What should we be preparing for? I started a couple of thoughts in another thread, but they really need to be pulled up to this level.
From the National Security Health Policy Center; http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/life_sci/TheBirdFluandyou%20Big%20Final.pdf
“How long would an H5N1 pandemic last?
An H5N1 pandemic would probably come in waves. In each wave about 1/4 of the population could be infected. People who become ill in the first wave could also become sick in later waves. Each wave could last about 8–12 weeks, and the period between waves could vary between 8–20 weeks. Most likely, an H5N1 pandemic would have at least three waves and could last for over 12 months.”
We could think of what it would take to plan for 1 to 3 weeks, though to do so would be a far cry from the level of preparation we would need for the above scenario.
+Planning+
The following website is a general disaster planning website, which one can tailor to the flu pandemic; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/9/161748/9747“Preparing to deal with a disaster is like going off of a ski jump. If you put off your planning until things start happening, it’s far too late to make much of a difference. Once you’re headed down that ski jump, the time for planning and preparation is over.”
So make a plan and determine where you want to ride out the pandemic, with whom, and how and when you will acquire and store provisions. If you are in a city or even the suburbs around a city with a medium to high crime rate, consider a rural retreat, as mentioned in Dr. Grattan Woodson’s paper; http://www.fluwikie.com/annex/woodsonmonograph.htm
If you plan to shift to a rural retreat, consider the need to pre-position supplies, and have a handy container set packed with everything you need, including supplies that will last you a minimum of three days, in case you run into trouble (i.e., congestion, no gas, civil disorder, alternate routing) on the road.
Take advantage of all of the preparednes guides right on this site; http://fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.PandemicPreparednessGuides
Don’t plan completely on your own, think on a wider scale. Get your neighbors involved; when the pandemic hits, you don’t want desperate people right in the neighborhood. Read http://fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.CommunityPreparedness Of course, break them in slowly, so that they don’t think “survivalist nut” right off the bat.
Continuing to think on wider scale, strongly encourage your town/city/county to plan, prepare, and take actions at appropriate times to mitigate risks to infection, food/water disruption, and civil disorder. Again, see http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.CommunityPreparedness
+Food+
So how does one buy for 3+ months without requiring a large monetary outlay? We’ve decided to buy bulk foods that we will eat anyway on a rotational basis; buying in bulk is actually less expensive by far over the long run (i.e. 3 bushels of wheat from a local farmer for $24, 3 bushels of soybeans for $21).
A simple set of guidelines can be found at; http://www.aaoobfoods.com/FEMAunits.htm
where the basic FEMA nutritional requirements are presented, along with a simple mix of bulk items that total $365 plus shipping for 1 person for 1 year. That’s $1 per day, which would be impossible to match at the local supermarket. Many people would want to add to this mix, but this shows you how to stockpile without a huge outlay (and the whole grains and legumes make for a very healthy diet plan).
The best way we found to plan to to identify the nutritional requirements for each family member per month, and then set a target for how many months of food we would store. To avoid the confusion of “How much do we really have now?”, and “What should I be trying to acquire in what quantities?”, we found the Ultimate Food Storage Spreadsheet to be a big help, though walk through the instructions first; http://www.eng.utah.edu/~bartholo/FoodStorage/
Everytime we take something out of storage, we mark it off the inventory printout, so that we know exactly how long our food will last, and what we need to shop for on the next grocery run (or online bulk order).
Food for stockpiling should be primarily dry-store, as electricity cannot be counted on to remain operational throughout the duration of a multiplewave, 12–18 month pandemic (if it is that long). One good information source is; http://www.survival-center.com/foodfaq/ff1-toc.htm#contents
MRE-like food (i.e., Army rations) is available, though expensive. Bulk foods are much cheaper in quantity, and can be stored to last for years. Some percentage of ready to eat meals will come in handy, though.
There are many places to acquire bulk foods (google for [“bulk foods” grains beans]), so access now is not too bad, though we have one supplier who is getting bogged down. Spread your orders over more than one supplier to avoid your eggs in one basket.
Set aside a cool, dry area to store the food; shelving is very helpful.
If one thinks in terms of 3 or more months, then consider using methods that will keep the food preserved for at least 1 year, if not 8+ (as we don’t know when the pandemic will strike). We stored food in High Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) buckets from Home Depot, sealing the food in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, which reduce spoilage and prevent insect infestation. Storage life in such containers for many grains/legumes approaches 8 years, so one doesn’t have to constantly rotate these stocks; http://www.usaemergencysupply.com/equipment/storage.htm (check other suppliers as this one is getting bogged down)
Tips on sealing food in mylar bags; http://www.survivalunlimited.com/foodstorage/mylarsealing.htm
Don’t forget you need to cook! If your oven/range/microwave is not operational due to outages, there are other means; http://solarcooking.org/plans.htm Also consider regular or backpacking campstoves, remembering to buy enough fuel canisters.
Get a cookbook geared to stored bulk foods, and make sure to stock up on lots of herbs, seasonings, bullion, etc. http://waltonfeed.com/bookindex.html
Avoid the seven major mistakes people make in food storage; http://www.waltonfeed.com/self/seven.html
- To be continued
+Water+
USDA Assistant Secretary for Food Safety, Richard Raymond;
“…individual citizens must also take steps to prepare for a pandemic with water, with food that doesn’t necessarily need refrigeration for any naturally occurring disaster such as a blizzard, a hurricane, a tornado or even avian influenza that may upset the infrastructure, and warns, “Perhaps the grocery stores won’t be open. Perhaps someone won’t be able to run the water treatment plant. So, Americans should have enough in their homes to sustain themselves for at least a week.” http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2005-11-04-voa51.cfm
One could store many water containers, but just one week’s supply for a family of four is 28 gallons. http://extension.usu.edu/publica/foodpubs/watersto.htm
Rainwater capture is an approach that many are taking (unless you can dig a well, and provide a means to extract water without electricity). Some people are putting their rainbarrels within an enclosure that they are also using for trashcans, so that they are not in obvious sight. Rainbarrels can be joined together to multiply water storage. http://waltonfeed.com/self/ws.html
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/80gararaba.html
55 Gallon Water Storage Barrel - Amazon.com
http://www.usaemergencysupply.com/equipment/waterbarrels.htm
The collection of water must be supplemented by actions to keep the water clean and drinkable; http://www.pep-c.org/waterpurification/ http://www.node707.com/archives/004961.shtml
We will have at least four 5 gallon water jugs that we will have on hand on a rotating basis (pull water from rain barrel and start the disinfection process in 2 of the jugs, while the 2 jugs previously filled are being depleted).
We also have a well, and backup power, but I’ll address power later.
To supplement my previous post, start a garden, or if you have one, consider expanding it. Plan for year around gardening, so that you can have frest vegetables during any season. http://tinyurl.com/cva8s
Learn how to can or dehydrate your summer harvest, as it could come in handy during the next wave.
+Power+
Because power may not be available frequently, it would be helpful to have some solar-rechargeable radios, flashlights, etc, Include a solar powered battery charger and rechargeable batteries for many other items, such as LED lanterns. http://www.bereadyinc.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.49/it.A/id.16/.f
Assume that you will not be able to run your refrigerator on a regular basis due to power outages. If you must have power for keeping medicine cool or for some other necessity (and TV/Gameboy/Hairdryer/etc are not necessities), then consider one of two main approaches;
+Heat+
In some parts of the world, flu waves may strike in winter. If power goes out, then there are some combinable options to staying warm;
Comfort foods….chocolate,s…hard candies…just a suggestions..when we go out on the trails I always pack couple of candies in the kids backpacks..can get dry walking…or sitting and when there is really no bathroom option..(try pulling down snow pants,pants and long johns in the cold usually −33 with a wind chill factor of −45…I think I would rather have the candy at least until we get where we are going..
Its fairly easy to keep warm in the winter. I am far more worried about our Florida summers, which are above 90 during the day and above 80 all night. Even if we turned off our central air and just cooled one room where we could all sleep, it would require far more energy than what we could get from solar power, and there’s no way to store the amount of fuel needed for months of generator power. No matter where you live, a heat wave in the summer could make it more dangerous to stay inside your home, than leave and face exposure to the flu.
What were some of the things people in Florida did to keep from overheating before the advent of A/C?
They didn’t live there. A/C populated the state. All the snow birds will have to go back to NJ and NY if the power goes out.
Muskrat wrote:
>Comfort foods
Absolutely. Appetite fatigue could set in if only the most rudimentary meals (i.e., gruel) were served times a day. Likely the biggest factor here is the anyfood/anytime culture that has sprung up around globalization, refrigeration, and preservatives.
We have included many items other than bulk grains and legumes, to include having meat and fish at least once a week each. Cheesemaking materials help to vary the dairy offerings. Honey can be added to breakfast oatmeal. And so forth.
Getting seeds for sprouting- like mung beans, brown lentils, alfalfa is a great way of having fresh greens. Just about any seed can be spouted- you can sprout wheat. I pour boiling water over the seeds to give them a shock and start them all sprouting at the same time. Then all you do is rinse and drain them a few times a day. Not a good idea if you have water problems- but if you have access to water, it will put fresh, crunchy vegitables on your table. The rinsing water can be reused.
I am also stocking a lot of spices and plan to expand my herb garden. Lots of spices help appetite fatigue. Don’t forget the somemores - easy to make under any circumstances.
I’m devoting each week to a different ethnic food trying to use bulk storage items. This week is Mexican food, including Arroz con pollo (chicken with rice - can use canned rice), cooked pinto beans, refried beans. I’m experimenting with different types of homemade flour tortillas. Tonight is a south-of-the-border chili with black beans, salsa, corn, canned chicken, and barley, with skillet cornbread. Also making tamalles to freeze and experimenting with different soups.
Next week I’ll be working on German cuizine and will include spatzle, a German pasta pushed through a collander - easy and several sausage and sourkraut dishes. Then I’ll move on to Irish dishes that includes my dark Irish soda bread. I’m trying to develop and experiment with recipes using stored goods now so I know what my family will eat.
My ultimate goal is to have menus planned and stored goods organized for rotation so if a pandemic arises and I’m sick hubby, or anyone else, can follow my food storage use menu and plan.
Anybody with good ethnic recipes, please share them here: http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Forum.FluFightersRecipeThread
I especially need good recipes using rice and beans.
you can always grow more potatoes with your old potatoes..I have evn read(but not tried) that you can even use the peels..I started to grow some of my own potatoes this year, but got to sick to care for them..this was an indoor gardern i was trying…
Broccalli seed sprouts are the healthiest and have the most phytonutrients.
Mmmmm….I’m going to tjclaw’s house for dinner! Beans and other legumes are just awesome, just make sure you stockpile some Beano until your body gets used to the enzyme assault. A good recipe place is cooks.com. You’ll find many many rice and bean recipes there.
I have 70 acres in upstate NY, but I don’t think the other 19 million Floridians will fit.
> I am also stocking a lot of spices and plan to expand my herb garden. Lots of spices help appetite fatigue.
Which herbs and spices are you stocking? What reference are you using for treatment?
I’m not stocking herbs and spices for treating bird flu. Rather, I’m stocking the spices I like to cook with like cinnamon, chili powder, cumin, etc. I plan to grow more fresh herbs like cilantro, basil, oregano, chives, green onions, tarragon, etc. These things can turn otherwise bland food into good meals.
Getting seeds for sprouting- like mung beans, brown lentils, alfalfa is a great way of having fresh greens.
What have been people’s experiences (and lessons learned) with sprouting? What techniques and equipment has proven the most useful?
USA Today has finally written an article on those of us stocking up on supplies for the flu, and even Dr. Woodson was quoted. Yes, as usual, I can’t supply a link. But I can supply warm, happy sentiments that I hope you all appreciate.
I’m not anonymous! Gosh, I keep doing this on this site somehow…..Ed.s, don’t hate me. Sorry
Just a weird thought for the procrastinators among us: if the flu (or some other disaster) hits and you’re caught completely flat-footed, a good idea might be to run out and buy all the Total cereal you can find. Total has all the vitamins you need, plenty of fiber, and can be consumed by all ages. It would very quickly get dull, but it sure beats going insane with hunger and eating bark and leaves. BTW, I don’t work for General Mills!
I was read a recent article in USA Today that mentions this website so I thought I would check it out. Has anyone read The Bird Flu Preparedness Planner by Dr. Woodson I am considerin the purchase of the book but wanted other peoples opinion.
Thanks
J
>USA Today has finally written an article on those of us stocking up on supplies for the flu, and even Dr. Woodson was quoted. Yes, as usual, I can’t supply a link. But I can supply warm, happy sentiments that I hope you all appreciate.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-06-bird-flu-prepare_x.htm
Gosh, a preparation article in USA Today: Temperatures in the Regions Infernal must be dropping rapidly…
Why do people insist that we are going too far? So this person has a couple of guns. So do 98% of Texans. They are not preparing for a pandemic. You just never know when you will have a big snake in the yard. If you see a person in rural Georgia walking through town with a chainsaw, you assume he just bought it or is having it fixed. Do that in a big city, and wait for the SWAT team to show up. Maybe they are the ones who panic when others take resposibility for themselves. That must be it.
We just had 3 feet of snow fall in the last few days. I did not leave the house because we have everything we need right here. Call me crazy.
Yes go ahead and buy the book - I’ve read it and it’s very practical - heck it’s only $4.99
Although I have not read every word on this site, nowhere have I found any references to Colloidal Silver for treating flu and other illnesses. The link below provides real-life information about treating viral pneumonia by inhaling Colloidal Silver via a nebulizer and treating flu and sinus infections by inhaling Collidal Silver via an inexpensive nasal mist sprayer. The same link has the Incremental Relocation series, which was written to help people prepare for Y2K with minimal effort and expense.
>Although I have not read every word on this site, nowhere have I found any references to Colloidal Silver for treating flu and other illnesses. The link below provides real-life information about treating viral pneumonia by inhaling Colloidal Silver via a nebulizer and treating flu and sinus infections by inhaling Collidal Silver via an inexpensive nasal mist sprayer. The same link has the Incremental Relocation series, which was written to help people prepare for Y2K with minimal effort and expense.
Colloidal silver works - sort of - as a topical disinfectant/sterilizer. You start inhaling or drinking it, infection may become the LEAST of your worries.
FW - at 19:11 wrote:
“Colloidal silver works - sort of - as a topical disinfectant/sterilizer. You start inhaling or drinking it, infection may become the LEAST of your worries.”
anonymous - at 16:36 replies:
I and several other individuals whom I know quite well have been making, drinking, and inhaling Colloidal Silver on a daily basis for MANY years. We are some of the healthiest people you could ever find.
I live in a small town in North Dakota. You see people on the street carrying rifles and bows all the time during hunting season. We have a professional guide in town and hunters come from all over America to hunt here. The rifles are loaded. It is not illegal here and no one thinks anything of it. Try that in any large city. It is a totally different world. However, it is illegal here to carry a loaded rifle in you car. I cannot understand the firearm phobia that afflicts most of America.
There was a bill introduced in our state legislature to ban firing across highways. It failed. This is still a matter of discussion at our cafe. I see merit in both sides of this argument.
What are some other people’s preparations with regard to water, heat, and other essentials that might be disrupted if a serious pandemic broke out?
This may not be the correct thread for this question, but…. Several people have mentioned things they have purchased at Trader Joe’s that would make the basics and the comfort foods easier to cope with. Can anyone who is familiar with this chain please give input on the “do not miss!” items that they purchase there. I am making my first trip to Trader Joe’s and since it is 2 hours away, I want to make the most of it, yet I won’t have much time to spend there for a leisurely shopping trip. Don’t worry! I won’t hold you accountable if I think the item you suggest isn’t all that great. We’re not food fussy, and some suggestions are far better than winging it. TIA
>I and several other individuals whom I know quite well have been making, drinking, and inhaling Colloidal Silver on a daily basis for MANY years. We are some of the healthiest people you could ever find.
Heavy metal poisoning can take a LONG time to develop. And one should not underestimate the body’s ability to flush toxins; some patent medicines many years ago used radioactive substances as ingredients on the theory that the new and mysterious force known as radiation was GOOD for you. And even though who drank large amounts of such things didn’t die. Immediately, anyway…
On the flip side, Lewis Carroll put the Mad Hatter in Wonderland because haberdashers used to use mercury in the making of hats; and prolonged exposure would often destroy their health and minds.
Mercury is a heavy metal. Like silver.
Enjoy your self-medicationr, if you’re convinced it does you good. I hope you don’t ever have reason to change your mind.
Nemo,
It’s hard to predict what you will find on any given trip to Trader Joe’s. They are a repackager, broken lot, odd lot retailer. They send out a monthly circular and it is a good thing to get. The food tends to be higher end stuff offered at deep discounts. The have excellent deals on raw legumes, rice, canned goods, trail mix and other non-perishibles. Go on their web site and sign up for the newsletter at http://www.traderjoes.com/
This is a great place to pick up some of those comfort foods you’d hate to be without as well as good quality basics.
Nemo,
Trader Joe’s, one of my all-time favorite stores. Things from TJ’s I hate to run out of include: maple crunch granola (or something like that), whole wheat spaghetti, TJ brand jams (we get the kind without sugar - try the strawberry), macadamia nuts, chopped walnuts, canned plum tomatoes with basil, almost anything on that aisle as a matter of fact; they have the best prepared sauces - peanut sauce, curry, for dinner tonight (well, last night according to “Wiki” time) we had “Punjab spinach sauce” with chicken served on brown rice. Yum.
And if you like wine, don’t forget Two Buck Chuck.
Did someone ask for ideas on cooking beans and rice? My favorites come from college pauper days: A good way to make a lot stretch…
Pinto Beans: Soak overnight, discard water, put in crock pot and barely cover with water. Add one strip of uncooked bacon and some stewed tomatoes. Cook til done. Serve over grated cheese. (Vegan alternative, cook with olive oil and serve with Bragg Liquid Aminos)
Small red beans: Cook in crock pot with water & some olive oil. Serve with grated cheese and raw, minced sweet onions. (Cuts down on the kissing, but priorities, right?)
Navy beans: Cook with water, onions, & barbeque sauce.
Rice: (Brown is most nourishing) Cook according to directions but skimp a little on water. When almost cooked, add stewed tomatoes and simmer open pot until rice is tender and most of liquid has boiled away. I add tamari sauce to taste and serve over grated cheddar cheese.
Serve above with warm, buttered tortillas (whole wheat most nourishing) or corn bread. Yum!
For soups I think the best grain to get is hulled (not pearled) barley. Very nutritious and substantial. I like to cook it with stewed tomatoes (are you surprised?), chicken stock, bay leaf, onion, green pepper, & green cabbage. Serve monastery-style (which is over grated cheese…I’m consistent)
Years ago, before Y2K, terrorist preparedness, hurricane shock, or bird flu I always kept a stocked pantry. It doesn’t take a lot of money to do. (A great book to read is “Don’t Get Caught With Your Pantry Down”.) Obviously staples are brown rice, beans, barley, canned tomatoes, and in the freezer I keep small chunks of bacon, frozen chunks of cheese, frozen tortillas & butter to thaw as needed. (I know we may lose electricity, but you do your best) Also, canned salmon, tuna, smoked oysters, crackers, dried fruit, freeze dried veggies, soy & rice milk in case of those power outages.
Just some ideas… Wish us all luck!
During the depression my grandmother, who was a kindergarten teacher, used to keep a pot of soup simmering all day on a hot plate in her classroom. She kept many of those kids alive. Soups are a great way to stretch a buck and use those dried grains and vegetables. Also, easy to cook in crockpots or on campstoves.
Nemo, bring a large cooler with stuff to keep it cold; you may want to buy something you see that needs refrigeration, or bring home frozen seafood or meat that you haven’t seen locally, for variety. Some of the sauces in glass jars may spice up your rice and beans, some of the tropical dried fruits and nuts might have their supply chains temporarily disrupted. Ditto coffee. How’s their price for large bottles of olive oil? For cheese dipped entirely in wax? (will that keep in a cool place if the electricity goes?) They also sell all sorts of chocolate/cookie goodies this time of year you may have to lock up and hide for later.
Colloidal Silver: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_silver May end up permanently blue-gray skinned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria
Thanks so much for all the Trader Joe’s suggestions. I will be sure to sign up for their newsletter. Can’t wait to go!
BTW: For those who are having difficulty organizing their stockpiled supplies, Sam’s Clubs have THE best price on restaurant style stainless steel shelving. 12″ deep (maybe a bit deeper?) by 48″ long- five shelves included- $73. Each shelf can hold over 200 pounds!! You would be astounded at how much these babies can hold. They come in a heavy box, so while transportable on the top of your car (buy ratchet straps to hold them down), a little help carrying them into the house is always nice.
Nemo, I bought one of those shelving units a few weeks ago, and I need another. It was very easy to assemble and holds an incredible amount of food. Good deal.
Silver is listed as GRAS by the FDA, that is “generally recognized as safe” … there is no known toxicity to silver, if there were we wouldn’t be using in jewelry. Traditionally teething rings were made of silver and baby cups were silver. Ingestion of large quantities of silver over a long period of time can lead to a deposit of silver in the upper layers of the epidermis … but we are talking about many grams of silver. Silver has antimicrobial and antiviral properties. Several papers have popped up recently in PubMed relating to using nanosilver particles against the HIV virus.
Oral consumption of “colloidal silver” is useless (and for the most part harmless) the silver is reduced to silver chloride by the stomach acid and is passed through being insoluble.
There might be some usefulness to an inhaled suspension of silver Nanoparticle. The silver is rapidly taken up by the macrophages. There needs to be more research on this, unfortunately the crackpot quota from both sides of the debate make it difficult to find funding for research. I have been investigating using ultrasonic humidifiers to nebulize the solution (very easy to make by the gallon).
Another thing to note is that the Japanese have been quite successful in treating and preventing viral respiratory infections in swine confinement facilities by misting with green tea solutions. I would suggest trying that in an ultrasonic humidifier as well … don’t be tempted to mix the silver, it would probably bind to components in the tea solution and precipitate out.
Good Luck
What are some people’s strategy for ensuring a clean water supply in the event that water treatment plants or the grid become interrupted?
My own well and several cases and 5 gal bottles of water.
If the electricity does go out I have enough water for a couple of weeks. But then….
>What are some people’s strategy for ensuring a clean water supply in the event that water treatment plants or the grid become interrupted?
If you’ve got some stored up ahead of time, then if you turn the handle on the faucet and hothing comes out, it won’t be an immediate disaster.
If it’s in the winter, you can harvest snow and ice and filter it as it melts. The problem is, it takes a LOT of snow to make a glass of water…
If you live near a body of water like a lake, pond, or river, or if there are any natural springs in your area, you might be able to get water from there. You can filter, boil, and if necessary distill the water to wipe out any pathogens and most contaminants. You can also do this if water is still coming out of faucets but the quality is suspicious.
In some places it’s possible to collect a large amount of rain water from rain gutter spouts and put it in cisterns or tubs. Again, you’ll have to clean it, but at least you’ll have it. Which beats going thirsty.
“What are some people’s strategy for ensuring a clean water supply in the event that water treatment plants or the grid become interrupted?”
I’m in an urban studio apartment with very limited storage space. All of my preparation need balance preparation and efficient storage.
Under my bed I have several collapsable 5 gallon containers. Those, and my bathtub will give me 100 gallons total. The moment a pandemic hits the city, those get filled. Beyond that, the city has several ponds.
Regardless of source, any water will be going through a camper’s bacteria-removing water filter, will be boiled, and be will be treated with iodizing tablets or chlorinated. In the event of gas and electricity loss, I’ll be boiling water over cans of EcoFuel — a sterno-like jelly which is safe for indoor storage and use.
The water filtration gear and iodizing tablets fit easilly into a small military surplus tool bag, and is enough to process 100 gallons of water. A case of EcoFuel yielding 120 hours of cooking time fits into a 12×16×3 box. I’ve assembled one set these for myself, one for my girlfriend, and one for my four apartment building neighbors to share. All of it is stowed under my clawfoot bathtub.
There’s also SODIS http://www.sodis.ch/Text2002/T-Howdoesitwork.htm …”The Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) process is a simple technology used to improve the microbiological quality of drinking water. SODIS uses solar radiation to destroy pathogenic microorganisms which cause water borne diseases.
SODIS is ideal to treat small quantities of water. Contaminated water is filled into transparent plastic bottles and exposed to full sunlight for six hours.
Sunlight is treating the contaminated water through two synergetic mechanisms: Radiation in the spectrum of UV-A (wavelength 320–400nm) and increased water temperature. If the water temperatures raises above 50°C, the disinfection process is three times faster.”…
(Check it out, and take offline notes.)
Filtering water can be done very low-tech if you have to http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3258
skye, thanks for all your work.
Charlie, the problem with all the procrastinators buying cereal is they currently far outnumber the prepared people, and the resulting rush may not be good.
Better if they all got prepared now, before there is any disruption to usual supply distribution lines.
“What are some people’s strategy for ensuring a clean water supply in the event that water treatment plants or the grid become interrupted?”
I have my own well. I also have bottled water used in daily life in stock, and am also acquiring the collapsable 5-gal containers to provide 50 gals of storage. They will be filled when news begins coming this way. In addition, I own a generator which can operate the well pump in the absence of commercial power. 10–15 minutes of running will permit completely filling all available containers (plus the bathtub for flush water).
Also, those in individual homes, do not forget the 30–80 gallons of water in your hot water heater. it is a hidden but valuable store of water in most homes. If you do tap the heater, remember to shut the power or gas to it. When utilities are restored, an empty heater can be burnt out almost instantly
Hi, I hope I did the link correctly—I ordered two 350-gallon collapsable water tanks for 2 people for 6 months. The company that makes them, Aquaflex Aquatank will custom make any size you want, even 10,000 gallons. We are filling them with tap water using a food-grade plastic garden hose and keeping them in our basement with a tarp underneath each one in case we have to move them. Peej
Peej - Did you say you are filling them now? Just remember that water does not have unlimited shelf life. Stuff will grow in it over time.
>I have my own well. I also have bottled water used in daily life in stock, and am also acquiring the collapsable 5-gal containers to provide 50 gals of storage. They will be filled when news begins coming this way. In addition, I own a generator which can operate the well pump in the absence of commercial power. 10–15 minutes of running will permit completely filling all available containers (plus the bathtub for flush water).
This will work for those of us who are rural enough to have wells. One particularly beneficial point about having a solar photovoltaic supply with batteries is that there is never a reliance on having a store of stabilized gasoline.
> I ordered two 350-gallon collapsable water tanks for 2 people for 6 months.
This is more of what our ground level urban/surburban citizens might find more helpful. 350 gallons of water weighs almost 3000 pounds, so many much smaller containers spread out in different rooms would be one solution for non-ground-level abodes.
Has anyone implemented or considered rainwater capture?
With regard to rainwater capture, there is supposed to be a cystern (sp) under our porch and if possible, I will route rainspouts into it. Our elderly neighbor’s father lived in our house and said they used it as their “soft” water. There’s also a place in the attic for collection of water just above the bathroom that can be used to warm water in a tub in the summer and then, by gravity, pipe to the bathtub just below. Our house was constructed before they had indoor plumbing. It is winter now, so we would have to melt snow and could also get water from the river just behind our house, which rarely freezes due to the hydro power plant there.
Once went to the St. Michaels lighthouse in Maryland. I recall mention of chalk in the water tanks to keep the water potable (Sweet). The past generations had all kinds of solutions. I don’t know how viable this is.
Our city has a rain barrel program to encourage water conservation during sumer droughts. You hook them up to your downspouts and attach a hose to water the garden in summer. That’s easily adaptable as an emergency water supply and it’s an example of investing in preparedness that pays off with everyday use.
A few drops of bleach and/or boiling and/or Brita-type filters will address any potability concerns.
Any suggestions for quick growing/high calory foods that could be grown in small urban gardens, especially during cooler months? Potatoes come to mind, though I’ve never grown them.
Will, re “rainwater capture” there’s at least this:
Name, http://www.rooftopgardens.ca has suggestions re hydroponics (growing on water + nutrients).
Hey, all these things could be the “Level 4 and 5″ issues Eccles wants! And of course feel free to use the public domain we’re collecting at http://www.globalvillages.info/index.php/TheEmergencyToolshed/Pandemic
How can we best grow and collect this kind of knowledge, so it is as easily “communicable” as flu itself?
Water filtration issues: Berkefeld Water Filtration
There is a company that makes a gravity feed unit through ceramic filters in a variety of sizes. These British units have been in service for more than 140 years. They work, I have one. They aren’t cheap, but will work with unstable water conditions. For history of company and products:
http://911water.com/cat/british_berkefeld/
I have not found these units discount priced anywhere on the net.
Which Backup generator for electricity is useful ? (700 Watt or more ?)
Name,
All of the root vegetables and the sturdy squashes will meet your requirements.
lugon,
I believe that we are applying the virus theory of knowledge sharing right here.
mathias,
What are you going to power? Where will it be used? Do you have a well? Do live in the country, suburbs, ect? Do you need it for refrigeration? Do you have access to diesel, gas, LP?
Mathias -
Echoing dct249, the selection of generator needs to be dictated by the required applications. It is a very different problem if you need to run just lights and small appliances, refrigerators and freezers, or a whole house including heating and well pump.
I laive in an all electric house in the country fed by its own well. I have the smallest possible generator for the purpose, which in my case is 5500 Watts. I have a coworker who has an auto-switchover unit rated at 40,000 Watts.
The size of the generator is strictly dictated by your own anticipated needs. In calculating size, don’t forget to allow for surge required when starting appliances with electric motors in them.
Also, oversizing is not a particularly good idea. The larger the generator, the more fuel you will need to provide it with. In my own case, my generator requires approximately 1/2 gallon per hour when running at half load. Thus, you will also need to plan how much fuel you will be storing to run it.
Final qustion is whether you actually have a safe facility for storing gasoline or propane. If you live in an urban or suburban setting, you really need to examine whether you can safely store the fuel for a generator.
Mathias,
You need to determine the power requirements of the items you want to power and how frequently you will use them. This spreadsheet can help you in that determination;
http://www.homepower.com/files/loadcalc.pdf http://www.homepower.com/files/loadcalc.xls
Note that you should DEFINITELY have an electrician prepare the hookup, because many home-rigged generators become ‘widow-makers’. Indeed, show him your spreadsheet before you buy one, just to be sure.
You might want to consider a small solar array with batteries; http://www.solairgen.com/Prices-complete%20systems-solar.htm
Any house powered by solar is usually VERY energy efficient, as is our house. The refrigerator, dishwasher, washer/dryer, etc are all top shelf Energy Star.
Will our plain old telefone still work ? Or can we still use our mobile phone ? What about amateur radio ?
Depends on what plans your telephone and electricity and cellphone providers are making;
are they telling their workers to stock up and prepare their families?
Are they making plans to isolate enough healthy workers at work to keep things running, or, make repairs safely?
Amature radio is usually helpful in emergencies, and should be included when local authorities are trying to plan, could help stop rumors and get helpful information out.
Did anyplace ever solve their emergency communication plans? Can fire/police/EMT/hospitals, ect, communicate, and do they know how they would if phones went down?
If you are using rain water or lake water, remember that it is likely to be contaminated by bird droppings which may contain the virus.
I just have to insert this plug. Especially in light of recent events worldwide, now more than ever:
When all else fails, Amateur Radio!
On looking over the damage the mice have caused in my pantry, (don’t look there as I don’t cook) have decided to store everything in tins and jars that is now in paper. They must be preparing for a long and hard winter, so I’ll be laying in stores of mousetraps and decon for basement and garage. Also lots of art supplies for amusement, who knows what talents lie unnoticed amongst us. Also noticed this a.m. that we are down to 7 does on my little acre, no bucks left, unless their feeding elsewhere. Will have to get some deer repellent also.
Since you like to write, I might also suggest “your life story”. My mom died when I was 28 years old, and there are so many things I wish I could now ask her. Even really stupid trival things. If this happens and we are stuck for an extended period in our homes writing our life story would be a worthwhile thing to do. For our childrens sake, or anyone else that cares to know about us. Since the death rate could be so high with this flu we don’t know what the future holds. I would also suggest writing a letter to each family member or friend that you love. In case the unspeakable happens you would have the chance to say what you feel one last time. They could be stored somewhere and not opened unless something happened, but I know I for one would appreciate something like that. I know it’s morbid, but if this becomes a reality it’s something we would all be thinking about anyway.
In each of our 72 our packs we have hand cranked cell phone chargers should the home power go down but the cell towers remain operational, http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/sidewinder.htm . They do indeed work wonderfully well. Paid only 25 dollars or so for each. Re: the deer, we’ve been plagued by them this year, too, more than ever; they seem esp. fond of the pumpkins and strawberries. We shredded 6 bars of Irish Spring soap in our food processor and scattered it on and about the garden. Seems to have worked fine, though we did have to repeat it when they melted in the rain and watering.
What a wonderful idea. I know nothing of my grandparents first hand. Only a few tantalyzing bits from my mother and my brother who was born overseas. I know I got my temperment from a grandfather from a small snippet that my brother told me. He used to go back and forth to the U..S. over the years, but also could be content simply smoking a pipe and grooming his oxen.. My huband knew his grandparents. Who knows who would benefit from such information in the future. Even medical histories would be of great benefit. This is not morbid, it is a note in the bottle cast out at sea.
Animal Lover, excellent suggestion. Since my kids are only 4 and 19mo, they probably wouldn’t remember a whole lot about me, or the great things we have done together. I think the letters would be good to place with my will with instructions to my executor. I’m also going to do more video taping and take more pictures. Don’t forget that, while preparation for a potential pandemic is important, don’t forget to enjoy life now and tell the people love how much they mean to you. I’ve written special notes to my kids in their baby books detailing their births and how mommy and daddy felt.
Also like the lifestory book idea.
Wyoming Bill. one year I counted 35, that was after a hugh cornfield in back of us which used to harbor 100 was turned into a very high end Developement. Last year there were 15 as the herd is culled now. I’ve seen does birthing their fawns in my back yard. (Partly forested) They done tremendous damage to the native flora and pretty much no new trees coming up. Birds are fewer now because of the deer. Pretty and gracefull I”ve spent hours looking at them, at the same time I think of them as giant rats. Used lots of soap shavings last year, but maybe as they were hotel bars of fragent soaps, largely ineffective. There is nothing as pretty and delightful to watch as a fawn, but once they’ve gotten their winter coats and the snow is on the ground, nothing is safe from their depredations. Everything is an appetizer before the main meal. Watching the crows on the side of the road for a road kill deer. One restaurant a few years back used to gather up the road kill deer and use it. Was closed down. gave a new meaning to the words grilled meat. Watching Turkey vultures stripping the deer down to bones is a grim reminder of mortality.But life goes on, and I’m off to watch the sun rise on the Atlantic and set on the estuaries, a favorite morning and evening diversion.
Yep, used to remind my kids that we came from dust and to dust we shall return-then I’d have them look under their beds to see all the people coming and going. Scared the Bejeebers out of ‘em…
What are plans of some of the urban dwellers? Stockpile food and water? Solar powered radios? Cookstoves with many gas canisters?
How many are seeking a rural refuge? Of those, is there any general or specific trigger point at which you leave?
(Quote) What were some of the things people in Florida did to keep from overheating before the advent of A/C? (Quote by Skye)
Houses were made for airflow which they aren’t now. When I moved to Florida as a child we lived in a farm house with no AC. It actually had a large vent in the center of the house. The heat would rise, go up the vent, and pulled cool air through the open screened windows. The hotter it was, the more air flowed through the house. Anybody building a new house should think about airflow.
Regarding virus in lake water, flourbug, I thought about gathering the water and then let it sit for 7 days. From my understanding H5N1 can only last 7 days in water. The water would then run through a sand filter that I am going to rig up and then add bleach. The other option is my well but I would have to figure out how to get the water from 60 feet down.
Re: Mice
Does anyone have any practical experience using peppermint essential oil as a pantry mouse repellent?
I’m told that several cottonballs placed in a relatively small area, each prepared monthly with a few drops of peppermint oil has an odor distained by rodents, and that they will remember where they’ve encountered it.
It’s my understanding that undiluted peppermint oil — such as is used in aromatherapy, candle making, etc — need be used for this purpose; and that grocery store peppermint extract and diluted oils have insufficient odor to register on a mouse.
Boneman, what type of well set-up do you have? jet pump or submersible? If it’s a standard 8 inch (or so) casing and the pump can be removed, I have a bailing can with a one way valve I can point you to the directions. We have two wells, a submersible for the house, and a straight pipe long ago silted up under some previous owner, but with enough water at about 50 feet to bail.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_improvement/how_it_works/1275136.html?page=3&c=y
Boneman, you aren’t too far from me so we’re dealing with the same climate and natural resources. My house was built last year, and its HOT when the AC goes off - during the summer it can go over 100 in about 20 minutes. You’ve given me an idea. Up north we had attic fans - little fans we put in the front and back wall, just under the point of the roof. They would suck the hot air out and keep the house much cooler in the summer. I could actually do that here, only because we have cathedral ceilings they would be inside the house (even better than the attic) but under the lanai and front porch roofs. A little battery operated fan is all we’d need to knock the temperature down.
Water will go stagnant in seven days, and there are a lot of nasties besides H5N1 that you don’t want to drink. As long as you filter your water and add bleach you’ll be fine. We don’t drink city water now, I buy bottled. So I know how much my family uses in a month. A year’s supply plus 20% more runs less than $300. Not much for peace of mind that even if we were sick and unable to carry and process water, we would have all we need to drink. As for other uses, I have a lake behind my house, and a propane cooktop. I’ll just filter the water, bleach it, then boil it, and use it warm for washing clothes, kids, and dishes.
>Birds are fewer now because of the deer. Pretty and gracefull I”ve spent hours looking at them, at the same time I think of them as giant rats. Used lots of soap shavings last year, but maybe as they were hotel bars of fragent soaps, largely ineffective.
We’ve got deer coming out of our ears, here. They’ve lost most of their fear of people and wander through my semi-rural town eating what they want, especially in winter. Soap shavings don’t work anymore, they’ve gotten used to them. Dissolving the soap in water and then spraying it on the plants, or spraying eggs (they HATE the taste of the sulphur in the eggs and won’t any plant with an egg coating) will work, but only until a rain. Netting is the only real way to keep them off the gardens…
Big brown furry locusts. :(
Water storage and purification techniques can be found here; http://athagan.members.atlantic.net/PFSFAQ/Water_TreatmentFAQ-v2.2.html
So how many people have ordered or are about to order water (large) containers, purfiers, etc?
Hi Will, Berkefeld Water Filtration 50 UN Spec 5 gal containers ROPAK
I’m paranoid about running out of water, so I’ve got some redundancies in my preps. We bought 4 55-gal drums in October, plus we have about 10 cases of bottled water at any given time — all together, that should last us almost 2 months. I got lucky on the water barrels — turns out, there was a manufacturer less than 20 minutes from our house. I was able to pick up the barrels and save lots of money on delivery charges.
I’ve also got tarps and buckets for rainwater catchment, plus a bag-type camp filter and cartridge refill, which is good for another 400 gallons. I’ve got 4 gallons of bleach on hand at any one time (rotated) and potable aqua tablets for treatment. If all that isn’t enough and I still run out, I can forage for the gravel and sand to make a slow-sand filter; I printed plans from online (google “slow sand filter”) and added them to my ongoing preps notebook. My community has well water, unlike many around here which get Lake Michigan water, and hopefully, they’ll either be able to keep the pumps going, or residents will get access with buckets. If not, treated rainwater it is.
Will, I saw the solar panels. Please describe inverter and batteries? And budget. Thanks
A Good Illustration of Why You Need to Prepare
‘’CARSON CITY — Legislators and public health officials warned citizens Tuesday not to rely too heavily on government if the avian flu becomes an outbreak of global proportions.
“People are going to have to rely on themselves,” said Assemblyman Joe Hardy during a meeting of the Legislature’s Committee on Health Care. Advertisement
“The state, federal and local governments will not have the resources to cope with such a huge problem.” ‘’
This story appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. There is more of the story, which can be found HERE
Stories like this drive home the point of just what amount of assistance individuals may count on when and if.
The inverter is an Outback GVFX3648. The battery bank is made up of 16 Concorde AGM 12v 110Ahr SunExtenders. A similar system right now would cost around; http://store.solar-electric.com/
Inverter = $1,800 Batteries = $2,300 Charger = $525 Panels = $18,000 (mine aren’t made anymore, these are equivalents) Misc = $1500 Installation = $2000
Total w/o shipping = $24,225
My costs were much lower, as I bought 6 years ago, before CA had their incentive program, which drove prices up significantly. Plus, I participated in a buy-down package, where I bought my panels at around 50% of the market price back then.
Now, all of this is not needed to mitigate power outages if one uses little power during a pandemic wave. In a natural gas home, most of what you will need to power is a refrigerator, and not even that if you provision dry store food. An all electric house is more challenging by far.
Will,
What about the rest of us who can’t afford any of this?
What electric appliances are must-haves during a pandemic wave? Solar powered radios can keep you in touch, and solar powered lanterns provide light. Laundry would have to be done by hand and hung up.
Will - Don’t forget the other “free” energy - people. I own a crank powered radio that is really neat. About ten to 15 turns on a crank give you 15–20 minutes of radio. You can also insert NiCd rechargeables (orNiMH also) and crank for a good long while and have many many hours of reliable radio.
There are crank powered and “shake to use” flashlights. These use an LED for efficiency and are powered by shaking them back and forth to drive a weight that slides back and forth inside the flashlight to generate power.
there are also hand cranked cell phone chargers.
Having said that, there are a number of small solar battery chargers available for NiMH AA, c and D cells that can be had for between 20 and 90 dollars depending on how many batteries they can charge and how quickly.
As I discussed a long time ago, I have several smaller inverters (2 - 150W; 1 350W and 1–140W units) that can be run from a car or deep cycle marine battery. They can also just plug into the lighter socket of the car. You can buy a 15–20 amp-hour battery from a number of sources for about $40-$50 that can give you many hours of electricity via the inverters before needing to be recharged. there are fairly cheap solar chargers for this job (under $100).
Appliances that can be run from solar or inverter supplies include small TV’s, radio’s, musical keyboards, computers & accessories, electric razors, a travel size refrigerator designed for in-car use, and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
Many people are not familiar with the efficiency of a compact fluorescent lamp, but my house is equipped with compact fluorescent bulbs in place of standard incandescent bulbs. They typically provide illumination at 1/5 the power required by an ordinary incandescent lamp. For example, my living room has 2 lamps in it that we use all the time, a 32 watt unit and a 15 watt unit. This provides all the light we can stand for our evening in the living room. I stock smaller lamps, and in the event of emergency conditions, I can light a room with 6 or 11 watts, and pretty much the whole house for 60 watts.
I also own a number of battery powered fluorescent fixtures which can run for 10–15 hours on 6 D cells. these cells can then be recharged with a solar charger.
We own several battery powered fans that run on 4 C cells each and can really cool off one person per fan on a hot day. Again, one can use rechargeables and a solar charger for not that much ($30 or so).
So, Melanie, for those of us who can’t make the commitment to energy self sufficiency that Will has made, there are still plenty of cheap alternatives to provide at least basic comfort in an emergency. If we go with solar battery charging, these devices can support us indefinitely. if we add solar cookers and thermos bottles, we can have hot food and drinks and hot water to wash with as long as we can get some sun every few days.
One should also not overlook some of the highly efficient alcohol stoves developed for the backpacking community. Such little stoves can heat a pint of water to boiling in about 8–9 minutes on 1/2 ounce of fuel. An ideal fuel for one of these stoves is the gasoline antifreeze product HEET (in the yellow bottle). You can buy and stock a bunch of bottles of this product very cheaply and make it last a long time.
Eccles makes many good comments above. Please note that HEET is primarily methanol and must be handled carefully to avoid poisoning oneself.
Fluorescent lamps are about all I have, which use about 1/4 the energy of regular incandescant bulbs. I’m very interested in the LED lanterns, which in turn are much more efficient than fluorescents (i.e., less frequent recharges). http://store.advancedmart.com/nu16ulbrnile.html
I also like it when they are combined with radios, such as; http://store.safetycentral.com/mulsolbatpow.html
In terms of inexpensive but reliable power, consider a solar/small-generator/battery combination. Again, everything will depend on what you need/want to power. If you don’t need to power a refrigerator or well, then you can get by with a very small system.
If all you need is lighting, then the LED lantern discussed above will suffice with a solar battery charger.
Solar battery chargers that charge 4 D cells in a reasonable time (1 day) are a bit more expensive; http://www.realgoods.com/renew/shop/product.cfm/dp/1500/sd/1506/ts/3070102
If you want to receive TV channels in audio only (if you want news, you don’t have to see pictures) in addition to FM/AM/SW, then see; http://www.soundcrawler.com/productDetail.asp?sid=16292&mid=2860&pid=10009670
Make sure you have hand appliances (i.e., can opener, etc) as part of your preparations so that you don’t need power for many things.
Also note that if you’re the only one around with lights on, it can attract unwanted attention.
So before thinking of investing in a solar system or generator, ask yourself what you MUST power in order to meet one’s basic needs.
A word of warning about those “shake to charge” flashlights…
These lights contain magnets that create a fairly strong magnetic field.
Anyone who has a pacemaker/internal implanted defibrillator CAN NOT use these flashlights and should not have these lights used near them as the magnetic field can cause the pacemaker/defib to malfunction with potentially fatal results.
You should keep them away from your computer and computer disks too.
For warm water for showering I bought one of those camping shower deals. It’s basically a big, black, heavy-duty plastic pouch with some kind of shower nozzle. I haven’t looked at it closely, but supposedly you hang it in a sunny location and it will heat 60 degree water to about 100 - 110 degrees.
This week I filled my freezer with pork. A 1/2 hog weighed 150 lbs. Processed, I took home 111 lbs, plus lard for a total of $144. Pretty inexpensive and it will feed our family for a year.
Also thought I’d share - you can bake cakes and sweet breads in Mason jars and it will keep up to 6 months. There are a lot of good recipies on the internet for doing this.
hey, folks, we’d better work with http://www.worldchanging.org and http://www.dopedia.org and find other “things to link to” (and, even better, work with).
tjclaw,
Buying in bulk turns out to be much less expensive than small to medium quantities. If you were to lose power (for more than a day or two), do you plan to pressure can the meat?
The bread in Mason jars sounds like a neat idea. We might look at that for whole wheat bread.
SC, the camp hot water heater (black plastic water bag) is an excellent choice; it’s on our list of items to acquire. It’s one thing to HAVE water available, and another to actually be able to wash up with hot water. We may get two.
Will,
At this time, if we were to lose power, I would put the meat on my 3-season porch since it is −7 degrees. If the temp was getting too warm, then yes, I would pressure can it. I may do that with some of it anyway, just to get a jump start.
I haven’t seen any recipes for doing yeast breads in Mason jars, just sweet breads like gingerbread, banana bread, etc., and cakes, but my research continues.
I have used the sun shower on many camping trips. It takes several hours to heat, but it gives a good shower.
Urban Gardening was discussed somewhere a week or two ago; here’s a good link (with several other links) for creating your own edible landscaping; http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/gardening/urbangardening.shtml
The sun showers are about $10 and hold 5 gallons, on beprepared.com. Two would keep one couple from arguing. As long as he takes his shower last. There are also the mini washing tubs that use air pressure, and the rollers to squeeze water from just washed/rinsed clothes. Ring out one pair of blue jeans by hand and you will be ready to buy one. If you can find an antique wash tub with rollers, BUY it. I am looking for a very large wash tub to fill with snow or rainwater and place in sunny windows. When the water is warm, just get in. A good soak and a good book, and then plenty of water to fill the toilets. Note to self: stock bubblebath. I hope what’s-her-name can publish the new Harry Potter book before we go into lock down.
I spent 2 years in a rustic cabin in the mountains using one of those 5 gal camp showers. We had a tub but no water to it, would heat water on the woodstove and hook the bag to a hook in the ceiling. You learn very quickly how to get a thorough shower out of 5 gallons.
I think, for us, city people the big problem could be the lake of water for toilett use. And if it lasts for longer than few days, I can hardly imagine the consequences…
At 190 for a battery charger your much better off getting a BIG solar panel like at least 15–25 watts, charging a Deep cycle battery, then buying a 12/Wall Battery charger and running it off the Big battery. Some D Cells are up to 11,000mh. That would take way to long to just charge directly from a solar charger.
Ganygirl - have you ordered from beprepared.com? The freeze dried fruit and veggies look interesting, but I’m wondering about the quality, taste, and ease of prep.
I have ordered and recommend at least the whole eggs and milk. The#10 cans are the easiest way to store if you just have an everyday closet and some room under the bed. Freeze dried is the same as you get in a cup of soup with broccoli or carrots. Beprepared is the Mormon site, and they are back logged. The food did come and I was happy with the shipping rates. Survival Acres uses the same food manufacturer, and they did not take as long. I would buy. The idea of no sour cream or peaches for three months is not appealing. Living near Salt Lake, I have actually gone to their store and looked at things. They are having trouble stocking their shelves because of Christmas. Mormons give food storage as gifts, evidently. They had a big conference a few months ago, and their prophet said to store up and get ready for the big hoe down with the bad guy. Flesh eating diseases and whatnot. Sounds like Marburg rather than flu. Or Marburg’s ugly big sisters Ebola Sudan and Ziare (sp). Since the 1918 flu can cause bleeding out under the skin, I wonder if it did not mix with a little carona (sp) virus before the second big/lethal wave. Back to food. Have not ordered anything that didn’t taste good. The 5 or 6 lb bags of potatos are good for under the bed storage as well. Soak the veggies and fruit in water, and voila!
Do the LDS always prepare like this ie store large quantities of foodstuffs for a what in case? Are they saying to prepare extra now? (good habit, just not 100% sure on the why) One of my TA’s is a LDS; will have to ask him.
Typically for 1 year. SOP.
Mormons are encouraged to store food for up to a year as part of their religion. Perhaps related to their pioneer past. They don’t all follow this, er, relgiously. Ganygirl seems to be suggesting that they have received additional encouragement. Fun fact: Secretary of Health and Human Services Leavitt is a Mormon.
So is Andy Reid, head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles (kinda sick birds themselves, these days…)
So was the late, great Jack Anderson. One of the best reporters of all time, IMO. We could have used him now.
They are supposed to prepare the way Noah did. Your own boat to float, so to speak, instead of playing with trouble. My brother is Mormon. He said when flu hits CA, he will withdraw his daughter from school in Seatle. When it gets to WA state, he will close his door. They have spent years getting a full year’s food, water, clothing, spare cloth, fuel, ammo (make no doubt about armed religion) and med supplies. He has a tent with a woodburning stove if they have an earthquake or have to evac. Ready, set, hide from the masses. My sister-in-law has, no kidding, 60 lbs of honey for each of them.
“A cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will never again sit upon a hot stove lid. Nor upon a cold stove lid.” Mark Twain
Reminder to self: Buy leathers gloves for feeding a wood stove. Ouch!
Someone was asking about bicycle generators; http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm http://www.essrl.wustl.edu/~ctm2/generator/generator.htm
Well, I am not Mormon, but I have learned a lot from them.
I am now prepared for 2 years, with all the other tirmmings so to speak.
Helps me sleep at night.
I think it’s a smart idea, overall.
Thanks, Ganygirl!
Welcome.
I bought my husband welder’s gloves at the local ace hardware. Nice leather (suede) for $14. Work just fine.
Thank you, Will. The generator on the first link is 1/2 the cost of the last one.
I just bought a book called “Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook” by Peggy Layton that looks fabulous. I bought it from Amazon.---the author is a home economist so she goes about it pretty scientifically. It seems to cover everything! I am just starting to read it so will report more later
Peggy Layton is considered one of the standards as she wrote “Cooking with Home Storage” which is a classic, of preparedness.
Also take a look at Backwoods Home Magazine.
Jackie Clay writes a lot of good articles for the magazine on food, and country living.
I have Peggy’s Home Storage 101. Very helpful. Will look for the “Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook”. Had thought about buying her “Cooking with Rice and Beans” but my husband likes Zateran’s Redbeans and Rice box mix, so I buy that ;). Good if you use half a stick of butter instead of the 1 tbs. Being from the South, I am storing lots of butter. Smoked sausage completes the meal if you serve a veggie on the side. “Cooking with Home Storage” is a very useful set of recipes. The honey oat bread is easy to make and keeps well. The salmon patties are awesome. Cooked in butter of course. I recommend Ian’s bread crumbs.
BTW, eating apples thickens the blood for when your house will not be as warm. An apple a day keeps the sweater away.
spam deleted - p
Spam. Some people like it but I don’t.
Home loans? How did that get here?
This is inappropriate spam. Somebody needs to delete it.
Maybe we can just move on past it. Anyway, I was reviewing my preps and looking for things I missed (and yes I found some) when I decided to think and plan for the actual 24 hours before we go into isolation. What fresh items would I like to pick up at the last minute, that would last 3 weeks to a month? I came up with apples and potatoes. Surely there are other things which could be ( or should be) added. Does anyone have any last day, last minute preps they will make? Would you share them with me and all of us?
Sivad - the answer is both individual and seasonal. In winter, any additional heating and cooking fuel stocks, and generator fuel would be very valuable. The actual items depends upon you. If, for instance your backup heat source uses small propane canisters, then try to sweep them up. Or possibly better, you should have refill capability for the small tanks using a 20 pound tank that you can get at the convenience store. Then you just need a few 20 pounders to help top your stock up. My own final stocking before withdrawing plan would conclude with a trip to the convenience store at the crossroads (3 miles away). Top up any empty gas cans. Pick up some additional propane tanks. Then retreat.
Whatever additional meds your insurance plan will let you fill in on that day. The longer you can stretch you maintenance meds the better.
Additional batteries for radios and flashlights.
As you said, potatoes, rice, onions, carrots, some cheeses (hard cheese can keep a long time). Frozen foods to top up your freezer (the power won’t go off tomorrow. That will take a while, if ever).
Check your stock of things you don’t normally think about. Light bulbs. Washers for the sink. Toiletries (and toilet paper)
Basically, you should have almost all you need for long term in stock already at the time you hit the panic button. You want to fill in on those items which are (a) consumable and (b) supportive of life style, comfort and good health and nutrition.
If you don’t have a good supply of bleach, vinegar and cleaning supplies, pick them up too.
Well, you get the idea.
Sivad: I would avoid relying on last day, last minute preparations; panic will have engulfed the stores and the supplies you want will be gone. Get everything beforehand and have it prepositioned the way you need it. The only last minute preps I can see is topping off water and gas provisions, and moving emergency supply kits (and whatever provisions you have planned to move) to your staging area, if not already prepositioned.
I’d like to make a shout-out to Mom11. I miss her practical preparations.
It seems an odd thing to worry about, but I can’t imagine being able to store enough toilet paper for a big family. There were times in the past when we ran out of it and had to bring out the rag bag. Rags are very handy to have, by the way, for many things. When I was giving birth at home, the midwife needed a pile of clean old sheets that could be thrown away.
I remember once when my husband and I were traveling in Mexico, we stayed with a young family for a while. They had a living room full of toilet paper, but when we needed to use the outhouse we were given old announcements and fliers to use. The toilet paper was for income, not for family use.
One thing I know for sure is if you have to use leaves, first make sure it isn’t poison oak.
I have a written-up plan for what I do if/when I finally decide the human pandemic is most-likely coming within days/weeks. This way, if I feel like worrying about the bird flu, I just plan more carefully my first moves and write them up in an updated copy of the plan. It is backed up all over the place. My plan so far says this:
When the first human pandemic wave is imminent, empty out all the plastic boxes of food and fill them instead with water. Restack and recheck all the food in a pile to see if any inventory has been lost.
I will just keep adding to that plan over time and figure it is probably a good thing to continue to maintain even when I move out of this dwelling to have a measure of self-sufficiency from the international delivery system.
I also keep in the same subdirectory a Gnumeric spreadsheet (uncompressed XML) of all the foods.
Lorelle: I am with you, I miss Mom11 and wonder where she is and her progress. I now have my final day list in place. Of course, some things are already here. I was mostly looking for fresh foods that would keep for a while, but got so much more and it was helpful. I had not thought of refilling my prescriptions on the last day. I wish I knew, what prescriptions could be cut in half and still be effective enough to help. Blood pressure meds, etc. Certainly I know you can live without BP meds and most others. Probably just have high blood pressure again. If only we knew when or if the BF is coming. I wonder if anyone else has sort of put their future on hold? Buy the car or not? Plan the vacation or cruise, don’t know, maybe not. I wonder…
Some prescription plans have a mail service that will send you 3 months of your meds at a time, usually a little cheaper, too.
We have a lot of grains and beans stored up. I finally got my husband to agree that it won’t hurt. Now, I’m wondering if it would be better to order bags of dehydrated veggies, or try to buy fresh and dry them myself. I read that you can dry them in a normal oven. It might be good to learn how anyway. I know an Asian supermarket that has everything under the sun dried. Problem is, if you can’t read Chinese you don’t know what they are. Maybe I can get someone to go shopping with me who can read the labels. That would probably be cheaper than drying them myself and burning up gas. I think a lot of the items may be sun-dried too, better on the environment.
Sivad:
Uh… careful, now.
sn: →Re: Mice
“Does anyone have any practical experience using peppermint essential oil as a pantry mouse repellent? “
I found out a couple weeks that cayenne pepper (dried and powdered) is a good temporary repellent for mice. Our cat ran away and got hit by a car, and while I was searching, the mice moved in and started chewing things on the counter. All the places where I found droppings, I sprinkled the pepper. They don’t like the irritation. Eventually they found new pathways to the food, but by then we had a new cat.
If none of that works, remember mice can be an excellent source of protein.
Baked in a pie? If worse comes to worse who knows.What was that poem. Mousies, mousies so good to eat (here I insert my own line. Furry ears and sweet pink feet.)
Thank you Racter, I have a garage full, and the basement, was considering a cat then read about the 400 tigers and changed my mind.It looks like I don’t need to stock up, just develope a taste for mousies.
“It looks like I don’t need to stock up, just develope a taste for mousies.”
There’s a movie you might want to see; “Cry Wolf” I think it is. It’s about a biologist who spent a year in the Alaskan wilderness to study the impact of wolf predation on caribou — turned out they weren’t eating all that much caribou after all.
Actually if push came to shove I wouldn’t hesitate bagging a deer. The red fox would be too gamy, the groundhog too tough, have possoms, and racoons and every other critter. I doubt I would starve;, even without mousies. Recall Cry wolf.I probably have a cook book that would cover the above.
We set up a live trap this summer to catch and release a pesky raccoon - Maybe we could use it to catch other critters, squirel, rabbit, etc., if things got rough. We also have a river behind our house with lots of fish. This is assuming these species won’t be infected with BF.
I think I have a jokey cook book called Poor white trash cooking (bought it in Virginia) I think it has recipees for burgaboo or such. Cooked squirrel. You know people have survived on whats around them and their wits for longer than we who have been completely divorced from the sources of our food.
I am planning a last minute shopping list in addition to my stocking preparations. Items on the list are going to be primarily perishable fruits and vegetables, especially if the pandemic hits in the winter, dairy products, etc.
I am thinking about buying a food dehydrator and making my own packaged foods like the ones you can buy from the camping suppliers. Does anyone know where I can get directions or recipes?
There is a thread over at CurEvents on dehyrating food http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=31528
Awesome! Thanks so much to ScaredyCat and crfullmoon!
I am also stocking up on baby wipes, for the baby, and for the rest of the family in the event we have times with no water. At least we won’t have to smell.
From MSNBC.com: It’s a good idea for hospitals to stock up on such supplies now, Monius [assiant V.P. with the Maryland Hospital Assoc] said, because there’s likely to be a rush to buy them if there is a confirmed case in which avian flu is transmitted from one person to another. “If and when that happens, all hell is going to break loose,” Monius said. link:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10679972/
Imagine what would happen with day-to-day supplies?
I’m reminded of a B Kliban cartoon - it shows a cat playing a guitar saying
Love to eat them mousies Mousies what I love to eat Bite they little heads off Nibble on they tiny feet
Racter – at 12:04 “There’s a movie you might want to see; “Cry Wolf” I think it is. It’s about a biologist who spent a year in the Alaskan wilderness to study the impact of wolf predation on caribou — turned out they weren’t eating all that much caribou after all.”
Based on a book by the same name I believe the author/biologist’s name was Farley Mowat. IIRC, the book even had a few “recipes” and some good descriptions of prepping and cooking field mice. As it became the point of his experiement to prove that a large mammal could indeed live eating nothing much other than field mice etc by partaking of that diet himself, I’m sure the book would have some helpful info re: how many mice it takes to feed a human.
TJC, thanks for the baby wipes post. That is real good one for adults who can’t spare water. I had asked some time ago about what to purchase right before we “close the door”. I forgot dairy in winter and we have winter here. Thanks again.
Maybe we should all start a new “string” (or whatever) with just postings of stuff to stock up for, like the baby wipe suggestion. If we all put our heads together, we can really come up with a great list. I went to Wal-mart today and bought a camp oven that you put on a propane stove so I can still have bread if the power goes out and I have stew in my dutch oven. We can all just add to the list and then everybody could be ready to ride out the storm together.
Hi Lorelle and Sivad!
Sure didn’t expect to be missed! Thanks!
I’ve been busy, but I also think the stress of this is getting to me. Took chicks to eye doc., and the guy fitting the glasses said his grandmother had lived through the 1918 flu, but her neighbor lost ALL 9 of her children. I can just imagine it being me and mine. I’ve already been through so much with them! They lay next to me at night and I can just visualize each one sick and dying of this scourge and nothing I can do. I imagine them struggling and looking at the person that loves them the dearest, covered in a mask, nearly hysterical! Ohhhhh!!!!! I’m fighting this as hard as I can!!!
Anyway, all the chicks have had their yearly check-ups and we’ve finished the eye exams, ordered 5 pair of glasses, 6 months of contacts. Will order more contacts when our new Sams opens (in 24 days, YIPPEE!) I told my husband, day off, bring your truck! Next the dentist! I’ve had my stupid heart tests, only now to have to have more. The echo was normal, the stress EKG and 24 hour holter monitor showed abnormalities. I’m only willing to have this last test, which is a Thallium stress test. Have things to do! I only have to have the exercise part, my heart is normal at rest. I’m going to try and go to NP on Wed. Doesn’t make appts., but Wedn., usually aren’t so busy for her. She agreed to review all our meds and help me make sure no one goes without any meds during a pandemic. If necessary, I can order some from Canada. We are on almost 30. She says all she knows about the BF, she knows from me! Scary thing, isn’t it! (Yeah,now she knows how to store flour, 600 lbs. of it!)
I picked up my hog and we vacuum sealed all the meat. It should last years. I am considering a fourth freezer. I want to buy some beef. The kids OT, who has been coming for years has offered to help me build a pen. I can buy a couple of calves from him in Feb. He said he could haul them to market for us. In the meantime, I will probably buy half a cow, since calves won’t be ready for a while. Our county also has a special program and will match your own funds, if you will raise goats. There is a hugh market of goat meat, in some cultures and not enough producers. This grant is for counties that have lost a lot of tobacco revenue (too bad!) Anyone can raise the goats, not just tobacco farmers. Tomorrow, I am going to the extension office to check into it. I mostly want my children to learn to rely more on theirselves. They will have a lot more to deal with than we, just from shortages of oil, natural resources etc.
I have someone coming to plow my garden in the next few weeks, if the weather permits. It is a lot easier to get a control on weeds if you do this in the fall or winter. I also received a really neat plant shelf for Christmas (thanks for the idea tj!) It is two rows of shelves, each one holding 4 flats. There are two rows of grow lights above each shelf. I am going to see how well I can grow lettuces, spinach etc. in this. Went to Lowes today, hoping to find seeds, planting trays etc., but they aren’t out yet. Will probably order some. The kids and I have started some indoor potatoes and they are sprouting. I have 10 almost ripe, full sized lemons. I am going to dehydrate the peels. I have Calamondines, tangerines, and limes beginning to fruit. I spent yesterday morning gathering more pine needles for my blueberries. You add more as the depth of your mulch decreases. They need at least 6″ all the time!
I have received my storage supplies, mylar bags, o2 pkts. I will fill up half gallon jars with the amount, I can fit into a 5 gallon bucket. I’m going to vacuum seal the jars with an o2 pkt. For example if 10 lbs. of oats fit into the buckets, then I will put 10 lbs. in the jars. I will use the jars first. When all of one type of food is empty, I will then open a bucket of oats, dump them into the jars, with 02 pkts. and vacuum seal them. This way I won’t have a hugh bucket open.
I have purchased deydrated eggs whites, yolks, and whole eggs. I bought lots of yolks, because I could make custard out of that yucky powdered milk, they don’t want to drink. I also plan to make homemade hot choc. mix and vacuum seal that into jars. They will drink that. I ordered a 30lb. bag of dehydrated, cubed potatoes and will put them in a bucket and jars. I also ordered powdered cheese mix, like comes in boxed macaroni. These items were bagged and I will preserve them. I have found the larger jars at True Value Hardware stores and have orderd more from our local hardware store. They are about $8 for six. We have found that the lids will re-seal, after you open them.
I have been shopping for clothes for hot and cold weather, in the next size for each child. Came home with 3 bags full today. When I replace socks or underwear, I double it and throw it into my storage.
Holidays are a big worry for me. I guess those are my bright spots and yes, I go overboard! As I Christmas shopped, I also birthday shopped. I am going to toy shop tonight, on-line and will Easter shop the min. those bunnies are on the shelves. I am also going to buy some more candy making supplies. And of course, must make sure I have the “Easter toys!”
We are still working on the well. The weather hasn’t co-operated. I have been buying gallons of water at the Dollar General Market…2 for $1. Those will make cooking and drinking easier. I also went to the Dollar Tree. They sometimes have those little drink canisters, like Chrystal Lite for $1. They make 12 quarts each. They carry some that are green tea, some regular tea. They are sweetened with Splenda. I try not to give the kids sugar drinks and the ped. recommends these. Anyway, I ‘ve loaded up on these.
I asked for a laminator for Christmas, to use with school. This year, I got smart! Instead of telling them “I don’t need anything”, I made a list! (Christmas gets really good when the kids grow up and have $$$!, although this child couldn’t imagine what in the world, his nut mom needed that thing for.) This way I can reuse workbook pages etc. Laminated pages are great for kids with poor fine motor control. You can laminate handwriting pages and let them do them over and over again, or math timed tests. Then there is the ole US map thing. They LOVE that, over and over again! Ha! I lamianted US maps and they can memorize their states, erase and memorize capitols, rivers, etc. I will order next year’s curriculum in the next few weeks. When Sams opens, I will stock up on printer ink, pencils, glue sticks, construction paper,computer paper, markers etc.
When I’ve finished with the dull stuff, the fun will begin. We are going shopping for games, art supplies, sewing materials, lots of junk food (and I mean lots!)
Well here I am and this is what I’ve been doing! Aren’t I boring. Really surprised to be missed!
PS: I have re-evaluated my plan. Our electric company sends a brochure every few months and this months issue had an article on the impact of the 1918 flu in Ky. The flu arrived in the state, Jan. 1918. The first wave lasted through March. This wave was so mild, most did not know it was here. The second and third waves merged and were absolutely deadly. These waves lasted from Oct. 1918-March 1919. The flu began to diminish in March, but was not gone. I think if one had isolated and avoided the flu until that point, they would be in great danger, while there was any flu around, to break isolation. Doesn’t the flu dissipate, because it can find no more victims? I wouldn’t want my family to be the one to feed it. The first wave was 3 months, the next two were six months and still not gone. I’m trying for 12 months of preparation. However, the bright side is there was a long break, after the first wave, 7 months. Maybe their would be time for a vaccine to be available.
Happy New Year All!
Survival Acres has eggs and butter powder on sale and available. Buy veggies that are freeze dried or dehydrated and packaged already. Save yourself the trouble. Those things are loud and take a good while to do anything. I had one, and it drove my husband crazy. He gave it away. Just MHO.
BTW, I found a new mix recipe for bread. I used butter powder. It has a smooth creamy taste, and is really good. Makes me look like I knew what I was doing. LOL! The bread mix for several batches, is 2 cups butter powder, 4 cups sugar (I use raw), 1/2 cup salt (I use sea salt). 2 tbs yeast in 2 cups warm water. Let sit and get foamy. Next, add to the yeast mix 3 cups water, 3/4 cup of mix, 3/4 cup vital wheat gluten. Mix. Then add flour 10 or 11 cups and mix in one or two at a time. I used organic all purpose flour from Wild Oats. 69 cents a lb. Add only enough flour to have non-sticky dough, but not tough. Split into a few bread pans, and let rise about 1/2 an hour, or more if the room is cool. Bake a 350o for about 45 min or until the bread sounds hollow when you tap it. I am at 7200 ft elevation, so your time may vary. Best bread I ever baked. Food storage seems a little easier now. Next, I will have to get one of those camp ovens and try baking bread in it.
Does anyone have one of those green egg cookers? Can you make bread in it? If you can, and it will smoke a brisket, it might be worth the few hundred.
I think I have to go home and lie down. Just reading all this has exhausted me. Nice to have you back Mom 11. Pirate Girl, good hint on mousie cousine. A recipe for squirrel Brunswick stew could also work for Mousies, intriquing . We have a restaurant that features all kinds of exotic meats. I quess Muskox and Buffalo are the farthest afield for me. Oh Mom 11, your children will love their goats, they can be charming.And you’ll be able to have feta cheese for your salads from the garden.
Yummy.I like goat( chevon) for lots of reasons. 4 lbs. chevon riblets 8 oz. Italian seasoning in oil base 8 oz. Bullseye Hickory Barbecue Sauce Cover riblets in Italian seasoning and marinate in refrigerator overnight or 12 hours. Remove from marinate and place in crockpot. Cook for 3 to 4 hours in barbecue sauce. Before serving, debone and serve hot with sweet and sour sauce.
Mom11, how do you do all that you do? I sure understand the motivation, but where do you get all the energy? I cut my “forgotten items” list in half today. Might have made more progress, but had my 85 year old Mom with me. LOL. She is into the whole thing as well. Still, my married kids just seem to be not the least worried, which worries me a lot. I am buying a new propane gas range and dumping my old electric. It can keep us warm, boil water and heat meals. I used our gas range to heat two rooms when the power went out and we lived in Minnesota. The new one will be hooked up to a huge propane tank. Question. I could not find large butterfly bandages for cuts that may need, but not get, stitches. Anyone know where I can buy them?
medical supply houses. Probably in your yellow pages. I don’t use the internet to buy things yet.
WWW.MOOREMEDICAL.COM
Hi Sivad! Hi Anne! Hi Everybody!
Went by the dentist’s office twice today to make those dreaded appts! They were closed both times. No hours even posted. Went to the extention office and picked up info on raising goats. Little Mister #11 had his 2 hour psy. visit. Been a naughty chick this week! Might have to feed him cracked corn for a few days.
Tonight I went to a class on raising blueberries. Mine are right on track. FYI…you can raise them on your patio, in large pots. Tonight I added another 6 inches of pine needles to mine. A 5–7 year old, fully mature high bush blueberry plant will produce 6–15 lbs. of berries and they are the top rated fruit for health benefits.
Tomorrow is OT day, so will talk with OT some more about the calves and what fencing, equipment etc. to get. At the very least, this can come under an occupational therapy project, a school project, fun?, or dinner….
Going to NP tomorrow to work out how to manage all these kids’ health issues, while under social isolation. Hmmmm…..what excuse should I use to get in the door…a pap test…migraines…? I think I’ll go for the migraine, less invasive!
Mice!! Ughhhhh!! I have had a severe problem here. Each time they cut the fields around here, they swarm to my house. I didn’t want to use poison. First I contacted the extention office and had them send info.
First…if one mouse run across a room, you don’t have just one mouse, you have many. You think you have one mouse, but mice follow each other’s trails.
Go buy sticky boards and put them where you have found droppings. After you catch a mouse, put a board in the same place. You will soon figure out where to leave the boards and won’t need to leave so many. If you can stand their squalking, leave a mouse on it and see if you catch more on the same board. This often happens. Do the board thing for about a week.
Then clean up all their mess. Put down new shelf paper etc. and get rid of their odor.
Stuff steal wool in any cracks you find or seal with that foam spray.
I used to see mice crawl under my cabinet doors. At least I thought that was what they were doing. I found out while cleaning up their mess, that under your cabinet doors, there is an opening, above the kick plate or the bottom of the cabinet unit. Buy blocks of poison and slip it through that opening, under your cabinets. Try to drop the poison as close to the edge as possible. Mice usually stay close to a wall or edge. Your pets and kids can’t reach the poison, it will be under your lower cabinet shelves. After a few months, drop some more in. Yes! Sometimes you will smell a dead mouse, but after a week or so ours were gone. This will tell you how bad they were….. in our master bedroom, I caught 13 in one weekend, in 2 spots. There is another poison, which works in one feeding. The mice can become resistant to some of the poisons and you may need to switch to this. I can’t remember the name, but they sell buckets of both at TSC. I will look next time I go there. My husband also found their trails in the attic and under the house and left poison there. I am going to get the stronger poison and have him replenish those areas before we go into isolation and he gets transferred to an apt. I will also drop some stronger in the cabinet hiding places, because it would be devastating to find they had destroyed my children’s food supply.
Sivad! Don’t stop PB meds. I skip 2 does of mine, so I can get my allergy shot. Can’t take a beta-blocker and then have an allergy shot, because if you have a reaction and go into shock, the drug they give you to bring you out of it won’t work with the beta-blockers. Anyway, I was feeliing yucky when I went in for my shot and the nurse checked my BP and the lower number was 100. Not too good. You don’t want to go to all this trouble and then have a stroke, laying there with all your yummy food around you, do you?! Be good, stock up your pills!
Thanks Michelle for the link. Mom11, my question came from the what if the wave outlasts the meds. The pharmacy will not let you have an unlimited supply, so if it was ok to cut them in half from the beginning they would last a lot longer. I cut my Prilosec in half and it still works just fine. I have a nice new blueberry bush in my yard. The deer live it. I have it wrapped in plastic wire fence now. We also have a plum, peach, apple,and pear trees. They are two young to provide much fruit for this year darn it.
I bought rat gooey traps for the mice. Also used them with pheromes for pantry moths. The rat goo is better than the smaller mouse goo boards. Thanks for the steel wool tip, will use it in the ventilation board that I think lets the mice into the basement. My basement doesn’t smell mousey, but the one mouse I saw in one upstairs bath sure looked fat and sleek. Must be all the cashews they stole. One year I was packing a bag to leave for Italy (I pack an hour before I leave, and found a mouse had burrowed into the small hole by the zipper. I vacummed out the bird seed with my hand dirt devil, and when I got to Italy I found I had packed the dirt devil. Mice are part of country living. Really good to hear your O.K. Mom 11. Was wondering how you managed over the holidays. Good luck with the goats, hope their nannies and not a male. I think this Bird Flu is a pain, but it certainly enriches our lives. My parents were self relient and self sufficient. I am self reliant, and in some ways self sufficient, but not as they were. Think of all the memories your children will have of this period in their lives. Its up to us to make this a enriching experience. Last nite read a cookbook, Hudson River Valley Cookbook. Venison, pheasant, trout, game of every kind featured. Also wild mushrooms like morels. I think I”m going to join the mushroom club . I have so many mushrooms around in the spring, and don’t dare eat any of them. Will plant some watercress in the spring at the streams edges, though it becomes a torrent when it rains. You and tjclaw have really opened a lot of peoples eyes to how much can be accomplished by a mothers determined to protect her children. (Not to forget Muskrat and the others)An old (much younger than me) beau got in touch, wants me to help him prepare. Prefer to let sleeping dogs alone, suggested he find someone younger and more inclined to prepare than I. Will send off some reprints, Its up to him to do the rest. Also in the spring we used to hear a din of spring peepers, though not lately. I wonder if the frogs have gone the way of the dodo. They used to say the Cajuns would eat anything that moved. I bet they have some good survival tips. I remember for ex. someone in my neighborhood catching a snapping turtle for soup. Fair trade, the turtle ate one of his fingers.
Anne, not to worry about the peepers they’ve all moved to my neighborhood!
WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 /U.S. Newswire/ — Though nearly half of Americans say they believe a major natural disaster or terrorist attack is likely to occur in their area in the next five years, more than three quarters (77 percent) admit they are ill- prepared, according to a national survey conducted by Qorvis Communications’ iQ Research & Consulting Practice and HOPE Coalition America, the emergency preparedness and response division of Operation HOPE (and partner with FEMA).
Has anyone else implemented water storage or rainwater capture?
“Has anyone else implemented water storage”
If you haven’t, you’re probably within a small minority here. Get crackin on that.
“rainwater capture?”
I’m set up for that, but didn’t need to do anything special; it is an unintentional feature of the way my gutter system is set up.
Mom11, good to see you back. I really like the goat raising incentive idea. I wish we had that here in the city. We have a lot of empty lots surrounded by wooden fences, where old houses had been torn down. They look so peaceful now, I expect to see goats grazing in them. I said that to the lady in charge of the project, and she had been saying the same thing. In India where she’s from, no one pushes a lawn mower. They let the goats take care of it. What a good source of protein, but these city folks aren’t quite ready for the idea.
We have a well. Also in our neighborhood are 2 stocked lakes and 2 creeks. I plan on purchasing 2 or 3 big 55 gallon water storage containers for safe keeping, just in case.
I think this was a really good thread for the newbies that are now coming on board, or those who are becoming more able to start prepping. Wanted to bring it up towards the top.
Nemo, IMO you may want to consider bringing back the “Systematic Planning” thread from around Thanksgiving. I just went back and checked it and there is some great advice on there too for newbies. thanks. :)
Cabbages last forever in the refrigerator and might be one of the last minute items you want to pick up in order to have fresh “salad” for a long time.
Here is how we do things at our way-off-grid cabin in the mountains of MT, maybe someone can pick up some tips. Water is hard to come by, we haul it in in 30 gal barrels from a neighbors place 3 miles down the road, so we are very conservative with it. We have a 12 volt deep-cycle battery that powers a pump for our shower, as well as running all our lights. The lights are 12 volt fixtures that you can buy at any RV store for about $15 each. The shower water is heated with a 12-gallon electric hot water heater (which propane would be better, and solar-heated better yet, but we’ve not gotten that far). We have a 4500 watt generator that we run for about 1 hour per day for the hot water heater and to recharge the deep-cycle battery and anything else that needs charging. To take a shower, we run the generator for about 1 hr, turn off the generator, then turn on the pump to the shower. You first get wet all over, then turn off the water. Soap up (a washcloth is needed), shampoo hair, then turn water back on just long enough to get rinsed. Each shower conducted in this way uses about 2 gallons of water. The solar bag showers will also work well for anyone, but I must warn you about our experiences with a Zodi propane shower. We had one, and found it to be next-to-useless. It takes forever to heat up the water, even when you recirculate it. Save your money, don’t buy a Zodi. No-Rinse soap works well for sponge baths. And baby wipes are ok short term, but you just won’t really feel clean without at least an occasional shower. Water for drinking, handwashing and dishwashing is kept in a large square blue plastic container with a spigot (AquaTainer, made by Reliance, it’s avail at Walmart in camping section for about $8) that’s kept on the kitchen countertop. For handwashing, we keep a shallow bowl of water in the bathroom. Hands are wetted and lathered up in the shallow bowl, then rinsed with a pour of water from a pitcher. I have two dishpans on kitchen countertop, one for washing and one for rinsing dishes. Fill the dishwashing pan with about 2″ of hot water, fill the rinsing pan with about 1–2″ of cold water, set cleaned dishes in rack to air dry. If the wash water is not TOO gross, I will re-use it, simply adding more hot water and dish soap to the washing pan next time. When the washing water gets too bad, I throw it out, then pour the used rinse water into my wash pan, so I get several uses out of each container of water. Our toilet is a chemical Porta-Potti. I buy the chemical stuff that that is biodegradable and doesn’t have formaldehyde. This both deoderizes the waste and also begins breaking it down into all liquid. We are VERY conservative with toilet paper, we try to use only 1–2 squares of toilet paper for each trip to the john. The Cottonelle wet wipes (flushable, they can go right into the Porta-Potti) are a godsend. Feminine hygiene products are wrapped in toilet paper and put in the trash. The Porta-Potti will last about 1 week before it has to be emptied (there are 2 of us). We dig a deep hole outside and dump the contents, and rinse out the holding tank before re-assembling it. A 5 gal bucket with tight-fitting seat/lid combo could be used instead of a Porta-Potti. This method is not gross and does not smell (except when emptying, then hold your nose for the 30 seconds it takes to dump it in the hole). I also keep a 2 liter bottle of water next to the Porta-Potti for flushing and cleaning the bowl (the “flush” action on it isn’t too great). We use a lot of canned foods and dried foods (I use alot of dehydrated hamburger) for meals. We keep fresh foods in coolers on ice. That is a pain in the rear, because it means we must go to town (20 miles) at least once a week to replenish ice. I am looking to construct a solar cooler. The basic concept of that is similar to a solar funnel cooker, except that instead of aiming the funnel at the sun to collect heat, you aim it at the clear night sky to collect cold. I will be building this project this spring, and will let you know how it turns out. For cooking, we use a small propane oven from an old RV. It has 3 stovetop burners and a small oven, and is VERY easy on propane consumption. A 20lb bottle of propane for it could easily last 3 months. For heat, we use a Blue Flame propane heater. We have a 40lb tank for it, and that can last anywhere from 1–4 weeks (depending on whether we have to run it in the daytime also). A small fan powered by 2 D-cell batteries placed on low speed on top of the heater does a good job of distributing the heat, and those batteries will last about 2 weeks. Since this is an A-frame cabin, we had problems with all of the heat rising to the peak of the cabin, so we installed a 12 volt Vari-Fan ceiling fan (www.kansaswindpower.net) to help circulate the air, it works wonderfully and we no longer use the small battery-operated fan. The catalog from Kansas Wind Power has LOTS of useful tips on alternative energy, well worth the price. No, I don’t work for them or anything, just a satisfied customer. We will likely be getting a 2nd deep-cycle battery, and are looking into a solar panel that can kepp them charged without running the generator (although until we re-do the water heater, we’d still have to run the gen for that purpose). We have a regular radio that will also run on dc, and use a $35 portable battery (called a Nelco 12v rechargable Portable Power Tank) to run it, as well as a cd/MP3 player. The power tank will last maybe a week or 2 before needing recharging. (But, whenever the generator’s on, we plug in everything rechargeable to keep them full). This includes cell phones… all this stuff just gets plugged into regular outlets in the house, which is hooked into the generator… we don’t have to worry about our electricity getting back onto the grid and posing a danger to anyone, as the nearest power line is 3 miles away:-). Clothes washing… right now we just go to town about once a week to the laundrymat. I’ve just bought a Wonder Wash washer (it works well), but getting clothes dry is a pain. I need to either get a wringer, or else the new extractor that the company that sells the Wonder Wash has come out with. It needs electricity to run, but not too much. We could stay very comfortably in the cabin for months except for three things… 1) lack of water. We hope to drill a well this spring, powered by either a solar pump or hand pump or both. 2) lack of easy refrigeration for food, which I hope the solar funnel cooler will solve 3) Propane storage. Would love to have a single large tank, but don’t know if we can get the local supplier up there (a crappy 3 mile long forest service road). We do alot of reading, and love to listen to the old-time radio shows either on the radio or on cd’s, and play lots of dominoes and board games. For our trash, we seperate everything out. Anything that can be burned goes in one container, another holds flattened aluminum cans which we recycle, and another holds non-burnables such as cleaned and flattened tin food cans, plastics, etc. Just by doing this we cut down on trash immensely, because we can burn much of it in our firepit. Hope someone can find some ideas in here to help them.
Kim: thanks for posting that. It was incredibly interesting to read.
I agree. Very practical information that is inspiring us to reach for a more sustainable way of life!
Perusing this thread there are a lot of good, practical comments and suggestions. More stuff for me to follow up on and do.
My 2 cents:
SILVER Making colloidal silver is easy but if you don’t limit the current you will make fairly large particles. Small particles pass through you. Large particle get permanently stuck in your skin. No permanent damage as long as you don’t mind being a bluish-grey person of color. If you knew what the maximum particle size is that will pass through you, the CS solution could be filtered. (Anybody?) Best way to limit the current: a current limiting diode (CLD). For info on a CLD see http://www.centralsemi.com/cld/index.aspx. Buy them at www.Mouser.com which carries the 1N5283 - 1N5314 series. Get a small current one like the 1N5298 which limits current to 1.1mA no matter what the source voltage is (within limitations) the current will never go above the limit of the CLD. This allows one to start a CS solution at a higher voltage such as 48VDC.
Electro-generated CS is mostly ionic silver, maybe as much as 98%. As a previous poster pointed out, when it hits the stomach (or blood if absorbed through the mouth membranes) it gets converted fairly fast to silver chloride, a silver salt. I’ve been looking for a long time on whether this is good or bad (anybody?). Silver nitrate (another silver salt)is still put in baby’s eyes after birthing and all the bonafide, FDA approved uses of silver in various medical applications say that they generate a silver ion. I’ve seen some data that suggests that non-ionic, elemental silver is better than ionic-silver but have seen no hard data to confirm that (anybody?). There are only a few commerical sources that make non-ionic colloidal silver. In any case, smaller particles are better.
CELL PHONES If the commercial power goes out permanently the cell phones will go out a few hours later. All the telephone companies are cutting back on battery back-up. Rather than a handcrank cell phone battery charger, buy one that plugs into the cigarette lighter on your car. The battery in your car can easily power a cell phone long after the network goes kaput -even if you don’t have any more gasoline to run the car and charge the car’s battery.
TWO BEST THINGS NOT (?) MENTIONED
Buy Vitamin D and red wine (or grape juice)
http://www.cholecalciferol-council.com/pascal.pdf
http://www.concordgrapejuice.com/health11.htm
Resveratrol - google cache
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=170457
FYI: great overall info on Bird Flu: http://www.arielco.us/page3.html
I live in farm country on the Great Plains. Windmills and solar-powered submersible pumps provide water to cattle in relatively isolated locations right along the highways or just down the adjacent dirt roads. I doubt that any farmer/rancher would care if you replenished your water supplies through such means. And you could keep from exposing yourself to the flu virus by avoiding crowded locations.
Just make sure you leave things as they were. Generally, you lift a lever handle to release the brake on the windmill. Tie the lever handle back down after you have filled your water containers. Oh, and make sure you wait for a good windy day to foray out.
I have two windmills nearby that I have kept in good working order for just this contingency. If the utilities go down, my neighbors, my family. and anybodyelse that needs it will have fresh water and plenty of it. (Obsessiveness pays off again, Ha!).
Kim,
Thank you for your experiences and lessons learned. I’ve just emailed them to two friends planning to set up a retreat in powerless cabins. This is priceless.
There are just so many ideas on this thread, I love it. I thought I’d mention a few things that come to mind as I have read: Kraft actually sells a hard cheddar cheese in a can that you can slice and eat with crackers. It’s pretty tasty. It isn’t a bright orangy color, it’s more white but it tastes like cheddar. Also, beef jerky is great to keep on hand. I like to keep the summer sausages on my shelf. They store on the shelf for up to six months before becoming risky, and they go great with the cheese and crackers. I guess all you’d need then is some wine from the wine cellar? Chillin it may not happen. I don’t have much in the way of heating sources except lots of blankets and some sterno cans for cooking. I do have instructions for using newspaper and paraffin wax to make logs that burn as long as a similar sized piece of wood…. We live on a well and actually have a 1,000 gallon holding tank about ten feet underground. Our water only comes in at two gallons per hour vs our previous home where it geisered. I can just picture my husband digging to get to the water storage tank—priceless! You know those military MRE meals? They actually have beef packages and chicken packages that are in gravy and have about ten to fiften pieces in one container. I believe they’re made to feed a family of six. Did you know that if you wrap a medium size U-Haul box with aluminum foil and set a pie tin in the bottom with about six to eight pieces of coal, it will bake like an oven at 350 or so and you can make muffins, cakes, cook sausages, etc. Kinda basic, but it works for me. With five daughters, I don’t have the funds to purchase some of the fancier things out there. Speaking of other things, the HHS plan recommends preparing to teach your children at home. I already homeschool mine and I have had a few friends just suggest that they’ll come on over when the schools close. I just chuckle and keep to myself the thought that the whole reason they’re advising closing the schools is so that people don’t get together and spread the fool bug….
Mom — where do you get the kraft canned cheese? Can you get it in the regular grocery? If so, what section? Thanks! — Libby
Does anyone plan to can meats now, while they are available?
Will, See the “Today’s Prep” thread. I have discussed canning, specifically meats quite a bit there. The answer, in brief, is YES! Canning Beef in Wine as I type this. Chicken A La King on the schedule for tomorrow’s canning. Already canned 3 dz. pints of chicken breasts and 12 quarts of ground beef.
Just found a local supplier for 50lb sacks of wheat ($7.85) and oats ($9.20); the local Southern States Cooperative in a nearby county.
I just bought a Katadyn pocket water filter… pretty expensive but when I was a bit younger I always felt this panicky feeling if I was leaving Chicago for a trip out West - and it centers around water. I could handle eating cracker, but no water? That would be an issue.
So I have insurance there now and a flowing river 4 blocks away. Worse comes to worse I know we’ll be ok for 3 weeks.
What is the level of pollutants in the river?
You felt panicky LEAVING Chicago? Come now, that is like saying Spring Street in Atlanta is ok at 1 am. The few times I remember getting water sickness, I was in Bavaria or Columbus, OH. Take your filter East with you as well;) What river do you have available? If it is large enough to float barges, you may want to consider getting a kiddie pool to catch rain water instead. I have considered that, but we had two bull moose almost fall into the trailer one night and getting a moose out of a kiddie pool during pandemic sounds like too much trouble. That or the elk herd may see it from one of the nearby peaks and come camp at our place until it goes dry. Ever been down wind of an elk herd. Duct tape and plastic won’t keep that out of the house.
Well - no where near the level of the Chicago river - I remember when I was a kid, it was *upgraded* from TOXIC to HEAVILY POLLUTED. Fishermen were ecstatic - you could now eat any fish in the river that wasn’t a bottom-feeder. Though, I’m not sure how many fish in that river weren’t… In any case I now live off the Fox river in N. Illinois and this section of the river system is suffering from too much Phosphorus… good for algae, bad for oxygen levels in the river. PCBs appear to be minimal… overall nothing a decent distillation process wouldn’t help with.
Yea, my new filter won’t catch that.. just mechanical, but again - pulling from the river is out catch-all - where to run when rain water goes scarce.
GanyG,
Heh - not panicky about leaving the crime or thinking I was heading into it… no, I just have this weird {thing} about water. But I better about it now, soon as I travel, I find rivers to walk around to feel closer to it. I know, strange, but water is a beautiful thing.
Thankfully, no, the Fox is not traversable via barge - though last summer 3 fishermen in a propelled dingy felt the need to moon all of us motorists stuck in traffic on the bridge. {That} cannot be very good for the water quality - I’m quite sure. ;)
LOL!
How many months are people prepared for now? How many months of provisions are people targetting to reach?
I barely have 8 weeks… but just bought portable water filter - so that buys us 3 weeks more (assuming worse case scenario).
5 years.
Let’s see, about 20 gallons of water for 6 or more people? If we don’t wash it might last until we can go to a stream in the park for more. Only thing is the park is full of geese and their poop. Food, if we can cook, maybe a few weeks. People are picky and won’t feel like eating this stuff until they get pretty hungry. No little kids here, so I don’t worry too much about that. They’ll eat when they’re ready. Fuel, none. Unless we burn up the alcohol, lighter fluid, wood, cardboard etc. in the house. That’s the next step. Today I made a crude solar cooker, funnel type. I don’t think I could get much from it in the winter. Not sure yet. Toilet paper, 2 weeks. Lots more to do.
Remember that your isolation ends the minute the one critical supply that you can not live without is used up. I can’t predict what that would be for you. For some items, I have a supply beyond the normal span of my life. For others, maybe a month and a half. Most everything else, longer than the month and a half.
I’d venture to say that there are probably a number of items a person owns or uses, that they don’t even realize can be used for, or replaced by, something else entirely OR not used at all.
Makes me think of those “Home Ec” books that take about how to use various different products to do the same thing… sorta like a swiss army knife.
DA- you have 5 YEARS worth of stuff? when did you start?
In the abscense of a proven flu treatment, any thoughts about use Sambucol and elderberry extract for anyone under 40-years? Seems to work but still activates cytokines. You can find increasing references in Google and Medline. I’ve stocked-up.
Does anyone have opinions about the use of Sativex (available only in Canada/England) to dampen cytokine storm? Sativex is used to treat neuropathic pain in Multiple Sclerosis patients when conventional therpaies are refactory. Sativex is made of about 50% CBD’s. The CBD’s (target canniboid receptor CB-2) are implicated in dampening CB-2 receptors outside the brain.
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892–2182
“The authors show that CBD blocks the inflammatory infiltrate and progression of joint damage. CBD appears effective both orally and intraperitoneally, but with a rather sharp dose-response peak, above or below which efficacy is less evident. A series of ex vivo studies indicate that CBD attenuates the oxidative burst in granulocytes, lymphocyte proliferation, and the release of proinflammatory cytokines.
Numerous prior studies of marijuana itself, unfractionated marijuana extracts, and individual cannabinoids revealed that they manifest a wide range of immunologic effects, both in vitro and in vivo, in animals as well as in human subjects . Generally suppressive effects on T cell, B cell, macrophage, natural killer cell, and neutrophil functions have been described. Proliferation is impaired, as is release of selected cytokines and chemokines, but the findings differ by cell type, experimental conditions, and especially the concentration of the cannabinoids examined. The effects are sufficient, nonetheless, to impair host responses to animal challenges with several viral and bacterial pathogens.”
Since the Avian Flu launches its main assault on the lungs first, I thought the following of interest.
---
Cannabinoids may lower cytokine expression, IgE, and mucous in airway
June 25th, 2003
“A mouse model of cannabinoid treated ovalbumin-induced allergic airway disease shows that attenuation may be through lower cytokines, IgE, and mucous.”
“T cells are sensitive to modulation by cannabinoids as evidenced by their ability to inhibit expression of cytokines, including interleukin (1L)−2 and IL-4. Because T cells play a key role in the pathophysiology of allergic asthma by expressing T helper cell (Th)2 cytokines, the objective of the present studies was to examine the effect of cannabinoids on immunologic and pathologic features associated with the allergic airway response induced by ovalbumin (Ova). (abbreviated)
http://www.newsrx.com/issue_article/Immunotherapy-Weekly/2003-06-25/0625200333376LW.html
In the abscense of a proven flu treatment, any thoughts about use Sambucol and elderberry extract for anyone under 40-years? Seems to work but still activates cytokines. You can find increasing references in Google and Medline. I’ve stocked-up.
Does anyone have opinions about the use of Sativex (available only in Canada/England) to dampen cytokine storm? Sativex is used to treat neuropathic pain in Multiple Sclerosis patients when conventional therpaies are refactory. Sativex is made of about 50% CBD’s. The CBD’s (target canniboid receptor CB-2) are implicated in dampening CB-2 receptors outside the brain.
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892–2182
“The authors show that CBD blocks the inflammatory infiltrate and progression of joint damage. CBD appears effective both orally and intraperitoneally, but with a rather sharp dose-response peak, above or below which efficacy is less evident. A series of ex vivo studies indicate that CBD attenuates the oxidative burst in granulocytes, lymphocyte proliferation, and the release of proinflammatory cytokines.
Numerous prior studies of marijuana itself, unfractionated marijuana extracts, and individual cannabinoids revealed that they manifest a wide range of immunologic effects, both in vitro and in vivo, in animals as well as in human subjects . Generally suppressive effects on T cell, B cell, macrophage, natural killer cell, and neutrophil functions have been described. Proliferation is impaired, as is release of selected cytokines and chemokines, but the findings differ by cell type, experimental conditions, and especially the concentration of the cannabinoids examined. The effects are sufficient, nonetheless, to impair host responses to animal challenges with several viral and bacterial pathogens.”
Since the Avian Flu launches its main assault on the lungs first, I thought the following of interest.
---
Cannabinoids may lower cytokine expression, IgE, and mucous in airway
June 25th, 2003
“A mouse model of cannabinoid treated ovalbumin-induced allergic airway disease shows that attenuation may be through lower cytokines, IgE, and mucous.”
“T cells are sensitive to modulation by cannabinoids as evidenced by their ability to inhibit expression of cytokines, including interleukin (1L)−2 and IL-4. Because T cells play a key role in the pathophysiology of allergic asthma by expressing T helper cell (Th)2 cytokines, the objective of the present studies was to examine the effect of cannabinoids on immunologic and pathologic features associated with the allergic airway response induced by ovalbumin (Ova). (abbreviated)
http://www.newsrx.com/issue_article/Immunotherapy-Weekly/2003-06-25/0625200333376LW.html
In the abscense of a proven flu treatment, any thoughts about use Sambucol and elderberry extract for anyone under 40-years? Seems to work but still activates cytokines. You can find increasing references in Google and Medline. I’ve stocked-up.
Does anyone have opinions about the use of Sativex (available only in Canada/England) to dampen cytokine storm? Sativex is used to treat neuropathic pain in Multiple Sclerosis patients when conventional therpaies are refactory. Sativex is made of about 50% CBD’s. The CBD’s (target canniboid receptor CB-2) are implicated in dampening CB-2 receptors outside the brain.
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892–2182
“The authors show that CBD blocks the inflammatory infiltrate and progression of joint damage. CBD appears effective both orally and intraperitoneally, but with a rather sharp dose-response peak, above or below which efficacy is less evident. A series of ex vivo studies indicate that CBD attenuates the oxidative burst in granulocytes, lymphocyte proliferation, and the release of proinflammatory cytokines.
Numerous prior studies of marijuana itself, unfractionated marijuana extracts, and individual cannabinoids revealed that they manifest a wide range of immunologic effects, both in vitro and in vivo, in animals as well as in human subjects . Generally suppressive effects on T cell, B cell, macrophage, natural killer cell, and neutrophil functions have been described. Proliferation is impaired, as is release of selected cytokines and chemokines, but the findings differ by cell type, experimental conditions, and especially the concentration of the cannabinoids examined. The effects are sufficient, nonetheless, to impair host responses to animal challenges with several viral and bacterial pathogens.”
Since the Avian Flu launches its main assault on the lungs first, I thought the following of interest.
---
Cannabinoids may lower cytokine expression, IgE, and mucous in airway
June 25th, 2003
“A mouse model of cannabinoid treated ovalbumin-induced allergic airway disease shows that attenuation may be through lower cytokines, IgE, and mucous.”
“T cells are sensitive to modulation by cannabinoids as evidenced by their ability to inhibit expression of cytokines, including interleukin (1L)−2 and IL-4. Because T cells play a key role in the pathophysiology of allergic asthma by expressing T helper cell (Th)2 cytokines, the objective of the present studies was to examine the effect of cannabinoids on immunologic and pathologic features associated with the allergic airway response induced by ovalbumin (Ova). (abbreviated)
http://www.newsrx.com/issue_article/Immunotherapy-Weekly/2003-06-25/0625200333376LW.html
I know a lot of people will be happy to add that to their stockpile! But that doesn’t necessarily mean smoking the stuff, does it?
…and if it doesn’t work, you’ll all least go out happy! OTOH, you might have to increase your food stocks if you’re counting on that to stay well! :-)
Imagine working in a lab with a bunch of stoned mice? What do they say, “Hey, dude, toke me up…how ‘bout some munchies man…”….:P
The reason I asked how long people were preparing for; if there are three waves, and each wave could last 2 to 5 months, how do we fully restock and reprovision between waves if we are doing all we can to recover? And what about food that rotted for lack of transportation or refrigeration?
We are now at 6 months and considering hedging our bets by acquiring more. We have nothing to lose, because all of this food will be eaten at some time, and we are actually saving money by buying wheat, grinding it, and making our own bread.
Will, my family just got started really prepping this month. We are aiming for three months right now. We are prepared to do more if things really heat up. But like you, I worry that it would be very difficult to restock in between waves. Will there be large quantities of food and other items available for restocking? If a pandemic starts to look iminent, then my husband is prepared to take out a substantial sum of money from his 401K. We could both not work and still pay the bills and have money on hand for several months. But what good does money do if the economy has been disrupted to the point that there are not enough items on the store shelves to go around amongst a populace that are all trying to restock at the same time?
Rationing will be imposed by the government. But there will be stores of extra food that you can barter for. You will just have to keep your ear to the ground. Families that have lost loved ones will have extra stores of food. And smugglers will get into the act. Even during the siege of Leningrad during World War II there were items to be obtained for a price. Booze, Chocolate, Cigarettes, Birth Control Pills? etc. would probably be good barter items to add to your stores. They take up little space and will be in demand. Try to work through a reliable middleman that you could TRUST. You don’t want to deal directly or with anybody nearby, if you don’t have to. The middleman will, of course, get his cut.
What I have just told you is based on historical accounts of how people coped in situations of dire shortages.
Also a gold coin or two with documentation of its purchase would be very helpful. Gold will go up in value with inflation. Your paper dollars will not. And if this is all a “puppet show”, you will at least have a good story to go along with your coins. And a little physical gold is always a good one-time investment.
Also, I have not seen this posted, but it surely has been. If you have been needing a dental checkup, schedule one. You don’t want to be like Tom Hanks in “Castaway”. And any surgery that needs to be done in the near future should probably be bumped-up, if possible. And what about the regimen of vaccinations that travelers have to undergo when they travel to a Third World country for an extended stay? First World could become Third World pretty quick. What happens in the Third World I don’t even want to imagine.
“Rationing will be imposed by the government. “
I’ve wondered about this. Will the federal government do this? The current US administration is very much out of the business of doing anything remotely related to private business. So I doubt they will get involved. Might each State do this? It’s possible, though I haven’t seen any indication in State plans (haven’t read each one). Might county/city/town governments do this? For most, I’d say it’s far out of their league.
So I am assuming restocking for follow-on waves is a medium-to-high risk. Therefore, we have stocked up for at least two 3 month waves, and will continue increasing that amount.
Anyone else considering stocking up for more than one wave?
Will - That is beyond my current capability as an explicit stock. What I was considering doing, If and When, was to go immediately to a very conservative stance in my consumption (we have stocked for fairly normal living conditions). This ought to provide some additional capacity. I have never been of the delusion that I can even vaguely anticipate what conditions will actually be like.
The biggest challenge/test will be whether to go out and resupply after it appears that the wave, or the first wave or whatever comes through has passed. if you wait too long, you may miss the opportunity. If you move too soon, you become the tragic last case.
If there is rationing the great American problem with obesity might be solved. Didn’t they find that people were healthier during periods of food shortages in Northern Europe during World War 11? I spoke to a woman from Glasgow a month ago and we talked about food rationing, she had a grimace on her face recalling it, we too had food rationing, but noowhere near as extreme as for Ex. England. for examle the woman from Glasgow was limited in how many eggs. This A.M. I stopped at a local cafe for breakfast. 3 eggs, a large order of wonderful home fries, two slices of rye bread and coffee. $4 including tip. That will be my meal of the day, with a peice of fruit for lunch and a small salad for dinner. For someone else that breakfast would be the first of three full meals. Families might be bored if they are in quarentine, which could lead to overeating, but if stores are limited so will intake be limited. It might also be a chance for youngsters to really get a handle on good eating. Little junk food choices.I only had 3 eggs because it cost the same as 2. I’m on an egg binge just in case we end up quarentined.
>The biggest challenge/test will be whether to go out and resupply after it appears that the wave, or the first wave or whatever comes through has passed.
Agreed. Hence, that is why we are prepared for 2 three month waves. Since we can get 50# sacks of wheat for less than $10, and my newest form of exercise is hand milling, we are saving money on our food stocks. Our investment on resealable buckets and mylar bags won’t change as we rotate our stock. So I just bought another 200# of grain (we already had enough beans) to bump us up towards 8–9 months.
This timeframe assumes a 1800–2000 calorie diet for myself, and similar ratios for the rest of the family.
How many have contacted their local government to find out if the government is preparing these measures ?
I know mine is not, from all the emails that went unanswered last year, the phone calls that ascertained they had not looked at the WHO nor US fed. pandemic websites, to the health department that wants to say nothing to the public right now. Not getting paid to, evidently, and doesn’t see the need, otherwise.
Now my town has me pegged as an nutcase. Still gambling pandemic won’t occur, or that FEMA or the National Guard will come and take everything off their hands, I suppose. Public isn’t going to like it, when they understand the risks that were taken by not getting prepared for community contingency planning starting last year, and geetting the public prepped while the supply chains are intact. The kind of preparedness that would be useful in many kinds of emergencies, too, in these uncertain times.
I’ll stick to my creed- better to be mocked for being wrong than guilty of knowing and saying nothing.
And yes, plan for more than one wave, and don’t assume you could go find the stores normal for shopping after that first wave.
My County acknowledges that a severe pandemic will result in 95% of the populace going out seeking food and water within a few days. They acknowledge their most crucial supply issue is water, and that hospitals (and even temporary treatment centers) will be entirely overwhelmed, so have simply decided to give up on being useful in the event of a severe pandemic. So I have no choice but to prepare on my own and alerting friends and neighbors, most of whom are taking some measures
What a great forum! Just had to say how much I enjoy reading everyone’s posts, especially on a day I placed another order and had to calm my poor checking account MileHighRN the wee little thing is in shock yet again! If/when the pandemic hits, even though I’m trying to have our get-away well stocked, we go on rationing from day one. There’s no way to be sure how long given the wave probabilities we’ll have to make it on our own. I think those of us that can stand to lose a few pounds won’t be the least bit hurt by the changes in our diets. One of the bennies of these stocking efforts has been my complete education in the fallicies of our current ‘civilized’ lifestyle. I’ve always known bulk was better, but now I really KNOW it. When I see how much is saved by making a purchase of a 25 or 50 bag of brown rice or beans vs buying little bits at the store I kick myself for years of being a supermarket shopper (a exercise I always loathed, btw). We’d have had resources to be used elsewhere if I’d made this switch years ago. I just wish everyone would take a moment to life their antenna above their crazy busy lives and take the time to get ready for whatever is out there, be it avian flu or something else. It simply feels so much better to be proactive!
anon-re: “My County acknowledges that a severe pandemic will result in 95% of the populace going out seeking food and water within a few days.”
May I ask which county or state- do they have any plans, ideas what to offer people?
Grace RN — I posted last Wednesday about my experiences with catastrophe management post Katrina, and just got back in town today. (I’ll sign this post instead of being anonymous — I’m just shy, to use an old-fashioned word.) But not only did we have severe flood damage to our home, I ended up volunteering at the local Red Cross shelter; working with local mds/rns to get meds to evacuees, etc.; coordinated a private donation quick relief fund from friends around the country who wanted to help.
I have experience in homelessness/mental illness so knew that people can’t tell you what meds they’re on, hence PDR photos. Sometimes it was just the small stuff that could make or break you — For example, I ended up buying multiple pairs of dimestore reading glasses because people lost theirs and needed mine… It was a mess.
I’ve been reading this wiki for a while now, but don’t yet know how you organize posts to keep them tracking, and don’t want to offend anyone by being in the wrong thread. Hence this email directed to you. Let me know where to post.
Well, you did a great job, Practically Speaking!! :)
Thanks, but I really was just a “neighbor” helping others; I had no official status. But you would be surprised how crazy it can get (well, at least I was). It seems that when a catastrophe strikes, we tend to want to see that everyone else is going to cope as well as we do (!?) but in reality, some folks manage and some just panic and collapse. And education level/socioeconomic issues really come into play.
The one thing that I can’t stress enough is that the comforting fantasy that SOMEONE HAS TO BE IN CHARGE HERE just ain’t happening. The churches did the best job of 1:1 relief, but one church would have massive donations of clothing while another had massive donations of food, but different denominations hence no communication. FEMA will not be sending someone to your front door to help you take care of your sick kids. ARC will not be dropping off liquids or meds.
>May I ask which county or state- do they have any plans, ideas what to offer people?
It’s in Virginia, though I don’t want to say the County for fear the Coordinator will be chagrined enough to not allow me to participate in the planning sessions.
They said they can shelter some of the people who cannot make it into hospitals, but it will be a very modest number and for limited duration. They don’t want to sound the alarm, I believe because they feel that is the job of the Feds or State.
Further Preparations: Today, I made the decision to switch over a large portion of the funds in my 401K plan from stocks to fixed income. I have waited to do this until such time that I was convinced we were in higher Phase, which I am. Reasoning is, that is when the SHTF, funds in the fixed income will not fluctuate as stocks will (which could really hit rock bottom for a long time to come). Having more funds in fixed income would enable me to rely on, and draw on, stable, low interest funds. It is certainly not advisable to ever draw off of your 401K, but if may become necessary. There may not be any paycheck coming in. You can still get a decent interest rate in the fixed fund, yet you avoid the risk of the stock market taking a nose dive. Hopefully, when all of this blows over, you can easily switch the funds back into a more aggressive stock fund, depending on the recovery of the market.
Also, now that I am almost complete in my preparations, I am turning my attention to stashing away more cash. Each night, whatever cash we have on hand, I try to put 1/2 of it in a drawer. It adds up.
On a more morbid note, has everyone taken a look at their life insurance policies at work and their Will? It might be a good time to increase your life insurance policy at the office (especially if you have children that depend on you). Having an up-to-date Will is critical at all times…you can go to Staples and buy a computer program for Wills and Testaments. Then all you need to do is go to your bank to have it notarized. I have been the Executor for several relatives and I can tell you from experience that there is a world of difference between having a Will and leaving it up to the State to dispense with your estate. ESPECIALLY where there are kids involved. Do this now - whether you are concerned about the flu or not.
Hope I did not depress all of you. I am a financial professional and these things worry me. We all are taking the necessary steps to make sure we live through this. We need to think about protecting our kids and our assets for the blessed day when this is all a thing of the past.
Just a word of warning about wills. Double check your state’s laws on wills. Sometimes a notarized will is not enough, the will may need to be notarized by a particular state agency or some other hitch.
Also, your state may be predisposed to only accept wills that are in an approved format. Handwritten or personally published wills may be called into question, especially if minor children are involved.
Just double check. Better safe than sorry.
There are Will preparation sites that can help with formats.
There are Will preparation sites that can help with formats.
Janet: With your background as a financial professional do you worry about the longterm viability (and the ability to pay out on demand) of the mutual fund companies? My worry is that with a relatively high Case Fatality Rate (say above 10 per cent) that society in general could reach its breakpoint, and that the financial meltdown would be so severe that it would be a long time or never until you could access those funds. I believe that the last redoubt of financial security would be United States Treasury Bonds and particularly “I” Bonds because of the inflation protection built in. So whether there is hyperinflation or deflation worldwide your capital would be preserved.
And backing the above investments you would have a good supply of cash and a nominal stash of gold and silver for the immediate post-pandemic period or interwave periods. What are your ideas regarding this ultraconservative stance?
And, also, would not the ownership of individual stocks of selected companies that you believe are too crucial to be allowed to fail (as deemed by the United States government) be better than a mutual fund mix.
I read a few posts about some of you who are having a mouse problem. The best trap is a regular old trap. Barbaric, I know, but they work. I use gummyworms to bait them. Works everytime. Use two pieces, one secured to the trap and a small piece lying on top of that one. It takes two nights but the next night when the mouse or rat goes for the treat, SNAP. I had a visitor who came in thru the dog door recently and caught him that way. He was as big as a squirrel. And living under my sink. Needless to say I had the Hubster seal around the dishwasher so another one could’nt get in the cabinet. When that trap started to flop around with Mr. Rat in it, I was so glad that I had never taken off the kiddie locks on the cabinet doors. YIKES>
Found out the oats I bought from the farm supply store still have the hulls on them. Oats with the hulls removed are called oat groats. I can still use the hulled oats to feed to my sheep…
Practically Speaking-so glad you’re back. Consider starting a new thread based on your experiences in NO- we can speculate and plan etc, but you have been there. Your day to day survival, planning ,what worked and what didn’t is what we need to hear. Your background in mental health/homelessness certainly can in handy, I would imagine. Can’t wait to hear more from you.
Collapsible pillow tanks (100–600+ gallons) are an alternative to having several 55 gallon HDPE barrels; http://www.aquaflex.net/ http://interstateproducts.com/pillow_tanks.htm
Collapsible pillow tanks (100–600+ gallons) are an alternative to having several 55 gallon HDPE barrels; http://www.aquaflex.net/ http://interstateproducts.com/pillow_tanks.htm
Don’t think I’ve seen this posted before regarding photovoltaic (PV) suppliers: a state-by-state directory
Also, it’s not well known, but FRS radios (the cheap ones you can get for $30 a pair or so at CVS or Radio Shack can be used to create an ad hoc communications network when regular telecom goes down. The model is DCERN in DC, which now covers the entire District of Columbia and has hopped into the DC and MD suburbs. This is what I blogged about their significance as a model for self-organizing networks.
This has appeal, though a protocol to keep conversations from being stepped on sounds like a need.
I’m studying for my ham license, so that I can communicate with others (and monitor DHS news).
I am bumping this thread to the top for any newcomers, a good one to scan through. Lots of references to sites for prep materials.
Anyone here a ham radio operator? Anyone studying (or planning to start) to be become one?
Former ham.
This website can help with ham radio training http://www.arrl.org/hamradio.html
Ham operator.
There are at least two major ham radio groups that provide emergency communications during disasters (and if the power grid goes out, then all other communications would be out);
- Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) consists of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes. Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization, is eligible for membership in the ARES. http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/pscm/sec1-ch1.html
- The Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) is a public service provided by reserve (volunteer) emergency communications personnel who are certified by a government Emergency Management Agency (EMA) to perform backup communications on amateur radio frequencies. http://www.races.net/
Who has been able to successfully discuss preparation with their neighbors? Has it been a mixed bag (some neighbors preparing, others ignoring0?
I’ve discussed it with my parents who live in our small town, that we live on the outskirts of. They wouMld be the “neighbors” I would share resources with and would take in. My mom is a constant “prepper” always has at least 3 of everything and usually more. I encouraged them to stock up what they could on my dad’s heart meds, Medicare limits to 90 day supply. My “real”neighbors are dairy farmers and we’ve joked several times that I could provide homeschooling help for their kids in exchange for milk for mine. But that hasn’t been in the context of Bird Flu, just in general.
I e-mailed a bird flu fact report out to friends and town committeemen. I “borrowed” from various sources to condense down the info for the busy layman. At the end was the Fluwikie site for the community preparedness page. I believe a large newspaper article that came out a week after I e-mailed to the editors, looked like they utilized the fluwikie info, plus other research. I have spoken to our health dept. and when I have followed up with friends, the results are mixed. Some acted like they didn’t know anything about it, so they didn’t read the e-mail. They probably quickly saw that it was long and not humorous and closed it. Others, it is starting to sink in.
How many others have been contacting there local government with questions or lists of preparations to consider? http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.CommunityPreparedness
We’ve discussed it with a select few. By “select” I don’t mean that we are choosing who we want to survive and who we don’t … I mean “select” as in those few who we think might be responsive.
For others, I’ve just discussed preparedness in general terms, not in light of a hypothetical pandemic. I’ve received better responses than I thought, but don’t see too much prepping going on anyway. Having someone be receptive to an idea and having someone act on an idea aren’t necessarily the same thing.
As long as I’ve planted the seed I’ll count my work done. A person cannot be forced to embrace the idea of preparedness. They have to come into it in their own time and way … sometimes they do it in time, but more often it is as a result of some other experience that they’ve had.
I have contacted local( city ) governments and they say that they will follow the county pandemic plan. The county pandemic plan is nothing to write home about.The guy who helped write it, who was the only one with a clue, has now moved on to greener pastures. So I continue to concentrate my efforts on my employer, our local hospital. Our Infection Control RN and I have made some headway. But I now agree with those here who say some( most? ) will not respond until people start dying. Kelly
Kathy: “As long as I’ve planted the seed I’ll count my work done. “
I started out this way, but have found that news is fertilizer, and if I come back to water from time to time, people have started to put 2 and 2 together, and are now interested. Sometimes people who were very interested have succumbed to everyday hecticness and are glad to touch base again.
Np1: “I have contacted local( city ) governments and they say that they will follow the county pandemic plan.”
What does the county plan do besides coordinate vaccines and the like? Anything to do with food, water, and electrical utility coordination? Augmented law enforcement ranks (i.e., retired police, security companies, etc)? Any recommendations for citizens?
In my small town, the officials are volunteers, who have other careers. The mayor receives a small stipend of $3,000. and works full-time, an hour out-of-town. The town committee volunteers, I am one, wear many hats,ie: Land Use Com., Environmental Com., Founders Day Com, election and poll workers,etc. I run into the woman who is our Health Dept. at many events that we do together. We just ran a free rabies vaccination for the town. However, she is really a Real Estate agent who is volunteering just make contacts because she has houses on her brain. There’s not much these people can really do, for community preparation.
NJ Preppie -
What is the county plan? How does it stack up against our list? http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.CommunityPreparedness
Will: Our county plan is mostly a “plan to plan”. It does not deal with any of the things you mentioned. The boilerplate for it was the federally financed bioterrorism plan. They just plugged items into it. No list of people who might need food at home,no backup medical or emergency. We will get help from surrounding areas, of course. We are a very rural county in northeastern Arizona.We have just begun to prepare at our hospital, and I don’t think it will go very far because it will take money. They do not percive that this is enough of a threat to spend money on. So I will work as long as I safely can and then go home. Kelly
Our local public health MD writes a monthly column in our local paper. After her last column 2 weeks ago, I emailed her through the county website and suggested BF info/preparation as a topic. She wrote back that she is planning one for April, right before the Governor’s Flu Conference (we’re a state capitol)
Was pleased to find her open and already planning the piece. I also suggested they post their plan on the county website, but no answer on that, which makes me think it’s not completed…
But it’s a start.
At least your community is thinking about it. Mine is still “Wha??”
Does anyone know what mask is best ? everyone says n95 but there are so many options! not sure if I will pursue the prepping yet it all seems very y2k in some ways…
Our County Health Director has flat out stated that the plan will NOT cover aspects of a severe pandemic. He realizes that hospitals would be overrun, grocery stores wiped out and closed, likely water service interruptions, etc. He did mention housing SOME people for a short duration, but I assume that will be special needs patients.
And this is from a very high per capita income county…
Not that I understand more than half the soundbites coming out of our county and city government these days, but from what I do understand basically they are saying that everyone in FL should be preparing similarly to how they prepare for hurricane season, except for a possible longer time.
I mean that’s good, putting it together with something individuals and communities should be doing anyway on a regular basis, but unless they include it with their media bombardment that normally precedes hurricane season, it may not sink in.
I include frugal living and survival skills as part of our homeschool program and general lifestyle … we camp a lot as a family as well. But I wish they would include this stuff more in mainstream classroom settings. If they can have classes on daily living skills, why not include skills for frugal living and survival situations? They cover things they don’t feel kids are getting at home, so why not this?
Kathy in FL- If you homeschool, or for even of those that don’t, but want your kids exposed to a more “survivalist” genre, without going overboard, might I suggest a book written for “boys” (I would have loved to have had it when I was a kid though as I was quite the Tomboy) in 1883, republished in 1983. It is called “The American Boys Handy Book.” I know Borders has it and I actually bought it for my 16 year old son very recently. It has lots of fun things to learn, but teaches a lot of self sufficiency stuff without appearing so. You might want to check it out. :)
Thanks for the reading suggestion Snowhound. My son … a boy scout … would probably love it. All the kids accept the 2 year are are scouts. We do a lot of family camping and are kids are pretty well equipped for their ages/levels.
We do homeschool, so I’m pretty free about what I can use as a educational resource. I may get the book and then write a review of it for some local newsletters and who knows … it might spark an unexpected interest by other families.
Wow … shot my grammar in the last post. The two year old was trying to tinker with the keyboard as I was typing and I didn’t read it before I hit “post.” Oops. And here I was talking about home education. <sigh>
Kathy in FL: “I include frugal living and survival skills as part of our homeschool program and general lifestyle … we camp a lot as a family as well.”
Let’s talk about those skills, starting with cooking, using; - cookstove : Temperature easily adjustable - ‘campfire’: Could also be a woodstove - solar oven: Good way to avoid fuel use, though slower and only on sunny days
www.solarcooking.org
The latter 2 or more challenging; I’ve built a solar cooker and had limited success in late December, though spring, summer, and fall were more straightforward. The key is knowing when something is done, and how to alter a recipe to account for the sometimes lower temperature.
Ham Operator
Reformatted
Let’s talk about those skills, starting with cooking, using;
The latter 2 or more challenging; I’ve built a solar cooker and had limited success in late December, though spring, summer, and fall were more straightforward. The key is knowing when something is done, and how to alter a recipe to account for the sometimes lower temperature.
food storage nut: Are you Technician or General? Are you thinking about becoming (if not now) involved in RACES or ARES? Any plans on who you would seek to talk to during a pandemic wave?
Kathy in FL: There are some books you might like on the Lehman’s site; old-time classroom and schoolyard games. I still have fond memories of recess!
Thanks Swann, I’ll take a look. Already have a lot of stuff in that direction but it never hurts to keep up-to-date (so to speak) with other options.
Will, I’ve got a ton of good Dutch Oven recipes if you want them. Not all of them use pantry-only type ingredients. What I mean is some of them use fresh ingredients and meats, but they would probably be convertible quite easily.
I’ve done a lot of both campstove and campfire cooking as well as box ovens, vagabond stoves, and the like. But the closest that I’ve ever come to solar cooking is the sun tea I make on the porch a couple of times a week. <grin>
It is an area that is of interest to me, but a couple of folks have told me the humidity in Florida makes solar cooking not as attractive as you would think. I haven’t had the time to investigate it for myself though.
Kathy in FL: I have a ton of foodstuffs but just realised i might be scratching my head for ideas to make things when i run out of fresh ingredients. If you can point my in the direction of where you got some of your recipes i’d be very grateful
Kathy in FL: Go ahead and post the recipes. We will likely want to put them in a Recipes page at some point.
Sandi and Will, the Pantry-Only Item Recipe thread is http://tinyurl.com/fo4zb
I add a couple of recipes to it every day or so depending on my time. I’m not the only one that has posted there so I can’t take all the credit.
In the next day or so I’ll post some of the dutch oven recipe index links that I have a swell as some that I’ve used personally.
If you are planning on using a cookstove (e.g., Coleman is one brand) as part of your redundancy plan for cooking alternatives, you might also want to look at the little folding oven that fits over such stoves. I use one when we go camping and make biscuits, cakes, muffins, casseroles, etc. Now it isn’t real big … fits like a 8″ x 8″ or 9″ x 9″ baking pan but it does work. Works really great to tell you the truth once you get used to watching the temp gauge on the front and learning when to turn something lower or higher to make sure it bakes through. Though it really isn’t much different form an oven. It is a folding model so it takes up little room.
Kathy in FL---just down loaded the program for food storage that is fee—it is great just what I wanted say thanks a lot. By the way I grew up in FL.
Will
I am a general, but it has been 10 years since I have done any ham stuff. I have renewed by license and am trying to get back into it. Our LDS canneries have ham radios so I would probably talk to them. There are also LDS ham nets.
How many have completed their plans, to include food, water, heat, cooking, communications, and safety?
How many are at least halfway to the completion of those plans?
Will - I don’t think anyone’s plans will ever be fully complete, but in my case, you could lock the door on me now and we’d make a go of it. I’d be irate at the items yet un-acquired and the things yet undone, but we’d make it for a while.
I’m probably 90% of the way there, and will also be able to make it through an extended pandemic. The few items I have left remaining are in the “Nice to Have” category, like stacks of used books, etc.
Google “murder in the medicine cabinet” for an interesting take on the 1918 pandemic involving aspirin.
What an interestin site! You guys are really good. I had a really really bad mouse infestation a couple of years ago and found out that expandable foam works extremely well. I went all over the house and cleaned and cleaned and foamed every crack and spot that pipes or wires enter the premises, and have had no problems in almost 3 years.
Can’t figure out where to post this concern, so here goes on the Prep Site:
I’ve been considering the concept of distancing. Since we can transmit the disease before we have symptoms, we model distancing behavior and teach our kids to do the same. So the kids have to quit rolling around the floor on top of each other, and we don’t yell in each other’s faces. But what about hugs? and sitting in laps while reading? What about sharing beds and snuggling up when frightened? Should parents consider sleeping apart? What if one gives the flu to the other, and the kids are left with two sick parents to care for, or worse?
When I was growing up, during a particularly hard time, we had 3 - 4 families under one roof. Lots of diapers. We ironed sheets, pillowcases, and dishtowels. Took great pains to sterilize diapers (no plastic, then!) and towels and washcloths. Everybody helped, even the toddlers “helped” to fold the washcloths, after making sure they had washed their hands and were “clean all over.” Even tho we were very crowded, and the kids went to school and back, and the adults went to work and back, no one got sick. We came home from work or school, and immediately changed into “play” clothes. Seems like the moms made us wash hands every time we turned around, and dishes were scalded with boiling water. Etc., etc., etc. These preparations are in many ways like just going back to the old days for me.
When we lived with no amenities, instead of an outhouse, I dug a trench about 18″ deep, in a big circle about 15 feet in diameter. For the little ones, we had a portable potty chair that straddled the trench without the bucket. There was a shovel nearby, and each time the trench was used, the chair was moved along, and the trench filled. Suddenly, we had a big crowd upon us, and we just kept using the trench. But even though it took only a few weeks to completely fill in the trench, by the time we went full circle once, the starting spot had completely turned to soil. No smell, even. Maybe someone has some data on how this works, and exactly how deep, how much time it takes, whether to use slaked lime, wood ashes (lye), bleach, or fire, or not, depending on outdoor temperatures. In any case, it’s a lot easier and healthier than an outhouse. For long term, plants with broad leaves could be planted nearby. The center of the circle could be made lower, so that drainage/seepage would flow predictably, to be avoided or dealt with or whatever. Even my elderly relatives had no trouble using this method, although I would suggest an adult-sized chair with hole in it would be helpful for those who will get sick or weak, and for older children, for whom the strange experience might otherwise cause constipation. During the rainy season, we used the buddy system with an umbrella, because the site was surrounded by trees and scrub for privacy. But a small outhouse-sized tent of sorts could be made of tarps and poles which could be moved along the trench with the chair. Or, my 5-yr. old’s suggestion at the time: build a trellis and plant nice-smelling flowers with big leaves! And put a tarp over the top and windward sides. The beauty of the trench method is that women and small kids can do it, thereby relieving the big and strong types of one more task, so they can haul water or chop wood or whatever.
Forgot to mention: Don’t forget candles. Save your batteries as long as possible. I once made candles using parafin and about a peck of ruined candles I found in a surplus/junk store, with kite string for wicks, and toilet paper cores for forms. Also, I use metal trash cans for storage of dry goods and stuff in plastic containers like honey. The rodents will not be able to get into the cans. Even if you have to keep them outdoors, a heavy duty rubber bungee strap will keep out scavenging critters. But to keep the tiny bugs out, like ants and small moths, make a wax seal by rubbing or dripping melting candle was alone the top edge, then pressing the lid onto the soft wax. this means planning trips to the cans, but is an easy and inexpensive way to cope with the bug problem. In a pinch, melted parafin can be “painted” over a cardboard or paper container with a basting brush to make it airtight and keep bugs out as well. Coffee and juice cans can be covered with plastic lids or plastic or paper anchored with rubber bands and then painted over or dipped in parafin—we used to make jelly and use parafin to cover the containers. They kept very well under 80 degrees F. Just remember you’re working with an extremely flamable substance. Use a double boiler and common caution.
Also, wooden matches can be waterproofed and made safer for storage by dipping the heads in parafin.
Some kids came up with a question about vitamin C and scurvy, considering the long term. How long did those sailors of old go without the C before they succumbed, and what are the symptoms? Hope someone can provide this info.
I plan to plant some Rosa Rugosa bushes and collect the hips—this is a lot easier than preserving oranges and lemons, assuming there will even be a source, plus blackberries are wild here, and the leaves and roots are a source for tea, as well as the berries…but somewhat difficult to collect and store.
Scurvy takes a few weeks to develop.
I came across 1910 Grub Stake list of food supplies for one gold miner for 6 months.
1 50# bag white flour 1 25# bag white flour 1 20# bag oatmeal 1 10# bag corn meal 1 10# bag whole wheat flour 1 10# bag buckwheat flour 1 canned ham 1 25# bag sugar 10# brown sugar (for syrup) 25# dried beans 6# coffee 4# rice 3 cans baking powder 1/2 case canned milk matches dried fruit lard 10# salt
A few miners could get their sponsors to throw in a couple of bottles of whisky.
TT in Ada OK – at 06:08
Take care of scurvy by having real lemon juice on hand and make lemonade. It really doesn’t take much Vitamin C to keep away scurvy.
A good quality multivitamin should be in your supplies. Scurvey will not be an issue as long as you get your “one-a-day”. I have a selection of instant drink mixes that also supply vitamin c.
I’ve read that violet and ground ivy have vitamin C, also rose hips. (But one site says “parts of the ground ivy plant are poisonous if ingested” although others don’t mention it). And I deliberately let it grow in 1999, just in case Y2K was terrible. (it’s an awful weed,imo)
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/2733/index.html
Also on another site someone said “crystalline vitamin C” lasts longer than regular vit. C. (At Wild Oats the salesman said that what I wanted was ester-C.)
Red peppers, maybe dried chilis too, have vitamin C. Tomato juice and V-8 too. I don’t know how sailors kept limes on voyages because mine don’t last in the refrigerator.
I am soooooo jealous when I read how Fluwikian preppers in the US and Canada can go to superstores and buy whatever they need, in bulk and cheap. I am struggling with about everything here in South Asia.
Question: purified drinking water is sold in PET plastic bottles of 1 liter (one quart). There is an expiry date of one year on those bottles. That is a legal requirement. Is it also a real expiry date ? I am purchasing these bottles in bulk as an extra stash of drinking water. Our normal drinking water comes in five gallon jars that fit on a dispenser with a tap. We now have six of those jars in constant use.
Bumped to keep it from being closed for high traffic efficiency
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Thread closed for length. New thread here.