards and sector sketches.
If you live in the boonies, piece together nine of the USGS 15-minute maps, with your retreat property on the center map. Mount that map on an oversize map board. Draw in the property lines and owner names of all of your surrounding neighbor’s parcels (in pencil) in at least a five mile radius. (Get boundary line and current owner name info from your County Recorder’s office.) Study and memorize both the terrain and the neighbors’ names. Make a phone number/e-mail list that corresponds to all of the names marked on the map, plus city and county office contact numbers for quick reference and tack it up right next to the map board. Cover the whole map sheet with a sheet of heavy-duty acetate, so you can mark it up just like a military commander’s map board. (This may sound a bit “over the top”, but remember, you are planning for the worst case. It will also help you get to know your neighbors: When you are introduced by name to one of them when in town, you will be able to say, “Oh, don’t you live about two miles up the road between the Jones place and the Smith’s ranch?” They will be impressed, and you will seem like an instant “old timer.”

Security-Firearms List
Guns, ammunition, web gear, eye and ear protection, cleaning equipment, carrying cases, scopes, magazines, spare parts, gunsmithing tools, targets and target frames, et cetera. Each rifle and pistol should have at least six top quality (original military contract or original manufacturer) full capacity spare magazines. Note: Considerable detail on firearms and optics selection, training, use, and logistic support are covered in the SurvivalBlog archives and FAQs.

Communications/Monitoring List
When selecting radios buy only models that will run on 12 volt DC power or rechargeable nickel metal hydride battery packs (that can be recharged from your retreat’s 12 VDC power system without having to use an inverter.)
As a secondary purchasing goal, buy spare radios of each type if you can afford them. Keep your spares in sealed metal boxes to protect them from EMP.
If you live in a far inland region, I recommend buying two or more 12 VDC marine band radios. These frequencies will probably not be monitored in your region, leaving you an essentially private band to use. (But never assume that any two-way radio communications are secure!)
Note: More detail on survival communications gear selection, training, use, security/cryptography measures, antennas, EMP protection, and logistical support will be covered in forthcoming blog posts.

Tools List
Gardening tools.
Auto mechanics tools.
Welding.
Bolt cutters--the indispensable “universal key.”
Woodworking tools.
Gunsmithing tools.
Emphasis on hand powered tools.
Hand or treadle powered grinding wheel.
Don’t forget to buy plenty of extra work gloves (in earth tone colors).
Sundries List:
Systematically list the things that you use on a regular basis, or that you might need if the local hardware store were to ever disappear: wire of various gauges, duct tape, reinforced strapping tape, chain, nails, nuts and bolts, weather stripping, abrasives, twine, white glue, cyanoacrylate glue, et cetera.

Book/Reference List
You should probably have nearly every book on my Bookshelf page. For some, you will want to have two or three copies, such as Carla Emery’s "Encyclopedia of Country Living". This is because these books are so valuable and indispensable that you won’t want to risk lending out your only copy.

Barter and Charity List
For your barter list, acquire primarily items that are durable, non-perishable, and either in small packages or that are easily divisible. Concentrate on the items that other people are likely to overlook or have in short supply. Some of my favorites are ammunition. [The late] Jeff Cooper referred to it as “ballistic wampum.” WTSHTF, ammo will be worth nearly its weight in silver. Store all of your ammo in military surplus ammo cans (with seals that are still soft) and it will store for decades. Stick to common calibers, get plenty of .22 LR (most high velocity hollow points) plus at least ten boxes of the local favorite deer hunting cartridge, even if you don’t own a rifle chambered for this cartridge. (Ask your local sporting goods shop about their top selling chamberings). Also buy at least ten boxes of the local police department’s standard pistol cartridge, again even if you don’t own a pistol chambered for this cartridge.
Ladies supplies.
Salt (Buy lots of cattle blocks and 1 pound canisters of iodized table salt.)
(Stores indefinitely if kept dry.)
Two cycle engine oil (for chain saw gas mixing. Gas may still be available after a collapse, but two-cycle oil will probably be like liquid gold!)
Gas stabilizer.
Diesel antibacterial additive.
50-pound sacks of lime (for outhouses).
1 oz. bottles of military rifle bore cleaner and Break Free (or similar) lubricant.
Waterproof dufflebags in earth tone colors (whitewater rafting "dry bags").
Thermal socks.
Semi-waterproof matches (from military rations.)
Military web gear (lots of folks will suddenly need pistol belts, holsters, magazine pouches, et cetera.)
Pre-1965 silver dimes.
1-gallon cans of kerosene.
Rolls of olive drab parachute cord.
Rolls of olive-drab duct tape.
Spools of monofilament fishing line.
Rolls of 10 mil "Visqueen", sheet plastic (for replacing windows, isolating airspaces for nuke scenarios, etc.)
I also respect the opinion of one gentleman with whom I've corresponded, who recommended the following:
Strike anywhere matches. (Dip the heads in paraffin to make them waterproof.)
Playing cards.
Cooking spices. (Do a web search for reasonably priced bulk spices.)
Rope & string.
Sewing supplies.
Candle wax and wicking.
Lastly, any supplies necessary for operating a home-based business. Some that you might consider are: leather crafting, small appliance repair, gun repair, locksmithing, et cetera. Every family should have at least one home-based business (preferably two!) that they can depend on in the event of an economic collapse.
Stock up on additional items to dispense to refugees as charity.
Note: See the Barter Faire chapter in my novel "Patriots" for lengthy lists of potential bart"