Where Do I Start?

So you’re looking around at the state of things and thinking, “Man, I ought to do something.” You’ve heard about preparing, and you’ve heard a bit about survivalists and what they do in order to be ready for big and little problems alike, but you have no idea of where to start. You don’t have much free time or extra cash, but you know that things are only getting worse; so now you start to panic because you think that it’s already too late, or that you can’t possibly reach the long-term goals of having more than a year’s worth of preparations put away, or some other such thing.

First, relax and take a few deep breaths. Prepping isn’t something that you decide to start today and finish tomorrow afternoon; it takes time even if you have millions of dollars to invest in it. There are many different aspects of prepping because we humans are complex creations with many needs, preferences, and options – but don’t let that worry you.

Sit down and make a list. I don’t care how you do this because we’re all different; I like using Excel, but you might prefer a pen and paper or a smartphone or some other thing. It doesn’t matter because the point is to start making some lists, as they help you focus and figure out what to do and when.

I started by listing the different things that my family and I have to have for survival. We really need food, water, clothing, and shelter; the rest can go bye-bye and we’ll continue breathing, though we might not be quite as happy as we are with our electricity, Internet access, cell phones, restaurants, TV dinners, and other such crap.

Next, I started a new list for each category. Shelter, for example, includes things like climate control (to a degree, anyway – you don’t want to freeze or die of heatstroke) and safety, along with pest control and a few other things.

Eventually, the lists became more detailed. I added a new category, skills, because I like being independent and self sufficient. Knitting is a skill, for example, that I started acquiring a couple-few years ago. This year, I’m knitting scarves for peoples’ Christmas presents because I’m basically broke – and these suckers are useful even in my part of Texas because we do have cold wind and it does make a person miserable.

Then, at some point, you start fulfilling the lists. I like to keep a list of things we need that are likely to turn up at flea markets, as I enjoy browsing the local ones anyway. We do weekly grocery shopping that’s a combination of replenishing what we’ve used and stockpiling some extras – what we put into the stockpile depends partly on what’s most important, but also on what’s on sale this week.

Set short- and long-term goals for yourself, including daily goals, and work on them as best you can. It’s fulfilling to be able to cross things off a list every day, whether they’re big things like, “learn to make laundry soap,” or little things like, “order book from Amazon today.” As you keep doing things, you’ll get a better idea of what you can accomplish every day/week/month and adjust the lists accordingly.

And you’ll have some bad days mixed in with the good ones. Don’t worry about that, though – just keep going. Stockpiling, prepping, survivalism…none of ‘em have specific instructions. The general idea is to be ready for trouble and have a way to deal with it not if, but when, it comes. That means different things to different people so, as long as you’re moving in the right direction, don’t let the incidentals bother you too much.

One of the more-common sentiments I’ve heard lately is, “I’m running out of time.” People say that about everything from investing for retirement to getting to work on time today, but it applies to this prepping bit, too. Maybe you’re worried that it’s too late to even bother starting, but put the smackdown on that line of thought. Even if things go to hell one week from today, you’ve spent a week doing something constructive. That buys you a week to survive while you work on longer-term plans. It’s better than nothing and it beats the hell out of being one of the people who won’t give any of this even passing thought until after the trouble comes.

The final thought of the day: Buy one, store one, give one away. Prepping isn’t only about me; it’s about my family and the people in my community. While I’m not about to feed everyone, I have friends and neighbors who might be able to use a little help. One of the dangers of prepping or survivalism is the desire to focus too much on ourselves, which is kind of a crappy way to live life.

Watson the Wonder Dog

I’m getting another stinking migraine, so please bear with me today, folks. School’s been stressing me right out, so I’ve been getting these skull bangers over the last couple of weeks. And I thought that the month before graduation was supposed to be a little easier than this. Hah!

Let’s talk about dog training today, mmkay? Mom just adopted a Rottweiler from a local drunk who was starving the poor puppy – seems that the dog growled at the drunk’s illegitimate offspring when it got too close to the food dish. Anyway…Mom’s happy because she got to save a dog from a piece of garbage, and the dog’s happy because he actually sees a food dish every day.

Anyway…the dog’s only about six months old, but that’s more than old enough for basic training. Mom’s been working with the little guy (who isn’t, by the way, so little) for a few hours every day (interspersed throughout the day, that is). He’s quickly learning his name (“Watson”), as well as commands like “come” and “sit.” Watson genuinely wants to please Mom, which is a big help because he wants to hear “Good boy! Oh, good boy, Watson. You sit so well.”

If you keep in mind that your dog probably wants to make you happy, then basic obedience training is not usually too difficult. Your main challenge lies in communicating your desires to the dog so that he can associate your commands – verbal, visual, whatever – with the appropriate response.

Here’s how Mom trains her canine pals. More often than not, the training works well and takes only a few weeks to really kick in. Remember, though, that I’m talking only of basic, obedience training: none of us are experts at raising proper guard dogs or other, such things.

Teaching the dog his name
Just keep saying the dog’s name over and over when you speak to him. Use the name as punctuation, in fact, so that the dog hears it plenty of times. Soon enough, he’ll figure out that he’s “Watson,” or “Fido,” or whatever, and will start looking your way when you say it in the future.

Example:

“Hey, Watson. You’re a good boy, Watson – such a good Watson. Do you like your new food dish, Watson? Oh, yes, Watson likes the dish. Good boy, Watson.”

Yes, that’s annoying as crap, even to type out. But it works. Watson already turns around to look at us about twenty-five percent of the time when we say “Watson,” and he’s been here for only a few days…and we didn’t name him, officially, until last night.

Coming when called
If the dog receives some kind of reward every time he comes to you, he’s going to come when you call him. Watson gets petted sometimes and told that he’s a very good boy. Other times, he gets a piece of a doggy biscuit. When he finally decides to pick out a toy of his very own (so far, he isn’t into any of the ones that we’ve offered him), we’ll also use that: if you call the dog’s name while waving the toy around or making it squeak or whatever, the dog will usually respond.

Even after the dog’s very good at coming every time he’s called, you should still reward him. No, you don’t have to give him a doggy biscuit every time he comes from now until his death, but petting or “Good boy – such a good Watson” aren’t bad ideas…maintaining the training and all that.

Sitting
Mom doesn’t push down on the dog’s back end to show him what she wants: instead, she makes him do the sitting, then rewards him.

She starts by taking a piece of a doggy treat in one hand and making the visual sign for “sit.” While she does this, she gives the command: “Watson, sit.” As she speaks, she slowly moves the hand with the treat up and over the dog’s head: Watson sits down, naturally, because he’s trying to keep the treat in sight.

As soon as his butt touches the floor, he gets the treat and a litany of, “Good Watson – you sit so well. Watson knows how to sit, doesn’t he? Good sit, Watson.”

Again: annoying, but effective.

Those are just the things that Watson’s already learning. Unfortunately, the drunk didn’t do much with the poor dog, so Watson doesn’t know a lot. He’s not even housebroken, I’m sorry to say, but we’re working on that as well as the commands.

It’s important to train your dog because you are then in control of the situation. If he knows that you’re in charge, and if he knows what to do when you give commands, then both of you are happier. He gets to please you, and you don’t have to worry about a disobedient, reckless dog tearing through the house or neighborhood.

Ultimately, Mom’s thinking that Watson will make a good travel buddy when she leaves the house. Before she can find out for sure if Watson’s suited for that kind of thing, though, she has to get through the basic training. Even if Watson ends up being another lump on the living-room floor (like most of our other dogs), at least he’ll be a well-trained lump.

Thoughts for the Week

Well, howdy, folks. This entry’s later than usual because my class schedule got switched around this semester. I’m at school on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I’m a little behind today – sorry about that!

So…here are my thoughts for the week. They’re a little disorganized because school’s been insane so far, but I’ll do my very best to get back on track as soon as possible.

A good holster makes concealed carry more comfortable…and easier. You don’t have to spend tons of cash on a good holster, either: mine was only eighty bucks, including shipping, which is downright cheap when you look at how much some of the other holsters out there cost. Mine’s custom molded to my firearm’s model, too, which is a huge plus when it comes to retention.

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Be sure to actually wear the clothes that you’re going to put away for the future…or stash in your bug-out or get-home bag. I say that because I just bought two dozen pairs of socks at Payless – they had a “buy one, get one half off” sale, so I figured that I might as well stock up.

The socks turned out to be total crap. I’ve worn only twelve pairs so far, but two of them have very-weak stitching around the toes. In other words, I have holey socks, and I’ve worn the suckers only once. This is the first time that I’ve ever had new socks fizzle on me…weird. Fortunately, I noticed the problem, and will be replacing the pair of unworn ones from my get-home bag – because, frankly, they could be a bigger pain to me than they’re worth if I ever need them in a crisis.

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Mom received her order from Puritan.com today – a crapload of D3, along with a few other things that she wanted. Because this order showed up so quickly, and was exactly what Mom wanted, I’m giving the Web site both thumbs up. If you’re looking to stock up on something like D3, give this site a look: they’re currently having a fantastic sale.

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Have you checked out AllRecipes.com yet? I have no affiliation with the site whatsoever – I just use it to find new recipes. It’s free, easy to use, and even lets you search by ingredients (things that you want as well as things that you don’t). If you’re stockpiling staples, which you probably are, it’s a good idea to have a variety of recipes that use these things. Trust me…you want a somewhat-diverse menu.

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Unfortunately, I have to get busy with homework if I want to pass this semester and, you know, graduate. I’ve spent too much time in school to fail now, so I’m off to study. In the meantime, I leave you with a thought about the future:

When things go wrong, pretty much everyone will rush to the stores to grab all sorts of stuff that they just realized they’re going to need. This is why we have extra food on hand, but what about the little things? Mom and I were talking yesterday, while we were hanging clothes on the line, when one of us said, “You know…it would suck if we couldn’t buy more clothespins.”

The other agreed, and said that getting a few extra packs would be a good idea – just in case. Even though we bring in our (wooden) clothespins at the end of the day, the things still wear out and break. They aren’t made of the best materials, unfortunately.

So…this week, my family is focusing on the “little things” that we regularly use: stuff that we might overlook when we stockpile. Perhaps, this week, you can join us? Keep a small notepad on you and write down everything that you use – especially small things like clothespins, or the eyeglass-repair kit. Even if you use this stuff only once or twice a year, it would still suck to have only one, right? Right. Maybe this week of observing and list making will help us all figure out how to be better prepared in the future.

Books and Your Survival Stash

One of my favorite television shows has to be “The Twilight Zone.” I’m talking about the old, black-and-white version, with Rod Serling’s pithy commentary and the actors’ horrible dialogue. (I mean, really. Could they be any more obvious about having the characters discuss information that they should already know, simply for the sake of bringing us into the story? I think not.)

That was a fantastic TV show despite my criticism. My favorite episode: “Time Enough at Last,” from the first season. (By the way: You can watch the episode online here. If you’d like to see the show for yourself, go ahead and go now, because I’m about to spoil a 40-year-old TV program.)

In case you aren’t a “Twilight Zone” fan, here’s the basic gist of that episode: a lonely, bookworm type of guy works at a bank. His psycho hose beast of a wife disapproves of his reading, even going so far as to destroy his books (what an oxygen thief). Because the bookworm dude can’t chill out and read at home, he sneaks in as much as he can at work.

While he’s in the vault, reading during his lunch break, nuclear Armageddon destroys, well, pretty much everything. He pops up, sees the devastation, and considers offing himself – but then, hope appears in the form of a library. FINALLY, he’ll have enough time to read, which is the only thing that he really cares about doing. The poor guy’s spent his whole married life being nagged and ridiculed about having his nose between some pages, but now the world’s literature is all his! Yes!

Oh, stop asking questions about nuclear fallout, hot zones, radiation poisoning, and all that other sensible stuff. The man’s going to get to READ! That’s all that matters! Suspend your disbelief and rejoice in the fact that this character can now enjoy the finest literature ever printed and bound.

Oh. Wait. Things can’t be that easy. Because this is “The Twilight Zone,” not “You Get What You Want in This Crazy, Fantasy Land,” Mr. Bookworm’s mind-bogglingly-thick glasses slide off of his face and break – just when he’s ready to settle in and get down to the business of enjoying his books for the rest of his life, naturally. Yeah, that’s the ultimate, “NOOOO!” moment as far as I’m concerned. I happen to wear glasses, and I happen to prefer reading over interacting with most people, so I definitely sympathize with the dude.

Even though I try not to let television teach me anything – honestly, I can come up with far better sources of info than the boob tube – the story makes a few excellent points despite my nagging thought that the dude won’t have to worry about his broken glasses after the radiation gets to him.

The obvious lesson here, of course, is that backup eyewear is fairly important. Right now, I have only one pair of glasses – that, however, is changing later this month, when I go to the optometrist for the first visit in two years. You would think that I would have acquired two pairs of glasses the last time I was there, but I was paying 100 percent out of pocket (no insurance at the time), and we don’t have one of those “Buy one, get one free” lens centers in our area. I just couldn’t afford a backup pair, as much as I wanted to be prepared. Now, though, I’m looking into contacts, because glasses just suck. (I’ll still have a pair for backup, though.)

However, all the glasses and contact lenses on this planet don’t help me if I don’t have anything to read. There are buttloads of books here at The Homestead. We have all sorts of paperbacks and hardbacks around here because Mom and I love the written word so much. Even Dad, who would rather chop off his big toes than read, has a small collection on his shelf. We have how-to books about gardening; some dusty romance novels that nobody actually likes, but came in bulk-buy deals from library sales and other sources; creative nonfiction (because that’s what I most enjoy writing); quite a few genre novels; some awesome short-story anthologies; books about baseball; books about poker…the list goes on and on.

We also have a fairly-large collection of Bible-study-related books: commentaries, study guides, sermon notes, that sort of thing. These are the most-important books to most of us, and have their own bookcase in the living room.

Books help pass the time. They teach or remind you how to do all sorts of things, including survival-related skills. You can escape the cruddy situation that the world is currently in, if only for a few hours, or make new friends when you meet fascinating, though fictional, characters. If you love books, and if you love reading, then you know what I mean.

If you’re a reader, then you probably have a decent-sized library. I’d definitely continue adding to the shelves, because reading is an easy, leisurely pursuit. Even if you’re sitting in your house, without power, waiting for the swine flu (or some other huge problem) to pass, you can still read. You can read to your family, which is a fine way to spend quality time together. You can lie in bed and read during a rainstorm. You can get into your hammock, under the trees, and read when there’s no air conditioning and it’s 100 degrees in your house.

But if you aren’t big on reading, you can still gain something from books. I don’t know if they’ll make good barter items, but I wouldn’t be surprised if folks like me will trade with you for some cheap paperbacks – even novels that don’t offer so much as one small piece of information related to surviving a world-gone-crazy type of scenario.

I’m also thinking about survival. The Internet, computer, or power can go out at any time without much (if any) warning. If you have hard copies of vital information, whether they’re printed versions of Web sites or “proper” books, you don’t have to worry about remembering everything that you’ve read about this sort of thing. You have the leisure of going back and looking up information about repairing your car, or distilling water, or whatever it is that you need to know.

Speaking of survival literature and printouts: a lot of owner’s manuals are now in CD-ROM format. That does me no good if my computer isn’t working for whatever reason. Check all of the gear that you’re going to need for survival: if the owner’s manual isn’t a hard copy, make it happen. You’re going to want easy access to that information if something goes wrong, after all.

You might, in fact, become a bit of a reader if you’re stuck at home, waiting for the all clear so that you can try to get back to your normal life. When you don’t have the usual activities to pass the time, you might find that a good book is all the companion that you need during the tough times.

Ingenuity – Sometimes Funny, Sometimes Not

I just found a site called ThereIFixedIt.com – a photo blog that shows us various peoples’ sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-brilliant attempts to fix problems.

This site is good for a laugh, sure. And some people are going to sit there and think, “Wow, these people are pathetic.” I’m going to have to disagree, at least in some cases. When it comes to survival, ingenuity is one of our most-powerful tools. If we can think creatively, and if we can put these thoughts to use, we can come up with some pretty-good ways to make things work.

Here are a few of my favorite entries from said blog:

I like this idea because it's fairly inexpensive, relatively quick, and seems to be effective. If you can't get your hands on another water heater, or the parts to fix the old one, an old tea kettle or other appliance with a heating element could be useful. Yes, there are other ways to do things, but this is pretty slick for the circumstances.

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This, to be honest, makes me cringe. I know that the power strips are supposed to have ground-fault interrupts to prevent you from being electrocuted. But still...don't fart around with the juice, folks. I like the creativity here, but there are better, safer ways to go about doing things.

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Duct tape and a zip tie can, apparently, become a spoon if you're creative. I don't know how the food would taste - never had any occasion to lick duct tape to answer that question - but I like the fact that this person is thinking.

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This one is insanely obvious, but still worth a mention. I've heard people complain before because, during snowstorms like this, their food went bad. Why? Because they left it in the dead refrigerator or freezer. It never occurred to them to take out the food and stick it in the nearest snowbank, or on the porch or something.

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I don't know if the ability to think creatively - to come up with things like the stuff on There, I Fixed It - is innate or learned. Maybe it's a little of both. Regardless, we can all at least try to look for workable solutions. And, because we're part of a blogging community, we can share our ideas with others and, hopefully, learn from them as well.

Natural Pest Repellents; Critter Identification

Side note: I like Blogger’s post schedule / auto publish feature more and more every week. If you read this entry shortly after it’s published, I’ll be at my chiropractor’s office while you see what’s on my mind this week. How cool is that? Okay. So maybe I’m overly fascinated with little things. Still, you have to admit that this is a neat feature.

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Last night at Bible study, I caught movement in my peripheral vision – on the wall behind me (the movement was to my right, not directly behind me, of course). I glanced over and saw a small, black spider with a giant, red hourglass pattern. So, of course, I got up and smashed her flat with my notebook, then cleaned up everything. Did you know that, when you smash a black widow against an off-white wall, you can see orange, slimy goop? Me neither. Sorry, but black widows don’t get to live if I come across them; they might not be able to kill me, but they can make me miserable, so off they go.

Now, had my little visitor been a jumping spider, which are very common here, I would have let it be. Jumping spiders aren’t normally dangerous to humans (unless, of course, you have bad reactions to spider bites in general), and they love to catch flies and other nuisances. I also like pretty much every other non-poisonous spider that lurks around here, because many of them are useful to me without being a real threat. The giant garden spiders that make webs all over the place around The Homestead might look scary, what with being really large and all, but they’re harmless as long as I don’t do something to provoke them. (And even if I do tick one off, it’s not capable of killing me, or even putting me in the hospital.)

Fortunately, we live in a part of Texas that has hedge apples, which are also known as horse apples, crab apples, et cetera. They’re excellent, natural repellents, and they don’t smell bad when they’re fairly fresh. I fully intend to grab several and pitch them under the storage building that the black widows are occupying up at the church – I just have to remember to do it, that’s all. (Really, I ought to do a better job of making to-do lists.)

You should, by the way, be aware that hedge apples and livestock don’t necessarily mix well. If one of these suckers gets lodged in an esophagus, you’re going to have some problems.

The hedge apples can also repel German cockroaches, which is great news if you’re looking to avoid those nasty chemicals. Catnip can also do this to the roaches, and the added bonus is that some cats really dig the stuff. If you’re concerned, even a little bit, about roaches wrecking your food stash, I’d look into these two natural repellents. They won’t cost you much, if anything, and you don’t have to do much to get them in place and working, so why not give it a try, right?

I’m just not a big fan of pesticides, folks. Even though some of them do work – and very well, I might add – they don’t discriminate. You’re essentially carpet bombing the area, killing off even beneficial critters. I’m not going to curl up and cry if a ladybug gets creamed or anything like that, but I don’t want to go out of my way to nuke creatures that could be useful to me. As long as I’m not risking my own health or safety in any serious way, I’m going to be kind of selfish by encouraging the non-poisonous creatures to hang out around my house. Nature does a lot of the dirty work for me, from killing mosquitoes to eating rats and other vermin.

Besides: chemicals cost money. Even if you buy over-the-counter stuff, versus hiring an exterminator, you’re still going to have to open your wallet. A lot of the organic pest-control ideas that we use here at The Homestead are either cheap or free. The hedge apples are free, for example. Catnip seeds don’t cost much, and our cats love the stuff, so it’s worth the small investment for more than one reason. Marigold seeds (these flowers are great to plant around your garden – they keep some bugs at bay) are a lot cheaper than even one gallon of pesticide, too.

There are tons of other pest-control ideas out there, too. Try using Google to search for natural ideas for specific problems. When I, for example, search for “black widow repellent,” I get information about hedge apples, among other things. You might have to go through some “Buy our super-awesome pesticide!” types of Web sites to find what you really want, but you can get more-precise results by adding “natural” or “organic” to the beginning of your search query.

Just remember that it’s important to know how various creatures can harm you, if they can do anything to you at all. Find out, for example, what kinds of spiders you have in your area, and which ones are poisonous to you. Do the same thing for snakes, and even plants, because a little reading and Internet searching could reveal a lot of useful knowledge.

Good sources of information include wildlife guides; universities in your area; and county extension services. I like getting online to do most of my research, because it’s quick and free. However, I’d print out information that you find on the Internet, just in case you need access to it if the power’s out or the computer’s gone nutty.

Useful Links:

Iowa State University's page about catnip and other such things - http://www.ent.iastate.edu/dept/research/tox/catnip.html

Iowa State University's page about hedge apples - http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1997/10-10-1997/hedgeapple.html

A site that sells hedge apples, but also includes interesting information - http://hedgeapple.com/

A Variety of Food

It’s really important to store what you eat – as survivalists/preppers keep saying over and over – because you’re going to want something that’s familiar to you when everything else is falling apart. Just don’t get too comfortable with only two or three foods, because that’s going to end up making life very, very difficult in the end.

Trust me: having six hundred pounds of rice might seem like a great idea right now, but unless that’s all you eat in your everyday life, you’re going to need some variety. Stockpile different kinds of rice, for starters: white rice is good for some things, but brown or wild rice is better for others. If you have that variety, you can make more kinds of meals, and that’ll keep everyone a little happier.

There should be a variety of food in the stockpile: that way, you and your family won’t get bored and cranky when you’re eating the same old boiled, white rice for the fifteenth day in a row. And don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ll all be grateful that you have SOMETHING, even if it IS crappy old white rice, because that’s not what’s going to happen. Personal experience taught me that, after you eat the exact-same food enough times in a row, your body starts to reject it. It’s tough to gag down white rice, even if that used to be one of your very-favorite foods, after you’ve eaten it for too long. You get to the point where you just don’t bother eating anything, and that’s not a good situation at all.

We stockpile all sorts of food…after learning that crappy little lesson, that is. Along with the rice that I just mentioned, we stock up on beans, pastas, and vegetables, along with some snacks here and there. There are tons of foods out there that are easy to store, and can be prepared without electricity or other modern conveniences. You don’t have to have a working refrigerator or freezer, either, if you’re stocking up on things like peanut butter and canned vegetables.

Get a good variety of foods, and pay careful attention to ingredients that make lots of different meals. If, for example, you have plenty of flour on hand, you can use that in everything from pepper gravy to a cake. If you get your hands on some powdered milk, you can use that for all sorts of things, too. Beans can be very flexible, too.

Also, don’t forget the comfort food. I’m not saying that it’s a good idea to forego nutritious food in favor of stockpiling candy bars, or some nonsense like that. It is, however, a good idea to have some of the comfort stuff on hand. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference a few bites of chocolate will make. Yeah, I know: that’s going to be one of the last things on your mind when the world’s gone crazy, right? Well…no, actually. Even though I don’t turn to food first for comfort, a few of my very-favorite foods make me feel better, and I really enjoy them when life’s insane. There have been times when tiny things, like a Little Debbie snack cake, have made a huge difference in my outlook.

Let’s not forget beverages when we’re talking about variety, either. Water is vital to our continued existence, yes, but it gets very old after a while. I like powdered lemonade and iced-tea mixes, as well as powdered Gatorade. They’re all easy to mix up, and they don’t require anything special. However, my family tells me that warm, or even cool (versus cold) beverages suck out loud. I actually like room-temperature drinks, including Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew, because I couldn’t have cold stuff for a long time thanks to my teeth. I actually dislike cold sodas, because they don’t taste right to me. So, you might have to think about cooling off the lemonade – that’s honestly something that I don’t think about, so I don’t have any thoughts.

If you get a good variety of food, that you can prepare and keep fresh even without electricity and your refrigerator or freezer, you and your family should eat well for quite some time. You don’t have to get so much variety that you see the same food only once a month or anything like that, though. If you have several basic ingredients on hand, like flour and sweeteners and such, then you can easily work things out so that you don’t see the same meal more than once, maybe twice, every week. That’s enough variety to keep everyone happy for months, if not years, depending on your family’s preferences and tastes.

Don’t worry, though, if you don’t have that huge variety just yet. Keep working on the stockpiles: you’ll get there soon if you move forward one step at a time. Expand your stash as you can, adding different things whenever possible, and you’ll be better off than most people out there.

Guns and Women

It seems that some people are finding my blog by searching for terms along the lines of, “What are good self defense guns for women?” I’m going to focus on handguns, for the most part, because we tend to carry this type of firearm for self-defense purposes. However, please keep in mind that we can defend ourselves with shotguns and rifles as well, though they aren’t typically what I choose when I’m looking for a concealed-carry firearm (for obvious reasons).

The, “What guns are best?” question doesn’t work very well because women come in many varieties, with all sorts of strengths and weaknesses. Asking what guns are best for women is much like asking what shoes are best for us, or what brand of jeans fits us best. There is no one correct answer, and it is inevitable that any one item (gun, clothing, whatever) you deem “good for women” will suck out loud for a certain percentage of us.

There is not even a correct RANGE of answers, to be utterly honest with you all, because so many women prove to be most comfortable outside the “accepted” variety of guns that are “good for women.” You cannot say that a five-inch 1911 is “too much gun” for women, because I happen to shoot a variety of these 1911s on a regular basis without any complications or problems. Not all of us are doomed to have a weak grip on that particular model and, as a result, shoot worse than Stevie Wonder.

You also cannot say that a Lady Smith revolver is “good for women,” because some of us have one problem or another with that firearm. Not all of us like its size, for example, or its recoil. Not all of us are fans of revolvers in general, either.

You will, of course, find women for whom the 1911 is a pain in the wrists, and for whom the Lady Smith is a perfect handgun. However, this does not mean that we’re all going to have the same results – and we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking about women, and “girls’ guns,” just because I happen to know some women who are quite comfortable within the range that I just mentioned.

Another problem is that it’s very difficult to buy a gun that’s just right for someone else. If you’re a guy, and you’re looking to buy your gal a firearm, it’s best to let her do most of the shopping. If you interfere too much, then she’s probably not going to get what SHE wants and needs. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help her out – I think that’s a very-cool gesture, in fact – but you can’t shop for her gun any better than she can shop for yours. Let her do the research, and let her try out various guns and ammo, to find out what works best for her.

So, then, we women should be asking the questions about the guns that we might like to acquire. Therefore, we would be doing well to ask, “Which handguns would be good for me in particular?” The very-best way to answer this question is to go try the ones that you think you might like. Go to a shooting range that rents handguns, or borrow various models from your family and friends. Send a good amount of lead downrange with each firearm, then evaluate.

Are you comfortable? Can you properly grip, carry, and operate that particular model? Can you easily use the sights on that gun? Would you enjoy shooting that firearm again? Those are just a few of the questions I ask myself while, and after, I shoot a new-to-me firearm. So far, I’ve mostly enjoyed all the guns I ended up “adopting” after my test runs, so my method can’t be too shoddy, right?

You might really like two or three handguns after a day at the range. That’s fine – you can narrow down your selections with some research and thinking. Your budget might eliminate one or two choices for you anyway. And, hey, this is America: you can buy more than one gun, you know. (Well, most of us can, anyway.) Plenty of individuals have at least two carry guns, which they rotate depending on their needs and moods.

All of the above advice applies to other firearms, too, even though I made a point of focusing on handguns. Your husband or father might be madly in love with his AR-15, but this doesn’t mean that it should necessarily be your favorite rifle, too. Shop around, try out some different things, and make your own decision. You’re the one who will have to maintain, shoot, and possibly even carry the firearm, so make sure that you’re getting what you need and want.

We Have Chicks!

A few years ago, we had a few roosters and hens here at The Homestead. They were adopted from people who didn’t want them anymore, because said birds were older and not doing anything “useful.” I liked having them around, even though the hens didn’t lay any eggs, because they kept the outside pests at bay. We didn’t see many scorpions around the house when the birds were around, which pleased Mom to no end (she despises scorpions). We didn’t really want to butcher them, either, because they were really nice to have around – they were old, so we figured that we’d just let them live out the rest of their (short) lives in relative peace.

So, after the last one finally died of old age, we sort of forgot about having chickens for a while. We had other things on our minds, and other projects going, at least until earlier this week. Now, we have a couple of roosters – again, great for pest control – and eight chicks. This is going to be beyond awesome, because Mom and I have been talking about getting some chickens for the last few months. We finally got started with that, so let’s see how this turns out.

First of all: we’ve never cared for chicks before. The good news is that one of our neighbors has been doing this for a long time, and is giving us lots of advice. We have the four-day-old chicks in a small cage – but big enough for them to move around and get to food and water, of course – with a heat lamp to keep them from getting too cold. There’s newspaper lining the bottom of the cage, topped with a layer of hay. The chicks seem to like the setup so far, so no complaints.

So, we have a to-do list with chicken-related things on it for a change. While I’m watching the chicks hop around in their current enclosure, peeping like crazy, I’m thinking about things like the coop we have to finish building…how great these fresh eggs are going to taste…that sort of stuff.

We need to finish the coop, of course. I’m trying to find the plastic, five-gallon buckets that one or two of my brothers moved into an as-yet-unknown storage location – because I’d like to build the maggot bucket that I’ve read about on other blogs, just to see how well the chickens take to it. Because the family and I have been planning to get chickens for the last few months or so, we’ve been saving the egg cartons from the store. Oh, I know – the chicks aren’t going to start laying eggs tomorrow or anything like that. But you really can’t have too many egg cartons, because they will eventually wear out. We’ll keep most of them in storage so that, when the ones that are out finally need to go in the trash, we’ll still have some.

And next week, being finals week, is when every prof wants the final, huge projects (writing assignments, of course). I’ve been working on papers and stories and all sorts of related stuff all week in an effort to go ahead and get finished. If I put this stuff off, it’ll never get done, and won’t that be a fine waste of nearly four months of my life?

So, I’m very sorry that this entry is so short. I’m trying to get the chicken stuff together; deal with the last bit of school; and make the migraines go away. They didn’t bother me at all this year until…this week. Apparently, ongoing sinus problems, like I’ve been having for a while now, can lead to migraines – which would explain everything. I’m working on that, so we’ll see how next week turns out.

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In the meantime, here are some Useful Links that I’ve found over the last week. They’re a bit random, but they should be interesting.

Pepsi and Mountain Dew are now in “throwback” mode! They’re using the real, natural sugar instead of that high fructose corn syrup garbage. Go. Consume. Enjoy.

A blog about…chickens! (Mostly.)

A very strange-looking sawhorse – that you can build yourself if you’re so inclined.

Cheap Firewood

My family and I have used wood-burning stoves here at The Homestead since we moved here about eighteen years ago. Our 1960s-model trailer doesn’t have a central heating or AC system. We yanked the inefficient furnace and scrapped it out, which left more room in the hallway and put a little money in our pockets. Burning firewood has proven to be quite a bit cheaper than paying nearly two decades’ worth of heating bills!

Depending on your circumstances, firewood can be cheap to acquire. Where I live, in the middle of Texas, much of the countryside is heavily wooded. We have plenty of oak trees on our thirteen acres. If we cut down trees as they die, we usually have enough firewood to keep us warm in the winter and fire up the smoker to prepare the Thanksgiving turkey. (We also use the smoker during warmer months for everything from burgers to hot dogs to chicken.)

Even so, we supplement our own firewood supply when the opportunity presents itself. My brothers sometimes get calls from friends and neighbors, asking them to come remove dead trees. Occasionally, the job pays cash, but the real reward is the firewood.

We don’t have much money, but we were able to start collecting firewood with just a few hundred dollars’ worth of equipment. You don’t have to have an expensive setup if you’re basically healthy and able to learn how to do firewood-related tasks.

Cutting
We use a chainsaw. I’m a huge Stihl fan because these saws tend to last for years if you take good care of them and don’t try to make your particular model do more than it was designed to do. These saws are kind of pricey, yes, but they perform so much better than the crappy saws that Lowe’s sells.

Alternatively, you can use an axe or hand saw to cut down trees. This requires more work, yes, but it’s inexpensive. The gas-powered saw won’t be useful to you when the fuel supply dries up anyway. I’ve cut down a few trees with a single-blade axe. It’s tough work, but you can do just about anything if you’re bent on staying warm. Besides: while you’re actually chopping down that tree, you won’t be worried about the cold at all, now will you?

Hauling
We use the pickup to haul firewood up to the house from the woods. Depending on where we cut the wood, we might or might not be able to park the truck very close to the site. However, a wheelbarrow lets us move a fairly-large load of wood from the site if the truck’s parked too far away. A good wheelbarrow currently runs about fifty or sixty bucks where I live, incidentally, which isn’t a bad price when you consider how useful the thing is.

Splitting
We use single-blade axes to chop our firewood. You can, however, buy a splitting maul – basically, an axe with a big head that, I’ve been told, makes lighter work of this log-splitting thing. Splitting by hand is slow, tough work, but even I can do it – and I’m a lightweight weakling. When we use the axe, we don’t spend much time chopping because it’s so labor intensive. We typically chop enough for a couple of days at a time, then go do some other constructive thing that doesn’t require as much work.

One thing to know about wood, though, is that different types are more or less difficult to split. I’d rate white oak somewhere in the “medium” range, for example, because it’s not too hard or too easy. That’s what we burn around here, it being so plentiful and all, so I’m glad that this particular wood isn’t a complete nightmare.

An axe ran us about fifteen dollars. We also bought two splitting wedges, which were about ten dollars each. They’re well worth the investment, because some wood is just too tough or knotty to split with the axe. Our wedges have lasted for nearly twenty years now, so I would say that the twenty-dollar bill we forked over for them was well spent.

Alternatively, you can just use the splitting wedges. Buy a small sledgehammer to drive them into the firewood and you should be good to go.

Axes and wedges need occasional sharpening. This is fairly easy to do, but takes a little practice. A whetstone and a little work will get your tools back in shape in no time once you figure out what you’re doing. Check out the sharpening FAQ to your left for excellent information about sharpening all sorts of blades. (The link, incidentally, doesn’t go to anything that I’ve done or written. I just learned a lot from the FAQ, that’s all.)

Chopping firewood is slow work when you first start learning. It took me a good ten minutes to split one log when I started. I improved with practice, as did my brothers. Even my sister can split firewood with an axe if we need her to do it.

Even though I’ve spent a good bit of this section praising the mighty axe, there is nothing wrong with a hydraulic splitter. One of my brothers took a job at a rental yard a couple of years ago. Once a year, he brings home a gas-powered model. Mom and I, along with my sister, take turns splitting firewood. With the machine, we can get enough wood to take us through most of the winter season. Typically, we still have to chop some by hand, but any wood that we can split with the borrowed tool saves us work!

Renting the splitter might work well for you. If you cut down plenty of trees before you rent the tool, you maximize whatever amount of time you have with the splitter. You don’t have to maintain or repair a rented splitter, and using it gives you a huge pile of wood in a fraction of the time that it would have taken you to split those logs by hand.

You can also, of course, spend a hundred bucks or so on a manual hydraulic splitter. These do require some effort on your part, but not as much as you put in with the axe and wedges. My Dad refused to buy one of these, though, when my siblings and I were kids, claiming that hand-splitting wood builds character. (I wish to note that, after Dad taught us how to do the job, he stopped doing it. Interestingly enough, it seemed as if Dad developed just the right amount of character as soon as my sibs and I were able to take over.)

Even if you’re on a tight budget, you can still collect your own firewood. You don’t have to invest much money in basic hand tools, and the job will become easier and faster with practice. But if you do have the ability to get the modern tools, I’d go for it. Piling up a good bit of firewood for the winter, but still practicing your “old school” ways on the side, will help you stay warm and, at the same time, prepare for a day when you might not be able to do things the modern way.

Useful Links:

A Mother Earth News article about splitting firewood. Be sure to read the comments, as many of them offer good advice.

A story about a gentleman who spent a decade chopping and selling firewood.

Kid Sis Gets a Snarky Lesson about Credit

My kid sister is nineteen and works in retail. There’s nothing inherently wrong with either of these things. However, these two facts about my sister are vital to what happened last month, so keep them in mind while you read.

Kid Sis and I were in Walmart, spending some of my money. We went to the electronics department to find a digital recorder for one of our brothers, who started college a few days after this shopping trip. (We’re very proud of him, by the way!) While we were in that department, Kid Sis suggested that we go look at the video games.

Being a bit of a video-game fan myself, I agreed. We didn’t have to get out of the store at any particular time, either, so I pushed the cart over to the consoles and wandered over to have a look. By the way: I emphasize “look.” Looking is free. I can afford to look. I’m happy to look.

“Hey,” she said, as we walked to that section. “If they have a Wii, will you loan me the money for it? I’ll pay you back.”

My jaw? Not closed after I heard that. There was my sister, who’d been reared by the same two “Don’t get credit for anything that you don’t have to have” parents who’d reared me, asking me for a loan so that she could buy a video-game system.

“Did I hear you correctly?” I asked. “Did you really just ask me to loan you nearly three hundred dollars for a VIDEO-GAME SYSTEM?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said.

“Are you joking?”

“Uh, no.”

I blinked a couple of times. “Then there’s your answer. You really think that it’s a good idea to get a loan from me, which is a line of credit, for something that you don’t have to have?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, you’re the only one I know who has that much money.”

“Tell you what: instead of getting that tattoo you keep babbling about, buy the Wii yourself.”

“But I want the tattoo and the Wii.”

“Well, I want a male harem, preferably Chippendale dancers, to follow me around, but that’s not happening in this lifetime.”

She wisely shut up at that point. The kid who was standing nearby, playing the demo XBox 360, just stared at me. Yeah, I guess that I’d eyeball me too if I were that kid. I was being kind of snarky, after all, and that usually attracts a bit of attention, I’ve noticed.

What I really want to know is: how does my sister expect to repay me approximately three hundred dollars when she works as a cashier? She earns minimum wage, and does not have full-time hours (she averages about thirty hours per week). Her bills aren’t too high, because she lives here at home. But she does have to pay for her cell phone, auto insurance, other car-related expenses, et cetera. Her paycheck just won’t stretch far enough to repay me in a reasonable amount of time.

So, no loan, especially for an overpriced video-game system. She already has a GameCube, so it’s not like she’s been deprived of the usual, American luxuries. And it’s not like I ever, in the entire time that the Wii has existed, told her that I’d acquire it for her. I didn’t break a promise, or get her hopes up, or anything along those lines.

Kid Sis is not usually the sort of person who relies on credit – not even loans from family members, who don’t believe in usury – to acquire toys. But lately, she’s been spending obscene amounts of time with The Boyfriend: an overly materialistic twit who is, even as I type this, upset because the muscle car he’s thinking of buying has “cheap” rims.

He’s upset because the OEM rims aren’t “nice” enough to suit him, even though he’d be looking at the stinking things for only a few seconds every day when he walked toward the car. And even then, who cares what the rims look like as long as they’re functional and not falling apart? Really, they’re just rims. They attach your tires to your vehicle. They don't have to be insanely expensive, or continue spinning when you've come to a complete stop, or blind nearby drivers because the sunlight's reflecting off the highly-polished chrome.

The worst part, though, is that The Boyfriend has a reliable vehicle. He does not have to buy another car, but he wants a muscle car because that’s cooler than the coupe he’s driving now. Because he’s obsessed with how things look, and with impressing complete strangers, and Kid Sis is absorbing his crappy attitude toward finances. This is The Boyfriend who, recently, tried to secure a loan to buy some other little rocket of a car that he wanted. The bank turned him down (smart move, bank – this 19-year-old guy has a minimum-wage, part-time job), though, so he spent a few weeks moping and whining about that horrifying, traumatic rejection.

I’m getting tired of Kid Sis’ attitude, though. The Wii is not the first thing that’s driven me crazy. Oh, no. She’s spent the last few months annoying the snot out of me with her increasingly-materialistic drivel.

All I can say is that a) I’m not loaning or giving her money unless she really needs something, and b) if she gets herself into debt for stupid reasons, I’m not helping her. She knows better – or did, at least, until things with The Boyfriend started to get serious.

So, instead of buying my little sister a Wii, I picked up a Food Saver. We had to replace the old, broken, first-gen model that we’d had for years, and the later model that I bought on this shopping trip is very much improved. This was, if you ask me, a much-better investment than a video-game console, especially with the economy sucking like it is at the moment.

Book Review: Back to Basics

Bonus post – because I’m really happy with the book that I just got in the mail, and because I don’t think one book is worth my once-weekly post.

Not long ago, I ordered Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills (third edition, 2008) from Amazon. This was well worth the sixteen bucks and change that I paid for it, because this book is full of great information about pretty much every skill we’re going to need when the world goes berserk.

“Back to Basics” offers a decent overview of many, many topics. You’ll learn a bit about everything from building a cabin to sewing your own clothes. There are sections devoted to raising chickens, entertaining yourself the “low-tech” way, and preserving food. No section goes into great detail, but that’s all right because you can read the basic information in this book and use that to get some pretty-good ideas.

Example: there’s a section on building a chicken coop. The book includes sketches of a coop design, but they aren’t as detailed as complete blueprints would be. One of my brothers is a carpenter, though, and my Mom is great at turning an idea, or a sketch, into usable blueprints. The overview in “Back to Basics” gives us plenty of information to get started, because we know how to take the sketches from the book page to the finished coop.

I would not, however, trust this book’s basic food-preservation information, because I know squat about canning and would rather not take the risk. However, I can go get a book that gives me excruciatingly-detailed information, right? Right.

Overall, “Back to Basics” is a good addition to our survival-literature collection. My siblings and I have been skimming the pages, reading the information and sharing ideas. Sis looks at a section on sewing and suggest that we try X. I look at the section on rabbits and ask if we could do Y. The book jump starts our brains and starts conversations, making it well worth the money that I spent on it.

Not Too Cool to Knit

A couple of years ago, I took up knitting because it was something constructive to do with my hands. The idea was that, while I knitted, I wouldn’t smoke, which would help me stop, you know, slowly poisoning myself.

Yeah, well. I still puff away, but at least I have a useful, new skill – one that’s basic at this point, but slowly expanding.

Knitting is easy to learn. The next time you’re near a thrift store or charity shop, pop in and see if you can find any knitting supplies. You want straight needles and some yarn for learning. That’s all you really need to get started. However, if you happen to find a bag full of a bunch of other knitting stuff for a great price (cloth/plastic tape measure; point protectors; stitch markers, that sort of stuff), go ahead and pick it up. At worst, you’ll trade it to somebody who wants it.

The Internet is full of diagrams, videos, and pictures that teach you how to knit. YouTube is a good place for knitting videos, by the way.

If you prefer learning from books, stop at your local Walmart, Target or craft store and pick up one of their little instructional knitting guides from the crafts section. Mine’s called something like “I Taught Myself Knitting!” or “I Taught Myself to Knit!” or maybe “I Can’t Believe This is So Freaking Easy – Now I Feel Stupid for Giving That Upscale Store Eighty Bucks for a Scarf That Took an Hour to Knit.”

This thin, inexpensive book – more like a booklet, really – taught me all the most basic concepts. Learning those occupied several weeks of my time, and fully prepared me to move on to the more complicated stitches and projects.

Anyway. The first few stitches that you learn are good for basic projects. You’ll probably start by making simple things, like scarves or pot holders. Don’t knock ‘em. Pot holders are insanely useful, you know. And scarves are too, unless you live in Central Texas like I do.

As you continue knitting, you’ll want to start learning how to do more complicated stuff. You can knit your own sweater, for example, or make an afghan that covers your bed and keeps you nice and toasty. Knit a blanket for your faithful homestead dog, or give your kid a cool beanie for Christmas. Whatever. Really, there are tons of useful things that you can make with a skein or two of yarn and a pair of needles. I didn’t want to buy curtains for my bedroom, so I knitted them. Kind of heavy, but that’s not a problem as long as I avoid buying the 99-cent curtain hangers from Walmart.

And just for you, here’s a tip: don’t go to Walmart, JoAnn’s, et cetera for yarn. You don’t need to do that. You’re a resourceful kind of person, so look around for people who attempted to learn knitting or crocheting, but gave up. You’ll find evidence of their premature surrender at the local thrift shops and garage or yard sales.

You can also take apart sweaters and salvage the yarn to make other things. This is particularly useful if everyone in the house has outgrown that ugly old sweater, but the yarn in it is still good.

No matter what happens in this economy, you now have another useful skill. If the U.S. sits pretty for the next fifty years, you have something constructive to do when the weather sucks, the kids are in bed and you want to occupy your hands while you listen to the radio or yak with the spouse. When times are good, people will give you cash for what you’ve created. Go find a pack of teenagers. They really, really like wool beanies, even in summertime. Why? I have no idea. They’ll give you ten, fifteen, twenty bucks for your knitted cap, which will take you a couple of hours at most to make once you get the hang of it. Oh – and caps don’t require much yarn, so many of us knit them from leftover stuff. Oh, look. Those leftover bits of yarn gain you enough cash to go buy obscene amounts of yarn to knit other stuff. Good deal, right?

If society goes right into the toilet, you can barter. You can certainly work out some sort of trade, right? A knitted scarf could be worth a few packets of seeds if that’s your thing, or a share of the meat that a neighbor’s butchering. What about wash cloths? Baby blankets? Adult blankets? If you search the Internet, you will find all sorts of free patterns that will make many useful things. Even when people no longer have cash to fork over for your goods, they just might have something that you want for trade.

All of the above also applies to crocheting, so don’t hesitate to check that out if you’re interested. Either one is useful no matter what happens in the next few weeks, months or years, so why not add one, the other, or both to your skill set?

Useful Links:
Knitting Help

Island of Misfit Patterns

Pattern: The London Beanie

Story Time (Redundancy)

And now, it’s story time. Gather ‘round, Dear Readers, for a lesson in redundancy.

When The Sibs and I were growing up, Mom drove a van. This proved large enough to hold not one, but two, spare tires. Mom also insisted, when she first bought the van, on going out and selecting a four-way lug wrench and floor jack that suited her. These were easiest for her to use, and definitely effective on flat tires, so she invested that little bit of money in them.

The Sibs and I completely understood buying the tools. When we were tasked with changing flats (Mom insisted that we practice before we started driving – not what I would call a bad idea at all), we unanimously preferred the floor jack over the bottle jack. The floor jack was heavier, sure, but it was more stable, and easier for us to use. The four-way wrench was also better than the smaller one that came with the van. You could actually stand on the four-way to get enough leverage if you were small like I am.

However, Mom’s second spare tire? That didn’t make any sense to us. When she checked the air pressure in all six tires, we sometimes brought up that second spare. “What could go wrong?” we would ask, genuinely confused by Mom’s plan. Even though Mom often did things along these lines, we were young and inexperienced. We didn’t know nearly as much as Mom did.

In response, Mom just shrugged and told us: “What’s the harm? There’s room for the second spare, so why not? You never know what’s going to go wrong until it happens.”

However, we all had a simultaneous epiphany the day that Mom got two flats – the second blowing out en route to the tire shop to have the first one replaced. That day, Mom did not have to hike to a pay phone (this was years ago, before cell phones were reasonably priced) to get help. She did not have to wait by the side of the road, in the cold, for the cavalry. She changed the second flat, kept trucking to the tire shop, and had both busted tires replaced.

The overwhelming majority of the time, that second spare was nothing but an extra tire in the back of the van. This tire spent 99.999 percent of its existence doing nothing but taking up space. However, the moment that Mom really needed that tire, it was there, ready to go. At that time, on the side of the road, the tire was worth every minute of maintenance, and every moment of wishing that she had the extra space to haul things in the van. She would have given just about anything for that second spare if it weren’t in that van that day.

From then on, The Sibs and I were on Mom’s side all the way. My car isn’t large enough to hold two spare tires (seriously – my car’s basically a roller skate), but I make sure that I have a workable plan anyway. (A can of Fix-a-Flat fits in the trunk just fine, unlike a second spare.) And whenever somebody else finds out about Mom’s two spares, and makes a smart-assed comment, we’re sure to tell him or her all about the day her plan ensured that she had to deal with an inconvenience, not a full-fledged problem.

Redundancy can mean the difference between getting back on track and being stranded without a workable solution. This applies to every aspect of our preps. This is why people have caches in multiple locations; buy spare parts for their gear, and insist on knowing more than one way to get to and from their destinations. Most of the time, the extra stuff just takes up space. But the moment you want or need the spares, you’re grateful, to say the least, that you have the stuff on hand. All the times that you wondered why you were wasting space, money, time, fade away in that moment, leaving you thankful for having put up with the minor inconvenience of acquiring and maintaining the spares.

Gas Masks

In the Army, soldiers learn how to don the gas masks – and quickly. We were drilled, drilled some more, and drilled again. Ideally, we could whip out the mask (which was in its pouch by our legs), don that sucker, and have it properly situated in super-rapid fashion. If we did this, we wouldn’t have to inhale until the mask was secured. That would, we hoped, give us an excellent chance of surviving whatever threat we were trying to escape. (In Basic? CS gas. Basically, it’s military-grade tear gas that won’t kill you, but will make every facial orifice miserable for a while afterward.)

If you’re going to buy a milsurp (military surplus) gas mask, you’re going to have to keep it with you for it to do you any good. If you’re at the office when a chemical threat hits, what good is the mask if it’s in your bunker at home? None whatsoever. The mask isn’t necessarily useful if you leave it in your vehicle while you’re at the office, either. The odds are good that, if you don’t keep the mask on your person, it’s not going to help – you’ll be too far away from that sucker, and waste too many precious seconds getting to the thing.

You’re also going to need to be able to whip out that mask and get it in place before you breathe in whatever’s threatening to kill you, or turn you inside out, or whatever. When the Drill Sergeant’s CS-gas grenade hit the ground, we stopped breathing. From that second on, we were donning our masks and holding our breaths. Even though the CS gas wasn’t all that bad, it was still a tense, stressful moment. Inhaling meant taking in the gas, which was what we were trying to prevent. How long can you hold your breath while you break out the mask, don it, clear it, et cetera? If you can’t do it well, and fast, the mask is useless – even if you do carry it everywhere you go.

I don’t own a gas mask. I live in the middle of nowhere, so this isn’t very high on my list of priorities. The odds of facing the sort of threat that requires one of these just aren’t high where I’m situated. If I’m wrong, that’s entirely my own fault. I can’t carry every piece of gear that could possibly be useful. Like everyone else, I pick and choose. Many of us choose not to have gas masks. But some do, and you’re the ones I’m addressing here.

Practice with your gear. Practice regularly. Know how the gear works, too. Do you know how to clear the mask? Can you see well enough to navigate the stairwell, which is packed with panicked people, with the mask on? (Believe me, your field of vision changes when you're wearing one.) Can you figure out whether or not the filter is doing its job? Are you absolutely certain that you have a good seal around your face? Are you able to get the mask on quickly enough in the first place?

Know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’re just wasting money and time. If you have a milsurp mask, try to get your hands on the related manual/set of instructions/whatever the U.S. military published for its troops about the thing. It’s floating around somewhere, probably as a PDF file on someone’s Web site. This will give you thorough instructions, which will be extremely useful when you practice. Just remember that reading about doing something is not the same as actually doing it.

An Unsheltered Life

This blog is called “An Unsheltered Life” because I’m only physically sheltered. Emotionally, spiritually and mentally, on the other hand…well, it’s not difficult to learn when the lessons hit you left and right.


My name’s Sarah, and I’m twenty-seven. Single, no dependents, living on thirteen acres in the middle of nowhere with my parents and most of my four sibs. We moved out to this tract of land eighteen years ago, after we had more than enough of city life and began looking for some room to peacefully, quietly grow up and live our own lives.

When we moved out here, we weren’t thinking about the world going berserk. This was in the early 1990s, when things weren’t really all that bad. Lately, though, most of my sibs and I don’t really want to move out. Four of the five “kids” (the youngest is nineteen now – I’m the oldest) are still here. It’s weird, because we’re all adults and could get our own places, but this is home.

When we can afford our own acreage in the middle of nowhere, we’ll move out, maybe. But we aren’t about to move into the city or the suburbs, or even into the trailer park near our place, which is crammed full of tiny lots barely large enough for a mobile home and one vehicle. We aren’t falling for the sucker bet that is the current housing market. We’d rather stay here, in the trailer that’s paid in full, than lose everything.

Besides: most of us are college students, so we’re still trying to figure out what we want to be when we finally grow up, and find ways to get there if we can.

Tough times are here, folks, and I don’t see them getting easier. My family and I have an advantage because our lives have always been a bit challenging. We have things pretty good now, by our own standards, but we know that this won’t last forever.

This blog is about what we’ve done, or are doing. I don’t feel qualified to write about what’s still pending for us, because I tend to prefer shutting up when I have no idea of what I’m talking about. I don’t know where I fall on the “survivalist scale,” as far as prepping goes. I’m not the most prepared out there, but I’m not the least ready, either. Let’s see how this turns out.