North Mountain

It’s Time To Plan For Spring

2011-12-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

Short nights and cold dreary days are with us again. The lack of sunlight affects some folks with the loss of energy and even takes the shine off their normally positive disposition. Is it going to be a long winter season for you too?

There is a way to mitigate this problem to a large degree. Plan your 2012 garden. If you haven’t already ordered seed catalogs for the coming season, go online and order them soon.

My favorite catalog is the “Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds” catalog. It is full of great color photos of warm weather and sometimes strange looking but exciting varieties for the garden. Baker Creek carries the “old” seed varieties. You won’t find any highly modified tomatoes that were developed to fit square holes in a carton regardless of the taste. Instead, you’ll find the great tasting, high producing varieties of fruit and vegetables seeds obtained from master gardeners around the world.

If you have struggled to get your children or grandchildren interested in gardening, invite them to join you in planting “Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge” tomatoes or a few bushes of “Dragon’s Egg”, “West India Burr Gerkin”or “Green Apple” cucumbers along with a few rows of “Monkey Tail” beans. How can they resist joining in?

I’m not making these names up. They may sound like they originated in a fantasy novel, but they are anything but fantasy producers. When the winter blues get you down, open your seed catalog wish books and escape to summer weather in your mind. Make a list of some new tastes and irregular forms that you want to see in your garden this year. And remember, the seeds from these heritage plants are easy to store and regerminate for use in your 2013 gardens.

World War II Recipes

Recent financial troubles around the world have brought a bright focus on governments (including our own) and people who have long lived beyond their means. In countries such as Greece where the financial hammer is slamming on the heads of its residents, we see articles like the series I’ve been following for a few months:

Titles like “World War II Starvation Recipes”, “Chew Longer and More Slowly” grace the column titles in pages of Greek newspapers.

Are they serious? Unfortunately, yes. Greek citizens are struggling to feed their families let alone pay their bills. Unemployment is extremely high, credit is extremely tight and ready cash for things like food and rent is extremely hard to find. “Extreme” being the common descriptive word in all of the articles.

The stories are real. They are stating facts about a first world nation that is on the ropes. Greece is being followed by Italy and other European nations into a morass of unsustainable debt, loss of purchasing power and liquidity. It could happen here in the blink of an eye too.

I’m old enough to have parents and siblings who struggled to live through the Great Depression, World Wars and economic instabilities. I grew up thinking you had to use it up, wear it out and make do because my parents knew that their current day good fortune could evaporate almost instantly just as it had several times before.

One thing has always stuck in my memory. My mother made wonderful meals, but the ingredients always varied depending on what leftovers were in the fridge. She couldn’t make the same cake twice in a row because the left over pancake batter, melted butter, half dried out orange or bottom of the bottle flavoring concentrate didn’t exist the next time she made cake. They would be replaced by something else that ‘needed to be used up before it goes to waste’.

I remember all of us boys asking for the recipe of a cake that was so good we devoured it BEFORE Thanksgiving dinner. “That was terrific Mom.” “What did you put in it this time?” “Can we get the recipe?” And of course, she couldn’t give us an exact recipe because it was made from some of this and some of that and who knew what else.

We live in a world of preassembled food and mixes that contain ingredients measured almost to the grain of sugar to insure consistency. How many of us cook most of the time from ingredients being rotated through our food storage? How many of us make cakes like my mother did … with some of this and some of that and never a measuring device being used in the whole process?

If we don’t cook this way, now is the time to migrate to that process so we know how to make good meals or at least tasty meals from what we have on hand. We are riding on a financial bubble in America right now whose cellular wall is of ever thinning integrity. If bad times come, they could arrive almost instantly. If your parents are still alive and have some old but tried and true World War II recipes, it may be a good idea to get a copy of them and whip them up a time or two just in case.

Technorati Tags: Emergency Preparedness,Gardening,Seeds,Recipes

Copper J-Pole Antennas

2011-10-14T02:49:00.000-07:00

As soon as you get your Amateur Radio license, you start thinking about a good 2-meter antenna for your home or garage. Commercially built antennas can be expensive but there is a great solution to the problem. Build a Copper J-Pole antenna.

Construction of the J-Poles is simple. Careful measurements and soldering skill condenses the soldering construction time into a few brief hours. If you haven’t soldered copper pipe fittings before, buy a few extra and practice a few times before you start construction on your antenna. There are numerous videos on YouTube that show the best method for soldering copper pipes.

You’ll find that you will rapidly become proficient with the skill. Undoubtedly, you’ll be using it again before long to build more antennas either for yourself, scout troops and as an Elmer helping new Hams set up their own shacks.

I built both Super J-Poles (2-Meter, 70 CM) and single frequency 2-Meter J-Poles for use at home and for other applications.

N7QVC has posted the plans for both of these antennas on his site. The comments by his blog readers are equally helpful in choosing the design features of your J-Pole. Download them and print a copy for the wall above your work bench.

I used 3/4” copper for the Super J-Poles and 1/2” copper for the J-Poles. There is a substantial weight difference between the two antennas due to their respective lengths and the added pipe mass.

Even though I’d drilled and tapped holes for the stainless screws to attach the copper 3/8” tubing in the Super J-Poles, they didn’t offer the solid connections I’d hoped to achieve. The connections won’t ever loosen with the stainless hose clamps I put around the copper and over the screws. The clamps had no measurable affect to the SWR of the antennas. Just remember to paint the schedule 40 union or threaded PVC splice that you use to separate the sections of the antenna before tightening the screws lest you strip the threading out of the tubes with multiple tightenings.

Tuning the antennas was a snap. I used sections of split tubing combined with stainless steel hose clamps to attach the SO-239 connector and feed point. The idea came from comments I read on several blogs and it works very well. The sections are each 1 1/2” in length. It was easy to bend back a 1/4” lip at the split and drill holes through it to match the mounting holes on the SO-239. A Dremel tool quickly carved a curved notch so it could seat deeply enough to align the mounting holes with the copper sections.

Once the split sections were snapped in place about 3” above the base of the “J”, it was simple to slide them up or down slightly to find the best SWR / Antenna Analyzer reading. Clamping them in place was accomplished using more stainless hose clamps followed by solder between the section and the antenna elements.

The SWR for the Super J-Poles is 1:1.1 and the J-Poles have a 1:1 SWR. I used 146.500 as the ‘sweet spot’ tuning frequency because it is close to the mid-point of the frequencies used by the repeaters in my area.

I played with the radiation patterns before final mounting but found that it didn’t really matter which way I pointed the antennas because we live in a valley with mountains all around us. The repeaters I use are all line-of-sight shots on nearby mountain ridges, so hitting them is easy.

The Super J-Pole is mounted at 25 ft and operates flawlessly. I mounted the J-Pole at 11 ft on a post that supports a side fence by my shop. I expected some impact due to the reduced height, but it is negligible.

The simplex tests I ran were all over 30-miles in distance and even at 5-watts, I couldn’t conclusively prove one orientation to be better than another. Broadcast radiation and reception worked very well with these copper hot-shots. I suspect that the mountains here almost duct the radio waves along the valleys between them regardless of the twists and turns that I tested.

You’ll want to look up J-Pole radiation patterns and do some testing at your location before making the final tightening turns on the antenna mount.

The whole tuning process per antenna only took 10-minutes at most. It literally took more time dialing them in by checking readings between the radios and meters on my work bench and the antennas than it did to solder the connections in place.

In an effort to bring the younger generation into the Ham Radio world, I used Google video chat on a laptop so a grandson could engage in the construction from afar. He will undoubtedly build ‘better’ antennas in the coming months to show his grandfather that the digital generation can build things out of copper as well as being a master of digital bits, which is just what I hoped for.

My wife likes the look of shiny copper, so rather than painting the antennas that will be used at our home a sky gray color, I polished them with steel wool and covered them with four coats of clear lacquer. So far, none of the neighbors have spotted them through the Ponderosa pine trees at hour home. The G5RV antennas between the same pines have never been spotted, so I have little fear of complaints about a couple of copper shafts in the air in different locations.

I used LMR-400 coax wire to the entrance box with its lightning arrestors and multiple 12” bulkheads that feed through the wall into my ham shack. I really like LMR-400 cable due to very good experiences with it in my HF and other installations.

If you are considering building a J-Pole but aren’t sure of your skill level, quit worrying and start building. Even if you haven’t built anything like this before, you’ll quickly learn the minimal required skills and you’ll have fun in the process.

There are many variations on the J-Pole and recommendations for their construction on the web. Take a little time, read through them, focus on the folks who have actually built antennas from the plans and choose your design.

You’ll be on the air with your new antenna sooner than you’d think possible and if you are lucky, the only part you’ll have to buy that isn’t already in bins in your garage or shop will be the SO-239 connector. If you’ve been to any Hamfests or gatherings, you probably have a handful of them laying around too.

Technorati Tags: J-Pole,Antenna,Ham Radio

Ham Exams and Field Day 2011

2011-06-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

The number of ham operators in our area is increasing fairly significantly after we asked the Boy Scouts to become involved in our emergency preparedness drills filling the function as our radio communicators. After training, they easily passed the Technician Exam. They implemented that knowledge in our emergency drill and subsequently met the qualifications for several Scout Merit badges.

A side benefit is that their parents, scout leaders and some family members also get licensed along with their Scouts. Who wants to be left out of the fun?

I recently spoke to Richard, KD7BBC, who has created the extremely useful website, HamStudy.org, to help folks obtain any level ham license with some very good study and practice tests. I consider his tests to be the best on the web. Be sure to check them out if you are studying for your Ham license(s).

We found that our scouts increased their test scores if they took practice tests from three different sites in rotation. The test sites are:

HamStudy immediately responds with “Correct” or “Incorrect” when you click on the answers. Site users are adding response statements that explain why the answer is correct. Additionally, you can review and reanswer all of the questions you missed in the test to help you in your licensing exam.
HamExam mixes the answer order around so you don’t remember the position of the answer rather than the correct verbiage of the answer
eHam presents the answers with radio button selection for yet another presentation of the test.

Field Day 2011

Ham Field Day 2011 just completed. Below are some video reports from that most enjoyable event. Life was good and DX’ing was great!

Ham Field Day 2011 – Fryeburg, Maine

Ham Field Day 2011–Wichita, KS

Ham Field Day 2011 - Fallbrook, CA

Ham Field Day 2011 - CW - Athens, TX

Ham Field Day 2011 - Jackson, MS

Ham Field Day 2011 - Blue Canyon, CA

Technorati Tags: Amateur Radio,Ham Radio,Field Day

Weekly Ham Radio Show on TWiT Network Update

2011-05-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, I talked about an upcoming netcast show about Ham Radio called HAM NATION. The show has now officially been added to the TWiT Network schedule.

On 14 May 2011, Leo Laporte announced the new HAM NATION show on his TWiT network. The host of the show is none other than the famous Ham and sound aficionado K9EID Bob Heil of Heil Sound.

The first show will be on May 24, 2011 starting at 6:00 p.m. Pacific.

UPDATE: Bob announced that the show will be broadcast live every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. Pacific. It will be available for download on the TWiT Network.

Bob’s first guest is Extra Class Operator WB6ACU Joe Walsh whom we also know a member of the band “the Eagles”. Joe is bringing more than just his amateur radio knowledge to the show. He wrote its theme song too!

Bob brings a wealth of experience both as a Ham and as an Sound Engineer as the show host. Read my earlier posting, then scroll on it to watch Bob’s interview with Leo Laporte on his Triangulation show. You’ll immediately see the quality of wit, experience and presence that Bob will bring to his new show.
Tune in an listen to the show live on your computer or download the videocast / podcast. The show time and details will soon be posted on the TWiT Network home page

I’ve sent suggestions to Leo Laporte that he take advantage of having Bob Heil on his network and get his own amateur radio license. Perhaps you should suggest the same thing to both Leo and to Bob.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they would include a weekly installment on the show to help and encourage interested people get their amateur license! That would be a great service to the local communities of the new hams through their radio skills to help the community in not only disasters but in regular community events.

The first show is available for download or online viewing here.

Bob Heil at Hamvention 2008

Technorati Tags: Amateur Radio,Ham Radio,TWiT,Bob Heil

The World Is Upside Down–Get An Emergency Kit

2011-05-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

FEMA Acknowledges the ever increasing series of disastrous events around the world in this video telling people to assemble emergency kits for themselves and their families.

Earthquake in Calexico, CA

FEMA–World Upside Down–Get Emergency kits

Technorati Tags: Emergency Kit,96-hour Kit,Emergency Preparedness

Weekly Ham Radio Show Coming To TWiT.tv

2011-03-28T16:58:00.000-07:00

Leo Leporte announced a new weekly videocast about Ham Radio with Bob Heil (K9EID)as the host. Bob is well known in the world of sound and amateur radio through both is company, Heil Sound and through his well-known voice as K9EID on radio nets.
Bob was recently interviewed by Leo Leporte and Tom Merritt on TWiT’s “Triangulation” audio / video podcast.

Any and all will enjoy listening to Bob recall the history of sound in the music industry and his involvement in the equipment he built to make the artists sound so well. His discussion entered the realm of amateur radio which brought a flood of enthusiastic responses from amateur’s who were listening to the livecast of the program. Click here to listen to that show on your computer or watch it below. You’ll enjoy the time you invest.

The IRC Channel for the show came alive when he mentioned amateur radio, which surprised Leo, Tom and others. They had no idea that there are so many of ham’s who are also computer geeks, the primary focus of the majority of the programs on the TWiT Network.

Within one day, Leo made the decision to create the new show with Bob as the host. The show is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday evenings, although the time and date are still fluid.

I’ll update this post with the final time, date and address for the program as soon as it is available. Note: Ham Nation has been announced for every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. Pacific.

Technorati Tags: Amateur Radio,Ham Radio,Twit,Bob Heil

Will My Genealogy Records Survive Me?

2011-03-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Lineagekeeper for allowing the reposting of his blog post regarding genealogy records survival:

I followed the earthquake of 22 February 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand closely because a fairly large contingent of extended cousins live there or nearby. As far as I’ve been able to determine, all survived but many experienced damage to their homes and businesses.

One story caught my eye on the evening of the first day, when it mentioned two teenagers who were trying to find their mother, Donna Manning, a producer and presenter for Canterbury TV. She and fifteen of her colleagues along with forty or more foreign students and teachers were in the collapsed CTV building.

The six-story building was literally flattened. Only a couple of survivors were eventually rescued from the wreckage.

The earthquake struck at 12:45 p.m., during the lunch hour. Earlier in the morning, Donna hosted one of her weekly shows and it was posted on YouTube during the hour of the earthquake. I watched the video not knowing if Donna had survived or not. I then switched to a live video stream from Christchurch that showed the CTV building and seriously doubted that she had survived.

Little did Donna know that in less than 120 minutes after completing her morning show, she would be dead. The video captured some of her last minutes in mortality. Rescue teams later confirmed that none of the trapped folks in the CTV building survived.

The story ends on a many sad notes. Donna didn’t survive. Her children not only lost their mother but their home was structurally destroyed too. Thieves looted their home while they waited at the pile of debris that was the CTV building hoping to hear of Donna’s recovery. Their records and possessions had been stolen.

Hopefully, their photos and records survived.

Stories with similar losses of lives, records, hopes and dreams are a constant in the history of our ancestors and of the world due to wars, acts of men and of nature. We know that devastating events will happen in the lives of those now living and in those coming behind us. From a genealogical perspective, what can we do to mitigate the effects of disaster or the eventual loss of of our own mortal life?

Several activities should be part of our regular genealogical activities:

1. Digitize our paper documents and records.

2. Regular backups of our data and digital images. What is Regular? Simply determine your threshold of pain when considering the loss of your records. That should firmly establish a frequent backup cycle in your mind.

3. Keep a copy of our backups in two or more locations off-site, one of which should be online with a digital company like Mozy, Carbonite, etc. The second should be housed with a relative or close friend who lives in a different part of the country. You may want to trade with them and keep a copy of their data to reciprocate.

4. Add a codicil or section to our wills and trusts that specifically instructs the transfer and hoped for survivability of your genealogical records and data. See an example of the verbiage here in one of my earlier posts.

5. Talk to your family now so they know your wishes from you personally, to both reinforce your wishes and to make arrangement for their transfer. You may want to enhance or encourage their involvement in your genealogical research and activities right away. Which one(s) of them wants to take up your ancestral quest? Resolve questions and associated issues about your genealogy data and work with them now, while you can still talk to them.

6. If you have websites, blogs, etc., be sure to include their URL’s and associated user names and passwords in your package. Detail exactly how you want to announce your passing and include an example statement that details how or if the site or your contributions to a site will continue in the future. I was surprised to find that I own or am a significant contributor to a large number of blogs and websites. Will my family take over in my place? We’ll have to talk about it and decide.

7. Keep your codicil and lists of pertinent ownership, subscription, password and other data current along with your detailed instructions up to date. Will your spouse and children be able to understand and find all of the domain registrations, hosting agreements, settings, programming and data storage sites that you have and use? Do they realize that you have over thirty email accounts and what online personas they represent? Do they realize that you are an editor, moderator, or have other key roles on many sites that are owned by other persons or entities that have depended on you doing my job?

8. Think of the ways you interact with your data and others online. Does your family know all of your social media personas? Does they or an eventual guardian of your data know how to claim all of your submissions to FamilySearch, Ancestry, etc? FamilySearch and Ancestry are designed to allow others to contact you to both question your data and to ask for assistance or copies of your research. They can’t do that if you are gone and your succession plan hasn’t transferred your account to their management.

9. Do Something. Now. You can put this work off, but delay will inevitably bite you and the survivability of your data. This isn’t a question or supposition but rather is a statement of fact. The preparation will take a few hours work and ongoing tweaks and updates, but the investment in time and effort will pay remarkable dividends. Don’t let your extremely valuable genealogical work be lost.

Technorati Tags: genealogy,data backup,will,codicil,succession plan,emergency preparedness

No Power - No Heat - No Water

2011-03-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

Most of us live in a relatively civilized first world environment where the lights come on with a flick of a switch, furnaces and water heaters heat potable water that freely comes from our taps and our toilets flush … so long as we keep our utility bills paid.

All of that can change in a matter of minutes or hours. Witness the snow and ice storms of the last week of January 2011. One of our daughters and her family live in El Paso, Texas. They have to come home to see snow and enjoy winter activities. Winters are a lot warmer there. They even plant peas in late February. This year was different.

The routine calls to tell us how warm in it is in El Paso were replaced with, “It’s about zero here. All of the schools are shut down, the freeways are closed with ice on the road and the store shelves are almost bare.”

The next day the report was even more dire: “Our power went out last night for hours and will continue to be out in rolling blackouts for the foreseeable future. There isn’t enough power generation here to meet the needs of anything out of the ordinary. They’ve also instigated rolling cuts of natural gas because of lack of supply, so we don’t have heat many times a day. Homes in El Paso weren’t built for extended cold weather.”

On day three, the calls exposed yet another problem. “The water pipes in many of the homes are frozen, pipes are bursting. Our neighbors, ward members and folks all over town have lost water to their homes. We’ve only lost one of the pipes to our swimming pool pump.” Our son-in-law spent 48-hours straight turning off the water in neighbors homes and taking care of the water destruction in the homes of the widows that he home teaches.

“Young mothers are sending their children to homes with heat, not only for warmth but for a place to use the bathroom and shower. The water in their homes is out due to burst interior and exterior pipes.” All of the plumbers in a hundred mile radius were booked for weeks and even though our son-in-law is qualified in plumbing skills, there were no repair parts on the shelves ….. anywhere.

Of course, the city and homes were slowly repaired and are back to ‘normal’, although the water damage is in evidence. Many families have additional repair bills that have almost crippled them financially. Insurance coverage was often inadequate or the coverage folks thought they had wasn’t really included in the fine print. Their financial reserve preparedness was found wanting too.

Our kids fared well during the problems. They had plenty of food on hand in their 12-month food storage. They had a generator and knew how to safely use it to run a base load of electrical needs in their home. They had propane stoves, charcoal and Dutch ovens to cook their meals. They had wood and other fuels for their fireplaces and stoves. When they bought their home, they added insulation around the water pipes on exterior walls that protected them from freezing.

They didn’t have enough piping parts in storage to help many people, let alone any major pipe damage that may have occurred in their own home. They thought they had plenty of flour, only to find that the buckets labeled ‘flour’ were mislabeled during one of several recent moves. The food storage rotation planned for the next week would have exposed this problem, but it was too late.

An easy to prepare meal of pancakes became a wish, not reality. All commercial buildings and restaurants had been ordered to close during the days of the outages, so they couldn’t run to McDonald’s. The few grocery stores that stayed open looked more like advertisements for shelving rather than purveyors of food products.

Even though our kids live with a focus on preparedness, they found weaknesses in their preparedness plan when reality struck. The event wasn’t even a major disaster, just an exercise in discomfort. Our daughter has the preparedness calling in their church. The theme for her articles and lessons in the coming months has been established. Our son-in-law will undoubtedly speak on the subject in his church assignments.

He and two of their daughters are licensed ham radio operators. Accurate information about the situation came from the ham operators on the ham net, not from TV and local radio stations. A positive note was that our granddaughter gained experience as net control for SW Texas and can support the ham group in that role if needed when the ham net is activated in an emergency.

Many lessons were learned. Weaknesses in most family preparedness plans were exposed. People suffered but only a few died from the event. Let’s learn from their experience and not have to learn the hard way. Run a disaster exercise in your home for a week and find the weaknesses in your own preparedness plan.

We can do it now or find them in a real disaster. You choose.

Technorati Tags: No Power,No Heat,No Water

Secure Pictures and Furniture Before It Is Too Late

2011-03-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

Securely Hang Pictures

If you live in earthquake country or have any heavy wall hangings, be sure to use heavy wall hangers with clips to hang them.

The ongoing string of seismic events around the world are strong reminders that the surface of our planet is alive and frequently in motion. The reports we have witnessed in the news and in person should reaffirm that fact in our minds.

Hangers with strong steel hooks with spring or similar keepers should be our device of choice. They will keep hanging wires securely attached to the hanger in events with swinging and vertical movement. The hangers are typically configured with one or more hanging nail based on the weight of the loads they will carry.

Be sure to use these hangers for any wall hanging that is above beds, in walk areas or any other location where fallen objects would harm anyone in your home or place of business.

Secure Free-standing Furniture

Secure tall furniture to the wall with “L” brackets. They easily fall over in even small seismic events. We typically load cabinets and book cases with heavy objects that can cause serious to fatal injuries to anyone they strike.

Use Anti-walking Mats Under Appliances

Free-standing appliances like microwave ovens, statues, snow globes and other similar items will walk off shelves or countertop surfaces in seismic events. An easy way to inhibit that movement is to put rubberized drawer mats under them.

Secure Window Blinds

Most people put their beds under or near windows. Seismic events can break windows resulting in the glass falling inward onto the building. Don’t expose yourself or family to serious to fatal cuts from falling glass.

Installing commercial-grade Velcro ® or similar hook and loop fasters on the bottom of vertical and horizontal blinds to hold them in the place in the window frame allows the blind to act as a wall to block falling glass. Its use in multiple straps on drapery produces the same barrier shield.

Technorati Tags: earthquake

Family Communications

2010-11-28T19:57:00.000-08:00

Communications

Our Neighborhood has more ham radio operators of any neighborhood in our city. That is excellent news for all living in it and in the city. All of the operators participated in a recent citywide Emergency Drill at all levels of the emergency organization in the city, communicating reports from Block Captains up to Neighborhood Command Centers on to Area Command Centers and finally to the City EOC.

In a real emergency, Neighborhoods will use both runners and ham operators to communicate the needs of the Blocks and Neighborhoods up stream to the Emergency Command Center so it can respond to our needs as a result of a disaster or emergency event.

However, about half of our Neighborhood ham operators will soon be leaving to attend college, get married and continue on with their lives. We need more city residents to get ham licenses they can help not only their immediate family but the folks in their Blocks, Neighborhoods and Areas.

In our part of the country, there is a wonderful organization of ham operators that teach regularly scheduled amateur radio classes so residents can easily obtain a ham license with a little work, reading and successfully taking an amateur operators test.

You’ll find a similar organization in your area by doing an Internet search for them. A schedule of the classes and the dates tests are offered will be on their sites.

Training materials are available from numerous sources including the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) site.

Be sure to become a licensed ham operator as part of you emergency preparedness activities. You very well may be instrumental in saving not only the lives of your loved ones but of other residents in your community, state and nation.

Family Communications Plan

Each of us also needs to create a Family Communications plan. It should contain the pertinent contact information for every member of our family as well as an out-of-state contact and a family meeting location plan in case we have to evacuate the area.

Free – downloadable family communications plan forms are available from the Federal Ready America site.

Create your Family Communications Plan and keep it current. Be sure that each of your children has a copy of it in their school packs. Wallet sized forms are among the selections from the Ready America site so they will easily fit in your children’s packs.

In our family, I produce a laminated family communications wallet sized cared for all of our children and their spouses every year. They are passed out on Thanksgiving. We have met together and have determined our own family meeting locations if we have to bug out. The plan is in always current and because it is discussed regularly by our overall family and in each of our children’s families, each member is aware of the content, contacts and intentions of our family / families in emergencies.

Our wallet-sized communications cards have already been used in an emergency. They have saved a great deal of trouble and consternation at a time when those typical responses would be most detrimental. Make your own plans soon! Regularly review them with your family.

Ham Operators Helping in Katrina

Technorati Tags: Communications,Ham Radio

A First-aid Kit in Every Home

2010-11-16T17:44:00.000-08:00

Several years ago, our sons and I attended an Emergency Preparedness presentation in Utah by Maralin Hoff, Utah’s Earthquake Lady. She conveyed many great ideas that we dutifully noted and avowed to adopt in our own preparedness activities.
At the end of the presentation, she merrily opened a box of Bandages and tossed them like candy to the audience. Of course we all reached out to make sure that we got at least one of these dollar store treasures for our very own. Maralin’s purpose for the audience participatory give-away was to get us to put one in our wallets or purses. She bolded stated that we would all find a need for them before too long.
We dutifully tucked them in our wallets and then inspected the extra one that was attached to another from the grabfest. They really were from the dollar store and weren’t made of the woven stretch any direction material like the expensive Band-Aid brand plasters. It was an inexpensive but effective presentation of the concept. We never expected to use them, but we were prepared.
A few weeks later, the boys and I were talking about properly fitting our 72-hour backpacks so they didn’t wear out the Dad that was carrying them. Our oldest son mentioned that he had used the bandage in his wallet to patch a cut on his son’s finger while at a remote camping site. “It was very handy. I just opened my wallet rather than finding the big kit. The cut wasn’t much, but it wouldn’t stop breaking open every time he gripped something.” Then our youngest son spoke up saying he’d not only used the giveaway bandage but had gone through the two he’d used to reload his wallet. I couldn’t top that story but I too had used my bandage on the hand of another of our grandchildren.
We hadn’t carried bandages in our wallets up to this point in time. Why did we suddenly need them now? Did we use them unnecessarily just because we had them? Actually, all of the hurts they covered needed a bandage. A unique sequence of events in cosmic convergence or had we actually needed them all along but had brushed that thought off for years?
Our conclusion was that we really had needed them. The tip to carry them was not only needed but was provident counsel. You’ll want to consider putting a Band-Aid or two in your own wallets and purses. You’ll inevitably use them and be glad you had them within easy reach.
Do you have a good First-Aid kit in your home? In your vehicles? In your emergency kits? A few years ago, the Provident Living section of the church’s website included a list of items that should be in a home first-aid kit. The list has been added to the First-Aid Kit content suggestions.
If you have a First-Aid kit already, do you have it in a place where it can be accessed easily? Do you refill it frequently?
All too often, families purchase or make a First-Aid kit and then shop from it over time. Young folks seem to constantly need a band-aid and Neosporin on cuts and contusions. We shop from our kits and all too soon they are fairly severely depleted and quickly descend in to disarray.
We should add “review and replenishment” of the contents in our kits to the checklist and updating activities to regular bi-annual events so we remember to do it.
If you don’t have a good First-Aid book, get one. The American Red Cross has published a good basic book as has the American Medical Association. They can be found on Amazon.com if you can’t find them locally and are less than $13.00.
Basic First-Aid skills training should be high on our ‘must’ lists. Classes are taught by the Red Cross and other entities such as hospital personnel, emergency responders (typically associated with the Fire Department – Paramedics). Take the class and then teach your families how to care for minor injuries. Clinics are close to us, but when an injury happens, you may be in a remote area. Even seemingly minor injuries can become ‘major’ if they are not properly addressed.
Two other books you may want to consider adding to your library are: “Where There Is No Doctor” and “Where There Is No Dentist”. Fathers would enjoy receiving them as Fathers Day or birthday gifts or they can be downloaded for no cost from the Hesperian Foundation at the addresses below: (Don’t assume you’ll have power for your computer in an emergency though…. That would indeed exemplify very poor planning on our part. Hard copies are for sale on the site.)
Where There Is No Doctor http://www.hesperian.org/publications_download_wtnd.php
Where There Is No Dentist http://www.hesperian.org/publications_download_dentist.php

First Aid Kit Suggestions

Airway, Breathing and Circulation

Pocket mask
Face shield
Oropharyngeal airway
Nasopharyngeal airway
Bag valve mask
Manual aspirator or suction unit

Adhesive Bandages

Moleskin
Dressings
Eye pads
Gauze pads
Non-stick Teflon pad
Petrolatum gauze pad
Gauze roller bandages
Elastic bandages
Adhesive roller bandages
Triangular bandages
Butterfly bandages
Saline to clean wounds
Soap to clan superficial wounds
Burn dressing
Adhesive tape, hypoallergenic
Hemostatic agents to clot bleeding

Personal Protective Equipment

Gloves, disposable
Goggles
Surgical mask or N95 masks
Apron

Instruments and Equipment

Trauma shears
Scissors
Tweezers
Lighter to sterilize tweezers or pliers
Alcohol pads
Irrigation syringe
Flashlight
Chemical cold packs
Alcohol rub or antiseptic hand wipes
Thermometer
Space blanket
Penlight

Life Saving Medications

Aspirin
Epinephrine auto injector (brand name Epipen)

Pain Killing Medications

Acetaminophen
Ibuprofen or Naproxen
Codeine

Symptomatic Relief Medications

Anti-diarrhea medications
Oral rehydration salts
Antihistamine
Poison treatments - activated charcoal
Smelling salts

Topical Medications

Antiseptic ointments - Neomycin
Iodine
Aloe Vera gel
Burn gel
Anti-itch ointment - Hydrocortisone and Antihistamine creams
Calamine lotion
Anti-fungal cream
Tincture of benzoin

First Aid Kit List from Provident Living 2006

Medical-grade vinyl gloves
Poison ivy relief cream
Burn relief cream
Sunscreen, SPF of 30 or greater
Antibiotic ointment, Polysporin® or similar
Sting relief lotion or ointment, calamine or similar
Box of sterile gauze pads, either 3" x 3" or 4" x 4"
Abdominal (ABD) or combine sterile pad, 5" x 9"
Rolled gauze of 2 sizes, 2" x 4 yards and 4" x 4 yds
Bandages of assorted types: finger, knuckle, plastic, Telfa®, and general adhesive
Sterile oval eye pad
Small sharp scissors
Tweezers with pointed tip
Thermometers, oral and rectal (for babies)
Elastic bandage, 3" x 6"
Instant ice pack
Roll of adhesive tape, 1" wide, may use plastic type if preferred
Triangular bandages, 2
Package of safety pins, assorted sizes
Absorbent cotton balls, 1 box
Diarrhea remedy, Pepto-Bismol® or Kaopectate®
Popsicle® (craft) sticks or finger splints
Antibacterial soap, liquid or bar
Medicine dropper
Water purification tablets
Small bottle of bleach
Sharp knife or multipurpose knife/tool
Bottles of aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen (children’s or liquid if needed)
Splint materials: thin boards 2-3' long
Cough syrup and throat lozenges
Large plastic trash bag and several smaller, zip-closure bags

Technorati Tags: First-aid Kit,Emergency Preparedness

Sliced, Diced and Dehydrated

2010-08-31T14:09:00.000-07:00

It is a typical harvest season. Walking into our home makes your mouth water. The smells of sauces, chilies, catsup, juices and other delights seems to permeate everything.

The kitchen is always warm this time of the year because the burners on the range top rarely cool. In fact, several of the burners had to be replaced recently due to the constant use.

Step through the door into the garage and the smell is just as intense. Our dehydrator does turn off from time to time, long enough to clean it between loadings but it is always ready to ingest another full load.

We put it in on my workbench this time of year so the heat from the dehydration process is shared in another location rather than adding to the heat in the kitchen.

Of course our 3-burner propane stove adds to the available heat surface area as well. It cooks the large loads, the messy loads, the annual family canning Saturdays. That means that the garage is warm even when it is cold out side. We lift the doors half way, then fire that baby up to create shirt sleeve temperatures for our family crew as we work the preparation line.

I continue to be concerned about my seeming addiction to the dehydrated fruits and vegetables though. I can’t walk by them without reaching for a handful of tomato, strawberry, gooseberry, raspberry and all of the other ‘chips’ that were dehydrated this year. Hopefully, there will be some left for the rest of the family during the coming winter and spring months.

Our neighbors seem to drop by to talk a lot this time of the year too. At first I thought the ladies were just addicted to my wife’s chocolate zucchini cake, but the supply of dehydrated goodies drops precipitously during their visits too. I don’t blame them. You can’t resist either of them. (See a similar cake recipe here.)

We are often asked how much shrinkage occurs during the dehydration process. The answer is that it varies from variety to variety based in the solid mass of the item when it is fresh. Broccoli flowerets shrink at a constant 60% + –. Tomatoes shrink about 70% when all of the water is removed.

The photo below shows one-third bushel of tomatoes that have been dehydrated. The dried result was about three quarts of product. I say about, because of my heretofore described snacking addiction which tends to inhibit an accurate one-to-one measurement.

These photos show three trays of broccoli after dehydration. The trays were completely full prior to the dehydration process. The resultant dehydrated product filled one quart.

So far, our vacuum sealer keeps the bottles sealed and vacuum packed as long as we use new canning lids on clean bottles with smooth lips.

The rehydrated produce tastes fantastic in our meals. We are guessing that our sons and sons-in-laws may reap the harvest in pears, tomatoes, apples and other goodies when Santa comes to visit them this year. We’ll see if they have the courage to break the seal on the ‘beautiful’ contents or will use them for show-and-tell in their emergency preparedness assignments and as decorations on their storage shelves.

If you haven’t dehydrated the produce from your garden before, give it a try this year. Remember this selling point – dehydrated pineapple is a fantastic snack and expensive by the slice. Dehydrating it at home is much less expensive. If the men in the family still aren’t convinced about the benefits of dehydration, tell them of the fantastic jerky they can make in your dehydrator at a greatly reduced price compared to the stuff sold at your local gas and goodies store. If they still aren’t convinced, borrow a dehydrator for a couple of days, set it on the kitchen counter and then dehydrate a few trays of strawberries. The smell will make the sale.

Technorati Tags: Dehydration,Food Storage

Mountain House Taste Test

2010-08-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

We’ve always kept a selection of Mountain House dehydrated food packs in our 96-hour kits and bug-out-bags (BOB’s). Our selection of verities have always been narrow: spaghetti w/meat sauce and blueberry granola.

We love the taste of them and chose them for that reason, thinking that we wanted something to eat that was a known quantity.

Over time, I’ve picked up most of the entree’s and other items offered by Mountain House and added them to a separate food bag. Unfortunately, we didn’t take the time to taste some of them. Fortunately, they aged to the expiration date during the last few months, so we decided to eat them over ten consecutive days and keep notes about our tasting experience.

We were surprised that our taste buds have either changed in that time frame or the taste of them was different than it was at the taste test center in the store. Certainly, our memories couldn’t be faulty….

That said, the taste test has reinforced our earlier selection of ‘favorites’.. Here are our subjective taste rankings and results:

Granola w/Blueberries	#1 favorite breakfast. This entrée is so good, they should sell it as breakfast cereal in the store. Makes its own milk.
Scrambled Eggs w/Ham	2^nd (tie) favorite breakfast entrée. Not bad at all. Just remember to pour off any water that wasn’t absorbed.
Scrambled Eggs w/Bacon	2^nd (tie) favorite breakfast entrée. Not bad at all. Taste stayed with us all day. Pour off excess water at the end of the reconstitution time period.

Beef Stew	Ok but I wouldn’t want to use it in an emergency bag. The taste was a little ‘off’ to our taste and the beef never fully reconstituted.
Green Peas	Not ranked. We mix the peas with potato pearls as a quick and easy side dish.
Pork Sausage Patties	Ok, but they aren’t a good slice of turkey, etc.
Blueberry Cheesecake	#1 favorite dessert (tied). We don’t eat many desserts but this one topped the list.
Raspberry Crumble	#1 favorite dessert (tied). I personally like the crumble a little better than the blueberry cheesecake but again, it is subjective to the pallet of the taster.
Spaghetti w/Meat Sauce	#1 favorite lunch / dinner entrée. This selection is excellent. It reconstituted perfectly in 10 minutes. 4.5 oz in bag with 2 cups water (16 oz).
Lasagna w/Meat Sauce	#2 (tie) favorite lunch / dinner entrée. This selection is excellent. It reconstituted perfectly in 12 minutes
Pasta Primavera	#2 (tie) favorite lunch / dinner entrée. Be sure to let it fully reconstitute – it takes a little longer than noted on the package unless you use a water with a rolling boil.
Beef Teriyaki w/Rice	#3 Middle of the pack. A little spicy. The beef didn’t fully reconstitute after 12 minutes. Left a slight after taste that is hard to define.
Chicken Polynesian	#3 favorite lunch / dinner entrée. The selection is excellent. It reconstituted almost perfectly in 10 minutes. 6.44 oz in bag with 2 cups water (16 oz).
Sweet & Sour Pork w/ Rice	#4 favorite lunch / dinner entrée. The taste was good. Let it reconstitute for 14 minutes (4 minutes longer than instructions), but the meat didn’t fully rehydrate. 6.0 oz bag with 2 cups of water (16 oz). A little stomach upset.
Chicken w/Rice	#4 favorite lunch / dinner entrée. The selection was excellent. It reconstituted in 10 minutes.
Seafood Chowder	Last place entrée. The entrée can’t be recommended. It has a very strong sea food flavor and didn’t reconstitute very well. Some of the chunks were ‘chewey’. It made our stomachs upset – digestion issues.

Technorati Tags: Mountain House,Dehydrated Food

‘Tis The Season To Dehydrate’

2010-07-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

The garden harvest at our home is in full swing. Long anticipated fruits and vegetables make every meal a culinary delight.

We’ve always used the produce from our gardens and orchard for home storage but hadn’t included dehydrated foods in our food storage mix – until this year that is.

After listening to others rave about their dehydrated garden produce, apples, cherries, apricots and pears for years, we closely questioned them about their choice of dehydrator. The responses were enlightening.

In years past, we had a large greenhouse and closed the doors and vents to turn it into a big dehydrator to make cherry, apricot, peach, apple and pear leather. Our kids loved it the stuff. They would invariably choose it over candy.

When we moved, we left our green house behind. It has yet to be replaced. In the interim, we purchased one of the round dehydrators at a discount store and have never been happy with it. Thus, dehydration efforts of any kind fell to the wayside.

The favorable responses to our ‘What dehydrator do you use? and would you recommend it?” question had a common theme.

Stay away from dehydrators like the round one that we had.
Stay away from flimsy shelf dehydrators.
Buy an Excalibur dehydrator and love life.

This spring, we purchased a 9-shelf Excalibur model 3926T with temperature and timer. We also purchased a food slicer. Now we delight in finding things to dehydrate that we wouldn’t have considered earlier. Our pantry is lined with rows of quart bottles filled with produce from our garden, fruit bushes, products that were on sale and produce items that couldn’t eat quickly enough to keep from spoiling.

The Excalibur seems to be in constant use. We use the produce we've dehydrated in it constantly. The soup mixes created from our dehydrated vegetables are always in demand. Our children have asked us to give them quarts of dehydrated fruit from our orchard as Christmas presents this year. They love our dehydrated produce as much as we do.

The secret to successful dehydration batches is to create slices of a consistent thickness. They dry at the same speed, negating the tendency of us to fuss with them if the dehydration process requires too much ongoing attention. The slices also pack easily and let’s face it …. they look good too.

After reading thousands of comments about the likes and dislikes of the food slicers on the market, we settled on the Chief’s Choice model 610 and are very happy with it. We also purchased straight cut blade for additional cutting options. It cuts, cuts, cuts and never overheats and rarely bogs down with hard cuts very much. Briefly freezing meat to firm it up for slicing has resolved any ‘wandering cuts’ that are common with all slicers.

Who knew that preparing items for your food storage could be so much fun?

Our friends and family are becoming dehydration converts too.

Our raised bed garden boxes are producing at record levels this year and now nothing goes to waste. We laugh at ourselves some times because we’ll mistakenly dehydrate items that we meant to cook fresh for dinner.

If you have questions about how to prepare foods for dehydration or about the benefits of using this method to prepare produce for storage, watch the videos on the Excalibur website here.

Good luck in your own food storage and emergency preparedness efforts. Hopefully, this unsolicited user review will be beneficial to you in your own preparedness quest.

Technorati Tags: Dehydration,Food Storage,Excalibur,Chief's Choice,Emergency Preparedness

Vehicle Emergency Kits

2010-06-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Angela of the Adventures in Self-Reliance blog shared the vehicle emergency kit that they have in one of their vehicles.

In our family, we’ve always had emergency kits in our vehicles. Who knows what is going to happen to travelers? The more miles you drive, the more crazy events happen to you, especially if you don’t always stay on paved roads.

What should you put in your vehicle kit? It depends on your lifestyle, where and when you travel and how many folks ride in your vehicle.

Everyone needs the basics..

A Good First Aid Kit
A Basic Set of Tools
A Good Set of Jumper Cables
A Coat or Jacket
Flares and Reflective Triangle
Gloves
An old Rug or Mat to lay on
Water
Food or Nourishment of some type that will survive the hostile environment of your trunk
A Blanket
A Shovel

Add to the contents based on your lifestyle. If you drive any distance to work, put in a good set of walking shoes. There are many types of disasters that may put you afoot trying to get home.

Some of us carry a few more items than the ‘basics’ though. We’ve learned what we need and what ‘can’ happen to you from personal experience.

Below are two photos showing the contents of the emergency kit in our road vehicle. The off-road rigs have really good kits but they won’t be included here. Build your own kits. You may be REALLY happy that you did someday.

Just remember, it gets HOT in the back of your vehicle and food will spoil fast, hence the box of MRE’s shown here are for demonstration purposes only. We only carry boxes of them on shorter term journeys. Otherwise, we carry the dreaded sawdust food blocks like everyone else.

Technorati Tags: Emergency Kit,Vehicle Emergency Kit

Using Dutch Ovens

2010-04-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

Dutch Ovens are one of the best cooking tools available to man. If you weren't born with pioneer ancestors who passed the love of these great cooking ovens down to their descendants, you may not know how to to prepare and use them.

The International Dutch Oven Society based in Logan, Utah created a series of 'How To' videos as part of the 2009 International Dutch Oven Cookoff Event (see below)

If you don't have a Dutch Oven yet, get one and start using it this summer. You'll discover a whole new world of flavor that has sadly been missing from your life and at the same time gain a method of cooking that by using charcoal or wood coals can indefinitely bridge the loss of utility services.

Seasoning Dutch Ovens

Dutch Oven Safety

Heating Up a Dutch Oven

Dutch Oven Accessories

Dutch Oven Accessories 2

Dutch Oven Rule of 3’s

Dutch Oven Cleaning

Technorati Tags: Dutch Oven

Emergency Kit for Disabled and “Over-The-Hill Folks”

2010-04-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

After spending the day cleaning the garage and working on the garden and picnic tables, my memory has been reaffirmed. My back is shot.
Several of the vertebrae in my back have degenerative arthritis and the damage has reached the point that I couldn't possibly carry more the 20lbs (if that) on my back for any length of time now. Unfortunately, my wife suffers from the same affliction.
So what do we do about Bug-Out-Bags / 96-hour kits, water, etc.?
A few years ago, I purchased new rolling bags for our kits. Granted, they can be carried on your back like a backpack, but really aren't suited to that task. They do however, work extremely well if we put the weight on the wheels and tow them behind us.
Hopefully, if the earthquake faults in near us let loose with huge trembler's, levels our house and creates a 20 ft deep depression in our orchard behind the house, we will still be able to tug them behind us to the park by the church to meet up with the rest of the neighborhood family.
That scenario isn't going to happen ... If our conditions are that bad, the neighbors homes will all be on the ground too and the church will have been leveled long before our homes.   We'll probably all end up camping in our back yards, even though the 'Big One' will probably arrive at 2:00 a.m. on January 15th and it is -10F outside...
The wheels on our bags will get us that far if we can get them the 10ft from their storage closet to the back door.
The real use for the wheels would occur if we were forced to abandon our property for some reason and be mandated to gather in some 'safe' gathering location or building. Assuming we can get through the bottleneck Interstate corridor in our area, odds are that our new safe shelter won't have drive up 'drop offs'. We'd be lucky to park within a mile of the shelter if the whole Wasatch Front population was on the move too.   Wheels will save our 'day' in this scenario.
The weight of our kits and water is far more than we can manage on our backs. I don't care who you are ... If you have a family, especially a young family, are seeing more gray in your hair than the color you had when you left high school or even if you have grown kids to help, the weight of all your stuff is going to be a huge limiting factor.
Some folks would be able to bug out to locations where they can obtain and treat their water with relative ease and may not take as large a supply with them as do the folks in more urban areas. Good for them. But even folks in that fortunate circumstance still have to contend with weight and the age and physical condition of the folks who will be carrying their emergency kits.
Two years ago, I was asked to visit the class of younger men in our church and teach a lesson on Emergency Preparedness. I threw a couple of packs on the backs of the two youngest, brawniest fellows in the group with 10 liters of water in the bladder, two bottles on the sides and the food, minimal clothing, a super light sleeping bag and tarp and the other 'stuff' we put in light packs.
Moving the group to the gym, I asked the two gentlemen to slowly circle the outside walls while I talked for the next 30 minutes.
You know the results. Neither of these basketball, softball and tennis players made it to the finish line These to scout leaders were in trouble. They hike in the mountains with their scouts every summer, so what was the problem now? They don't carry 3-gallons of water with them when they go on their summer hikes. The 25+ pounds associated with it and was a killer in addition to the rest of the weight in the packs.
Ten minutes after the first two started, I loaded up another brawny father with water and a pack for himself and water for his three little kids. He struggled, he groaned, and to save face, he stayed walking a lot longer than anyone expected, but by the time the first two had thrown in the towel, he was approaching his own personal 'wall' and soon gave up.
Water and weight. If we ever have to actually bug out with our families and actually have to carry our water with us, we all have a problem ahead.
How are you addressing this issue?
The answer in our family and our children's family has been to carry a light pack on our backs and put the weight each of us needs in rolling bags. Even our 3-year old grandsons have amazing abilities allowing them to tow their bags along for lengthy periods of time.
What is your solution to this very real problem?

Technorati Tags: 96-hour kit,72-hour kit,emergency kit,water,weight

Is That A Mummy In Our Food Storage?

2010-04-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

We married a few years ago. Well, I guess few is a bit of a misnomer. Let’s say it was closer to 40 years ago than to 50 years ago.

We’ve always been concerned about being prepared for difficult situations from loss of income to a failure in the food chain for any reason. So, as young married folks we started our food storage regimen.

Our plan was to have our shelves full of cans and bags of foods that we normally eat but were purchased when stores sales came around. We slowly added freeze dried #10 cans of basics from time to time by applying our federal and state tax returns to their purchase.

The stuff on the shelves was rotated and eaten as a normal course of living and even ‘saved our bacon’ from time to time when the need to pay for a doctor and hospital expenses associated with a new baby or the subsequent broken arms and orthodontic expenses that are part of the lives of young folks.

The freeze dried foods were supposed to be good for “30-years” or so said the still attached advertisements on the labels. How the company knew this is beyond me now, since they had only been in business for 5 years when we purchased their products, but the number stuck in our minds and it was easy to leave the cans in their original boxes that were safely tucked in the back under other ‘stuff’.

Flash forward 40 years.

The cans still look as clean and sharp as they did on they day we received them. They’ve moved from home to home and have been stored in bedroom closets, crawl spaces, basement storage rooms and as support for kids beds. They’ve admirably occupied the space they were given all of this time and filled the role that we’ve assigned to them in our minds.

Feeling adventurous, I donned my pith helmet, headlamp and a work shirt before beginning the ‘dig’ to exhume these ancient treasures. My ‘Raiders’ fedora remained hung on the wall. I own this museum..

The ‘stuff’ on top of them must have gained weight over the years according to my back. Calories quickly evaporated during the debris removal process to get to the treasure. It was easy to date the materials as I moved them based on the evolution of my hand writing that was exhibited on the boxes. Drafting to engineering to management tilt and inflections surfaced. Actually, it was in the reverse order based on time but this old explorer took that into account before asking for carbon dating.

Treasure! The Sam–Andy cases were exposed to light for the first time in a long time just like the statues found under the sea at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt.

How did the products look when the cans were opened? They were originally nitrogen packed and as far as I could tell, the nitrogen was still in place. The grains, pasta and beans looked like any that you’d buy today. The powered milk was solid and will make great foundations for new porch posts.

How did they taste? Fine. Did they have any nutritional value after all of this time? I don’t know. They were filling when consumed. We didn’t loose any weight after eating them (for any reason) but we weren’t trying to live on them exclusively either, so the long term effects of eating them exclusively was lost.

The 40-year-old toilet paper was a mixed bag. The ‘hard’ kind was as good as the day it was purchased. The ‘soft’ kind had air slagged and will only be good as fluff used to to start fires.

Someone with the knowledge and skills will have to tell us if the old Sam-Andy food still had nutrition but because of the food types, it was still readily recognizable in its original form.

I can’t say the peaches from an errant jar found in the dig can make the same claim. I’m not even sure the old Kerr bottle is as clear as it once was. Maybe the blue color comes from being cold --- not old?

Moral. Store food. Use it. Rotate it. Build up some cushion in your food bank to bridge rough spots in the road ahead while you can. Don’t be trapped on a financial or availability hole looking up hungry and wondering how to get out and how to feed your family.

Technorati Tags: Food Storage,Rotation

The Ever Increasing Price of Seeds

2010-03-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

We know that we always want to have enough seeds on hand to plant for a couple of seasons. The news today is that the price of basic farm seeds has increased 135% since 2001.

A New York Times headline dated 12 March 2010 reads: "Rapid Rise in Seed Prices Draws U.S. Scrutiny". The first paragraph of the story reads: "During the depths of the economic crisis last year, the prices for many goods held steady or even dropped. But on American farms, the picture was far different, as farmers watched the price they paid for seeds skyrocket. Corn seed prices rose 32 percent; soybean seeds were up 24 percent."

The price increases are for just the last year!

The cost of purchasing new seeds will probably continue to rise in the years ahead. In an economic / societal collapse, the value of viable planting seeds will skyrocket.

2010 is a good year to learn how to save seeds from your garden and to join groups like Seed Savers Exchange.

Heather Coburn has written a good article on how to create a Seed Swap in your area that you may want to entertain this year.

Click on the links to visit the related sites.

Technorati Tags: Seeds,Gardening,Seed Exchange

Tools For Your Emergency Kit

2010-03-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

How much ‘stuff’ should you include in your emergency kit?
We are all tempted to include too much into our kits, yet leave out a few essentials.
Weight must be carefully considered for any emergency kit. An ideal adult kit should weigh approximately thirty pounds, which doesn’t seem like a lot until you have to carry it for any length of time or distance.
When water and shelter items are added to the weight of your pack, there is very little left of the weight allowance for other items.
Two tools should be considered for in your weight table; the VersaTool and the Pocket Survival Tool. Combined they weigh 8.5 oz. In an emergency, we may well need a small basic set of tools. I carry them in addition to my Leatherman tool:

1. Doc Allen’s Versa Tool

The tool comes with a stainless steel handle and magnetic extension along with a selection of flat, Phillips and hex bits. Also included is a zippered carrying pouch with a belt loop.

I’ve added three sockets to my kit a 3/8”, 5/16” and 1/4” – the most common sizes associated with the items I encounter regularly.
The total weight of the tool pouch including the sockets is 7.5 oz.

The VersaTool’s handle design creates three different torque configurations: screwdriver, control and high torque.

The extension includes a strong magnet which keeps the bits and sockets securely in place in any orientation of the tool.

The handle has three dimples that establish the three positions. A spring loaded bearing in the handle socket locks it into place in each of the positions.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the amount of force that can be applied using the tool.

Recently, we used the tool kit to fix the diesel injectors on a stranded vehicle. The owner didn’t have any other tools with them but had a VersaTool in their glove box.

Within ten minutes, the problem was resolved and they were back on the road.

The loaded tool pouch is approximately 4” x 3” x 3/8”

If you have a bicycle, motorcycle or 4-wheeler, the VersaTool should be included in their tool kits.

2. Multipurpose Pocket Survival Tool

The pocket survival tool is advertised as being small enough to fit in your wallet. In my experience, the 1 oz stainless steel tool can fit in a wallet, but it is too thick and stiff to be comfortably carried.
It would certainly be confiscated if you forgot to remove it before checking in for a flight.

The tool includes 11 functions:

Can opener
Knife edge
Screwdriver
Ruler
Cap opener
4 position wrench
Butterfly wrench
Saw blade
Direction ancillary indication
2 position wrench
Lanyard hole (key ring)

Technorati Tags: Emergency Kit,Survival Tool

Emergency Kit Documents

2010-02-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

Your home has been destroyed or you've had to relocate to a distant location in a disaster. No problem. You family all has 96-hour kits with cash in them and your vehicle is full of fuel, (you know this because you never let it get below a half tank on the fuel gauge). You are going to be ok. Right?

Well, as the folks who were similarly prepared when they were hit by Katrinia found out, they were still in trouble. Not only from the intensity of the destruction and the duration of loss of living facilities and jobs, but also due to the separation of family members from each other.

Some family members were injured and taken to a medical facility - somewhere. Children were taken to safe housing - somewhere. Senior adults were stranded or taken to temporary housing - somewhere. Some did not survive and when their bodies were finally retrieved, they were taken - somewhere - and few had identification.
Unfortunately, the initial disaster was just the start of the grief in the lives of Katrina victims. As time passed after the initial days, families tried to find each other and gather at the same location. Young children were protected by security. They wouldn't be released to just anyone claiming to be their parents or legal guardian. You needed proof that they were your kids
.
Frequently, the parent(s) were severely injured and couldn't search for their children. Even if the kids could tell rescuers their parents names, it was a very hard and long term process to match the families members with each other.

A family photo in the emergency kits with each person identified on the back would have helped everyone in the quest to find other family members.

Flash forward a few weeks or more.

Mom or Dad go to a bank hoping to withdraw money from their account. So do an army of thief's who are trying to rob every penny they can in the confusion created by the devastation.

"I'm sorry sir or ma'am. Your account shows that it you have withdrawn all your money -- or -- we need your account information and photo I.D." "We need to see a recent statement." - to prove you own the account, that you are who you say, etc. Without it, retrieving your money may be difficult to impossible.

"We need medical care. We have insurance." "Who is your insurance carrier? May I see your insurance card please?"

The family is together and safe but wants to get back to as much of a normal life as possible. Water has receded and even though the house is in ruins, it can be rebuilt. All you needed to do is call your insurance agent, just like they'd seen on television over and over.

"What is your policy number?" "I don't' know. My house was destroyed! You know me. I've paid premiums to your company for years." The insurance agent knows that they can't proceed without proper records and identification but telling the devastated policy holder is tough. "I'm sorry, but we can proceed until you can provide the information needed.?
Then finally make it to your home to start retrieving the few possessions that have survived. A police officer or member of the military sees you and asks for proof that you own the property and that you aren't a looter. Just because your drivers license says you lived at this approximate address (there aren't and surviving address numbers anywhere) four years ago when you renewed it, that doesn't mean you still have any claim to the property. "I need to see a recent utility bill, lease, deed, etc., before you will be allowed to touch anything on this site."

When you go to the FEMA tent hoping to receive federal assistance to rebuild your life, if you don't have all of these documents, you don't have a chance of receiving help. In fact, local government will work against any effort you make to clear your property and rebuild. As far as they are concerned, you are a thief, a squatter, a bad person.

Every adult emergency kit should include a copy of important documents...

Government issue photo ID
Insurance card
Special medical needs ID's and documents
Copies of recent bank and financial statements
Copies of account numbers from utility bills
A copy of your insurance policies
A copy of deeds, leases, etc.
A copy of your will and living will ( you may die in an emergency )
A copy of your notarized last wishes for burial including any burial insurance policy, burial plans, cemetery plot ownership.
A recent photo of your family with each person identified on the back of it - in permanent ink
Names and contact information of in-state and out-of-state contacts
Employee card

Think through your own situation. If you had to prove who you are in every step of restoring your life and family, what documents would you need? You may be surprised if you make an thoughtful inventory.

Put the copies of your documents in a waterproof / water resistant case that you can easily open repeatedly over time when you replace the old copies with new copies.

Hide the documents in your emergency kit. Your life is in that bag. A thief would love to get their hands on it.

If you have an opportunity to talk to anyone who has been severely impacted by a disaster, ask them what they would have in their documents kit now. The list may be a lot longer than the one listed here.

Technorati Tags: 72-hour kit,96-hour,documents,emergency kit

GoBe – Solar Power

2010-02-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

We purchased a GoBe solar briefcase and power hub for use in emergencies and outings. So far, we’ve enjoyed its form factor and service.

The GoBe power hub is not designed to run large loads for extended periods of time, but for light loads, such as a 13-watt fluorescent light, charging electronics and smaller loads, it is great. The power hub will keep the light burning for about 10 hours.

Recharge time for the hub is about 12-hours of direct sunlight or slightly less when plugged into a wall socket.

The form factor is excellently designed and includes rubber edging on both units.

As you can see in this photo, the system can power a laptop and charge small electronics at the same time, although the user must be careful to manage loading.

The power hub contains a six-cell, 14.5 amp hour AGM battery.

Setup only takes a second. Slide the two latches on the solar panel, extend the support legs on the back of each panel and plug the power supply cord into the power hub. One minute – maybe two max.

Adjust the angle of the support legs so the surface of the panel is approximately 90 degrees from the plane of the orbit of the sun. If it is a windy day, you may want to add an additional support because the panels will act as sail even though the panel is wrapped in a non-skid rubber edge.

Accessories included in the power hub package include 12 volt male and female cigarette lighter connectors, a 120 volt / 12 volt transformer brick for home charging and a 3 pin to 2 pin adapter plug.

When the solar panels are opened to light, a flashing blue indicator light in the bottom right corner of the panel flashes. When I opened the panels in our kitchen under fluorescent lighting, I was surprised to measure a 12-volt output. I haven’t measured the output in direct sunlight but assume it will match the 12 to 13-volt output noted on the GoBe fact chart.

The power hub offers three outlets. 120v -- Because it has a built in 80-watt inverter, one of the outlets will support normal 120v plugs, but the losses associated with the voltage conversion will reduce the length of the charge duration. A 12-volt outlet accepts either of the cigarette lighter adapters and lastly, a USB power outlet rated at .5A. The configuration is well designed.

The use of the 12-volt outlets will extend the life of the charge because the voltage transformation losses are absent.

My wife quickly sewed a small draw string bag to hold the power adapters which we keep attached to the power hub.

The support legs for the panels snap into holding slots on the back of each panel for storage.

The panel is about 1” thick and secured by two latches and a piano hinge on the back.

The GoBe is much easier to use than our other solar panels but lacks the advantage of deep cycle marine batteries that we use with them. However, the GoBe is our choice for travel and quick setup when relatively low loads will be used. If our house was on the ground in the days after an earthquake, the Gobe would keep our Ham radios, phones and entertainment handsets in service along with providing the equivalent of 60 watts of light at night. The other panels and batteries would take a lot longer to setup, especially if we had to lug them to a remote location on foot.

Technorati Tags: Emergency Preparedness,Solar Power,GoBe

96-Hour Emergency Kit

2010-02-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

A 72-hour kit it the popular description of an emergency kit. In real disaster situations, 72-hours frequently pass and emergency responders haven't reached a large percentage of the victims.

Most adults can skip eating for a day and not be affected in normal life. In a disaster / stress situation, not eating for a day may severely compromise our ability to physically respond to the immediate needs of our families. We need to consider increasing the water and food stored in our kits for a few extra days. Even if help comes within 72-hours, other people may not be as well prepared and will need our surplus.

Most of the list below has been around for years. I've tweaked it to include items included in the 96-hour kits of folks we've met who use their kits with their families in emergency training activities at least twice a year.

It is just a list. It is not intended to be all inclusive or serve as a strict rule of thumb. Scan through the items in the list and compare their function to the contents in your own emergency kits.

All of us need to use our emergency kits several times a year for a number of reasons:

Rotation of the food. You may not like MRE's, weevil ridden energy bars or 'sawdust' food bricks!
Rotation of the water Becoming comfortable and proficient in the use of the food and tools in the kit
Replace clothing if needed due to growth, utility, durability, warmth, convertibility, etc.
Gaining confidence in being able to actually survive with the kit
Tweaking kit contents to fit reality

Our children and grandchildren camp out with us in our orchard for three days every summer. We all live out of our emergency kits. Not only are they fun family gatherings, but they are great learning experiences for our grandchildren. They are very comfortable living out of their bags for these gatherings. Fortunately, bathrooms, showers and baby stations are still available for all of us during these fun mini-vacations.

Every spring and fall, the individual families travel to locations that they enjoy and again live out of their kits while they bicycle through the slick rock or camp on the shore of a favorite lake. Thus their kits are old friends, constantly being used and renewed.

Consider implementing the regular use of your emergency kits in your family. During your adventure consider: Is 72-hour preparedness enough? .... and be thankful for working bathrooms.

96-Hour Kit List

 Personal Emergency Plan
 Contact List / Phone Numbers

Water
 Gallon / person / day = 8.35 lb / gal
 Poly canteens, 1 quart
 Sierra cup
 Water purification tablets
 Water purifier & extra filters
 Water bag, nylon
 Water bag liners, plastic
 Solar still
 Rubber surgical tubing Bedding
 Foam pad, closed cell
 Sleeping bag - temp rating your area.
 Air pillow

Food
 Personal daily rations
 Energy bars, tablets
 Trail snacks
 Freeze dried packs (Mtn. House, etc.)
 MRE's
 Your Own Food List

Cleanup
 Scouring pads, soap filled
 Sanitary tablets & dunking bag
 Dish towel - black dries fastest in sun

Clothing
 Hiking boots - broken in
 Trail sneakers
 Socks
 Underclothing
 Thermal underwear
 Shirts, short sleeve
 Shirts, long sleeve
 Shorts, hiking
 Sturdy trousers, long
 Sweat pants - can cut off if hot
 Belt and buckle
 Sweater
 Down vest
 Down jacket
 Parka
 Poncho
 Gloves, leather and snowboarder
 Mittens, wool
 Scarf
 Balaclava
 Bandanna, large
 Hat - brimmed -
 Swimsuit

Cooking Equipment
 Frying pan, folding
 Cook set, nesting
 Can opener, P-38
 Eating utensil set
 Book matches, water proof
 Pack stove
 Windscreen
 Fuel bottles - w / fuel
 Condiments
 Salt & Pepper
 Sugar
 Flour
 Honey
 Milk, dry, instant
 Aluminum foil

Shelter
 Tent - test assemble it before buying
 Tent fly  Tent poles  Tent pegs
 Ground cloth  Ultra light weight tarp
 Tarp clamps  Paracord (550), 50 ft. 2 ea

Personal Hygiene & Sanitation
 Toilet trowel or small shovel
 Toilet tissue, biodegradable
 Feminine hygiene items
 Shampoo
 Comb and brush
 Eye drops
 Tooth brush & tooth paste
 Shaving gear
 Deodorant
 Soap & soap dish
 Bath towel - black - dries faster in sun
 Plastic bags dbl wall - w/ties for waste
 Mirror - small - non-breakable
 Moist towelettes
 Sewing kit
 Paper towels

First Aid
 Personal First Aid Kit
 Family First Aid Kit
 Build own kit(s) to fit your family
 Prescription medicines you need
 Thyroid blocker - potassium iodide

Preventative Aids
 Foot powder
 Body powder, medicated
 Moleskins
 Chigger powder
 Mosquito repellent
 Lip balm
 Sun block
 Body powder, medicated
 Corn starch
 Hand lotion

Emergency Gear
 Signal flares, night
 Signal smoke, day
 Signal die, water
 Signal mirror
 Strobe light
 Whistle
 Space blankets or bags
 Hand warmers
 Headlamp
- LED "AA" batteries
 CERT kit if trained
 Whistle
 Dust masks - N95 valved
 Vinyl gloves

Personal Items
 Camera, lenses, flash and film
 Binoculars
 Swiss Pocket knife
 Sharpening stones and oil
 Wallet - Cash $100 - $200 in small bills
 Extra house and car keys
 Copy of important papers, ie. titles, bank statement, drivers license, etc.
 Put docs in waterproof bag - hide in kit
 Change $10 / $20 - quarters for phone
 Handkerchief
 Watch
 Sun & prescription glasses
 Pencil and note pad
 Scriptures  Photos - Self - Family - names on back
 Photo I.D., Copy of HAM license

Light, Heat, Fire Making
 Pack lantern
 Spare lantern mantles
 Flash light w / L.E.D. light
 Spare bulb, batteries
 Candle lantern
 Spare plumbers candles
 Glow sticks
 Match safe & matches
 Magnesium block
 Magnifying glass
 Lighter
 Spare flints
 Fire starting kit

Fishing Equipment
 Pack rod case
 Pack rod, spin -fly combination
 Ultra lite spinning reel
 Ultra lite fly reel
 15 lb test Spiderwire monofilament
 7DTF fly line
 Fly line leaders, various lb test
 Tackle boxes, small double sided (2)
 Hooks, size 8, 10, 12  Fly assortment
 Sinkers, split shot
 Spinners
 Spoons
 Small plugs, poppers, bugs
 Fanny pack.
 Copper wire – spool

Navigation
 Map case
 Maps
 Map measure
 Pedometer
 Compass
 Altimeter
 Global positioning system (GPS)

Pack - Pack Frame
 Pack or rolling duffle bag
 Frame
 Clevis pins
 Stuff bags
 Compression straps
 Plastic garbage bags
 Twist ties

Communication
 Pocket radio, battery/solar power
 Cell phone ... and / or
 Two way radio: HAM, CB, GMRS, FRS
 Spare batteries - know your equip.
 Solar battery charger

Clothing Maintenance and Repair
 Sewing Kit  Spare shoelaces
 Biodegradable detergent
 Woolite  Small scrub brush
 Clothes pins

Tools and Repair Kits
 Leatherman.or Gerber tool
 Doc Allen Versatool
 Sven saw
 Hatchet/Boys axe w/sheath
 8-inch mill file
 Spare parts: pack, stove, lantern
 Tent/ Pack patch kit: ripstop tape
 Small shovel
 Needle nose pliers - small wrench
 Duct tape

Protection
 Pistol - Concealed carry & training
 Extra ammo
 Knife - Emerson CQC-7
 Leather belt - bidirectional dbl layered
 Personal protection training
 NLP - neuro-linguistic programming

Modify kit list to fit your needs. Use your kit 2 or 3 times a year. If you can't use the contents instinctually before an emergency, you'll be in serious trouble when one hits.

Test all equipment in mock disaster scenarios in backyard or camping activities. Run tests on the coldest day / night of year and then tweak your kits to match your needs.

Remember, you'll be carrying the kit so pay attention to weight. You may have to put some of your kits including water in wheeled bags. Even little folks can maneuver rolling luggage.

Technorati Tags: CERT,Checklist,96-hour,Emergency Kit,Emergency Plan,Emergency Preparedness

Emergency Preparedness - Garden Planning

2010-01-15T23:00:00.000-08:00

Here we are at the start of a new year. The weather is cold, snow is on the ground and other than rotating and replenishing our food storage, we can't do much more this month to produce food for the new year.

Of course that isn't true. Now is the time to be pouring through seed catalogs, planning our garden layout, sharpening and oiling garden tools and stocking up on non-hybrid seeds.

Non-hybrid? Absolutely. It is ok to grow today’s genetically modified and hybrid seeds if you are absolutely sure that there will be seeds available for purchase in 2011, but the risk of that not being true is always a possibility.

Don't take the chance.

Genetically altered and hybrid seeds typically can't be harvested from your crop for use in next year’s crop. They aren't designed to produce multiple generations of harvests.

This year, be sure to include heirloom seed varieties in your planning. If you decide to use a mix of heirloom and hybrid seeds, plant them far apart so the heirlooms aren't polluted through cross pollination.

This year, learn how to harvest and store seeds from your crops to plant your garden next year. Eventually, we will all probably need to know this skill and have the correct variety of seeds in our garden storage cache.

Seeds have a limited life. By year three, you'll probably only have 60% successful germination. Year four and five germination will drop off even more dramatically. Seeds need to be stored in cool, dry locations in containers that allow them to breathe. They are alive. Storing them in airtight contains will kill them in a few years or less based on the amount of free oxygen in the container.

We read stories of grains that were found in Egyptian pyramids that were successfully germinated millennia later. What the stories don't tell is that only one out of a thousand or ten thousand actually grew. We certainly don't want that type of a response in our own plantings, especially in a time of need.
Don't forget to include herbs in your gardens and seed storage.

Food always tastes better when fresh herbs are used and if you are growing your own supplies, you are independent of the expensive and possibly non-existent supplies at the store. Herb gardens don't take a large foot print of soil. The space required is small. In fact, you can grow a very good herb garden in pots on your patio.

2010 is the year to have a garden if you haven't had one in the past. It is the year to carefully consider the varieties, fertilization and annual rotation plans for continued successful gardens. It is the year to plant vegetables among your flowers and harness the natural protection, pollination and shade that these mixed gardens create in complementary plantings.

Among other places, heirloom seeds can be found in the following catalogs:

Johnny's Selected Seeds http://www.johnnyseeds.com
Heirloom Seeds http://www.heirloomseeds.com
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds http://rareseeds.com
Amishland Heirloom Seeds http://www.amishlandseeds.com
Territorial Seed Company http://www.territorialseed.com

Consider participating swapping or donating some of your 2010 seeds with other family
members or organizations like Seed Savers Exchange: http://www.seedsavers.org

Order your seed catalogs this week. Even though the ground is covered in white, you'll quickly find
yourself imagining the warmth of the summer as you peruse the catalog pages and make your selections.

Technorati Tags: Garden,Heirloom,Seeds

Emergency Preparedness – Fuel for Cooking

2009-12-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

Most thoughtful folks have all been working on emergency preparedness food storage for years. But – have you tried living from it yet? If so, how did you cook the items that need heat? Our electric and gas stoves work file now but what will we use during an emergency?

If you haven’t considered storing charcoal as your cooking food source, put it on your list of items to store. Combined with a couple of Dutch ovens, you can prepare at least one hot meal a day for a year with limited fuel costs.

Charcoal stores very well if you keep it in the original bags in a cool dry location. We try to buy our storage charcoal in plastic wrapped two bag packages. The best charcoal is the standard Kingston brand. It simply burns longer, at a more constant temperature and seems to store longer than any other brand. You DON’T want to use charcoal that has lighter additives because it will not only ruin the taste of your food but the briquettes burn too fast.

You may also want to consider storing your charcoal supply in 6 gallon plastic buckets with screw type Gamma lids. The lids provide easy access and will keep the charcoal dry. Also consider purchasing just one Gamma lid and move it to the new sealed bucket when you empty the bucket you are using.

It is recommended that the ‘average’ family should store 500 lbs of charcoal for one year storage. Again, that assumes one hot meal cooked a day. Because Dutch ovens cook more efficiently, they help reduce the amount of fuel you need to store.

When using a charcoal as fuel for a Dutch oven, there is an easy formula to use. Determine the size of the oven and add two more briquettes to the top than the oven size and two less to the bottom. Example: If you have a 12” oven, put 14 briquettes on the top and 10 on bottom under the oven. In a non-windy or very cold day, this will produce a 350F temperature in the oven. Cooking breads adds an additional couple of briquettes to the top.

To learn more about Dutch oven cooking, search the web. You’ll definitely want to visit the www.idos.com site.

You’ll want to consider the purchase of a Volcano stove because of the heat efficiency it adds to the cooking process. See their site at www.volcano2.com

Also consider other fuel sources such as propane and white gas, but know that they can only be stored in small quantities at a residence. Check local city ordinances for the current language of the law.

Choose a storage plan that works best for your family. Be sure to try the cooking system you plan to use now, while we aren’t in an emergency situation

Technorati Tags: Emergency Preparedness,Fuel,Charcoal

CERT EMERGENCY BAG ITEMS

2009-11-24T22:50:00.000-08:00

CERT EMERGENCY BAG ITEMS
1- Medical Supplies

a. Roller bandages, 10 plus. (Make you own – sheets?)
b. Triangular bandages, 6 plus
c. 2 x 2 bandages, 30 plus
d. 4 x 4 bandages, 30 plus
e. 6 x 6 bandages, 30 plus
f. Surgical tape, 4 plus rolls
g. Rubber gloves, 1 box. (Size that fits you!)
h. Particle masks, 10 ea.

2- Safety Equipment

a. Goggle
b. Leather gloves
c. Hard hat
d. Vest

3- Miscellaneous

a. 30 gal. Plastic bags, 5 ea.
b. Anti-bacterial soap, liquid, 1 pt.
c. 6 to 8 in. crescent wrench
d. Multi-purpose knife. (Leatherman, Schrade, etc.)
e. Sterile saline solution for open fractures.
f. Duct tape
g. Masking tape
h. Pens, pencils, magic markers, notebooks, extra paper, chalk for marking doors etc.
i. Portable radio
j. Flash light
k. Extra batteries
l. Boots suitable for traversing debris
m. Scissors – heavy duty
n. High-energy bars, etc.
o. Canteen or supply of water -- for you. (Possibly carried on belt)

4- Equipment you might bring to the command post

a. Shovels
b. Hand saws
c. Fire extinguishers
d. Pry bars
e. Cribbing materials (2x2, 4x4, by 18 to 24 in. long)
f. FRS radios
g. Ham radios
h. Rope
i. Axe
j. Large first aid kit
k. Blankets

Technorati Tags: CERT,Checklist,Emergency Kit

Emergency Kits for Grandchildren

2009-11-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

Grandparents, few grandchildren are 'toy deprived' these days..
If you are looking for a gift that will have lasting value, consider putting emergency kits together for your grandchildren for Christmas. Include a note that tells them to eat the goodies in it every six months and you'll guarantee that it at least it will see the light of day twice a year.
Watch for backpacks or small rolling upright bags on sale. Populate them with the basic supplies needed in any emergency kit. Let their parents add the clothing and favorite foods. Of course, it is ok and expected, that the grandparents will add the candy and goodies to the kit.
Put laminated name tags on each of them. The information should include the child's name, address, parents names and contact information and the name and telephone number of an out of state contact.
In the bottom of the bag, include a laminated color photo of the family of your grandchildren with the family names, address, contact information and out of state contact information on the back. In a major disaster, small children often become separated from their families and the photo and information will help emergency workers reunite the children with their families.
You'll want to keep the photo buried deep so that it won't be easily stolen by people for nefarious purposes.
Which bag should you choose?
It all depends. Small children can't carry much weight. When you add the weight of a little food, a change of clothing, book or game and some water, it can easily exceed their ability to carry the kit.
Consider purchasing a smaller rolling bag instead of a back pack for younger folks. The advantage is that they can put the weight of the pack on the ground rather than on their shoulders as experienced with a back pack. The disadvantage is the rolling wheels and bag frame are more difficult to carry, even with rolling packs that have shoulder straps.
Lastly, ask the parents who is going to carry the water for the family. Water weighs about 8.5 pounds per gallon. The rule of thumb for emergency water storage is one gallon per-person-per-day for drinking and incidental uses. Thus the 72-hour kits for a family of four includes about 100 pounds of water.
Even athletic young fathers, can't carry 100 pounds of water for the family in addition to their own pack and probably the packs of a child or two for very long. This fact alone will probably push you to purchase the rolling bags so the children can carry at least some of their own water.
From personal experience, we know that three and four-year-old grandchildren can easily handle rolling bags that weigh up to 40 pounds. The weight of the pack is on the ground and they only have to handle a pound or two in their small hands as they navigate their bags on their escape route.
This year, tell your grandchildren "Merry Christmas" with a gift of lasting love.

Technorati Tags: Emergency Kit,72-hour kit,children

Handy 72-Hour Kit Check List

2009-11-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

72 Hour Kit Check List

Water

Poly canteens, 1 quart
Sierra cup
Water purification tablets
Water purifier & extra filters
Water bag, nylon
Water bag liners, plastic
Solar still
Rubber surgical tubing

Food

Personal daily rations
Energy bars, tablets
Trail snacks

Clothing

Hiking boots
Trail sneakers
Socks
Underclothing
Thermal underwear
Shirts, short sleeve
Shirts, long sleeve
Shorts, hiking
Trousers, long
Belt and buckle
Sweater
Down vest
Down jacket
Parka
Poncho
Gloves, leather
Mittens, wool
Scarf
Balaclava
Bandanna, large
Hat
Swimsuit

Shelter

Tent
Tent fly
Tent poles
Tent pegs
Ground cloth
Ultra light weight tarp
Visk clamps
Nylon line, 50 ft. 2 ea

Bedding

Foam pad, closed cell
Sleeping bag
Air pillow

Cooking Equipment

Frying pan, folding
Cook set, nesting
Can opener, P-38
Eating utensil set
Book matches, water proof
Pack stove
Windscreen
Fuel bottles
Condiments
Salt & Pepper
Sugar
Flour
Honey
Milk, dry, instant

Clean Up

Scouring pads, soap filled
Sanitary tablets & dunking bag
Dish towel

Personal Hygiene & Sanitation

Toilet trowel
Toilet tissue, biodegradable
Feminine hygiene items
Shampoo
Comb and brush
Eye drops
Tooth brush & tooth paste
Shaving gear
Deodorant
Soap & soap dish
Bath towel

Preventative Aid

Foot powder
Body powder, medicated
Moleskins
Chigger powder
Mosquito repellent
Lip balm
Sun block
Body powder, medicated
Corn starch
Hand lotion

First Aid

Personal First Aid Kit
Family First Aid Kit

Emergency Gear

Signal flares, night
Signal smoke, day
Signal die, water
Signal mirror
Strobe light
Whistle
Space blanket
Hand warmers

Light, Heat, Fire making

Pack lantern
Spare lantern mantles
Flash light
Spare bulb, batteries
Candle lantern
Spare plumbers candles
Glow sticks
Match safe & matches
Magnesium block
Magnifying glass
Lighter
Spare flints

Navigation

Map case
Maps
Map measure
Pedometer
Compass
Altimeter
Global positioning system (GPS)

Communication

Pocket radio, battery/solar power
Cell phone ... or
Two way radio: HAM, CB, GMRS, FRS
Spare NiCad batteries
Solar battery charger

Tools and Repair Kits

Leatherman.Gerber tool
Sven saw
Hatchet/Boys axe w/sheath
8 inch mill file
Spare parts: pack, stove, lantern
Tent/ Pack patch kit: ripstop tape
Copper wire, spool

Personal Items

Cash
Camera, lenses, flash and film
Binoculars
Swiss Pocket knife
Sharpening stones and oil
Wallet
Extra house and car keys
Copy of important papers such as titles etc.
Change for pay phones
Handkerchief
Watch
Sun & prescription glasses
Pencil and note pad
Scriptures

Fishing Equipment

Pack rod case
Pack rod, spin -fly combination
Ultra lite spinning reel
Ultra lite fly reel
15 lb test Spiderwire monofilament
7DTF fly line
Fly line leaders, various lb test
Tackle boxes, small double sided (2)
Hooks, size 8, 10, 12
Fly assortment
Sinkers, split shot
Spinners
Spoons
Small plugs, poppers, bugs
Fanny Pack.

Pack and Pack Frame

Pack
Frame
Clevis pins
Stuff bags
Compression straps
Plastic garbage bags
Twist ties

Clothing Maintenance and Repair

Sewing Kit
Spare shoelaces
Biodegradable detergent
Woolite
Small scrub brush
Clothes pins

Technorati Tags: Emergency Kit,Checklist,72-hour

Emergency Kit in a Can

2009-11-04T17:41:00.000-08:00

Field and Stream magazine has posted a great article about creating a personal survival kit in an Altoids can. The article has been hugely popular with scout troops and individuals wanting to create their own lightweight kits.

Photo c / Field and Stream

Read the article here. Great Christmas presents? Probably. Great Saturday activity building them with your family? Absolutely.

Technorati Tags: Emergency Preparedness,Emergency Kit,Pocket Kit

Preparedness Tips

2009-11-03T01:10:00.000-08:00

Get plastic car keys made at AAA or a locksmith. Carry the card in your wallet or purse.
Sweat pants / shirts are ideal emergency clothing. Cut arms, legs short if used in summer.
Put a dryer sheet in each baggie containing clothes, towels, etc. Stops stale smell.
Put a flat bed sheet sheet in each pack. Use for privacy, shelter, triangular bandage, etc.
Use small plastic bags for inserts in a pillowcase. Blow up, tie off with elastic. Saves space.
Rotate storage water every 6 months. No Clorox in storage water. Use a few drops in the water you are going to rotate to clean out the container. Swish and dump on flowers. Replacement water is already treated by the city.
DO NOT store water in plastic containers by sitting them on cement or near any household chemical. The chemicals will leach through the plastic and contaminate the water. Store it up on wooden pallets or other similar platforms.
Packaged water keeps for 5 years.
Beef MRE’s are the best tasting. Shelf life in 60-degree temperature is 10 years.
Replace all batteries in your equipment yearly. Write on calendar for the change out date.
DO NOT store water in colored plastic bottles. The color will leach out and contaminate the water.
Make a carrier for liter-sized bottle out of strapping. Loop over shoulder, loop horizontal 6” above bottom of first loop, last loop at 90 degree angle starting on 2^nd loop, sewn at bottom of first loop and then ending on the opposite side of 2^nd loop. Liter bottle fits inside and can be carried over shoulder.
Keep 2 flashlights in your vehicles. The odds of one failing are very high.
Put a jacket and blanket in your car for each person it will carry.
Keep 6 liters of water in your vehicle in a box. Each bottle should not be more than ¾ full to avoid splitting the bottle if frozen. The box will keep the bottles from rolling around and punctures.
Port-a-potty: Line the 5-gallon bucket with plastic bags. Put a supply of the bags in the bucket along with Purell, hand wipes, etc. as well as a snap on toilet lid.
Get dry chemicals for the port-a-potty. The chemical foams up and has the consistency of thick soup when reacting to urine and feces.
Keep Band-Aids in your wallet and purse. You never know when you will need one.
Secure the water heater in your home. Get heavy strapping from your appliance store. If the water heater falls over during an earthquake, the gas line will probably break and your home will be destroyed by fire.
Use Quake Wax to secure your vases, etc. It comes in a jar and the objects and can be moved if needed but will not tip over during a quake.
Use rubber grip liner material under TV’s, microwaves, vases, on the back of pictures, etc.
Use Velcro behind pictures to secure them to a wall along with earthquake proof hangers.
Use Velcro under blinds to keep them anchored on the bottom. This will stop most glass from entering if it breaks and will keep you from being hit in the head with the blinds.
Use cords, bungee’s, etc. to keep your food storage items on the shelves. String from post to post at the desired height(s).

Technorati Tags: Emergency Kit,Emergency Plan,Preparedness Tips

Do You REALLY Have a Year’s Supply?

2009-10-30T04:01:00.000-07:00

It is hard to put away a full year’s supply of food for most families, but in most cases, it can be achieved over a period of time.

With careful planning, the purchase of a few extra items each week and not straying from the food requirement plan you’ve created, your success is on the horizon.

Not everyone is allowed to have this much storage on hand. Do the best you can in your circumstance.

The stored food is as good (if not better due to inflation) than money in the bank.

It is evident that world and local economies have and will vary wildly due to war, greed, drought and other factors during our lifetimes. Employment is not secure for anyone today.

When bad times arrive at your door, some of the pressures will be eased because you’ll have food for your family if you have planned ahead and acted on your plan.

How much is a year’s supply of food?

I never been able to find the original author of the below information, but have confirmed the math used to arrive at the stated figures. The suggestions are the minimums for each adult:

400 lbs. Grains (17.5 oz / day)

60 lbs. Beans (2.6 oz / day)

10 quarts Cooking oil (0.87 oz / day)

60 lbs. Honey (2.63 oz / day)

8 lbs. Salt (0.35 oz / day)

16 lbs Powdered milk (0.70 oz / day)

14 gallons of drinking water (for 2 weeks)

Just how much is that?

Two 5 gallon buckets will hold about 75 lbs of wheat, rice or other grains. This means you need 11 buckets of grain for each person in your family. If you store all your grains in #10 cans...

Wheat, Rice, Corn, etc..

You would need 64 cans or 10.5 cases per person.

Pasta

You would need 32 cans or 5.25 cases per person.

Rolled oats

These are lighter but bulkier, so they require more storage containers and space.

You would need 124 cans or 21 cases person.

Beans

A 25 lb bag of beans will about fit in a single 5 gallon bucket, with a little space over, so 2 buckets would hold a one person supply, or 12 -13 #10 cans or about 2 cases.

Daily Food

Dividing 400 lbs by 365 days, equals out to 1.09589 lbs, or just over 1lb of grain, per person, per day. That is approximately 2 cups of unground grain to cover your breakfast lunch and dinner.

Dividing 60 lbs by 365, this works out to 0.16 lbs of beans per day, or 2.6 oz— approximately 3/4 cup.

The other foods listed would also need to be used in limited amounts.

This is not much food folks.

Get the basics, then immediately begin to add more kinds of grain, soup mix, canned and/or dehydrated vegetables and fruit, etc to add variety and provide more than the minimal survival diet.

Without added items, consider this: The minimum recommended amount of grain, when ground and prepared will yield about 6 small biscuits or a plateful of pancakes. It’s enough to keep you alive, but a far cry from being satisfied and not hungry. In other words, you’ll hate life. Store additional food items!

Don’t forget to rotate your supply. Use it as your own grocery store both to keep the supplies fresh and to learn to actually eat the food you’ve stored. Remember to constantly replace the items you use.

Technorati Tags: Food Storage,Emergency Plan

Helpful Items In Your Emergency Kit

2009-10-30T00:03:00.000-07:00

Building an emergency kit? In addition to food and water, here are items you'll definitely want to include:

· first aid book
· waterproof container
· assortment of band-aids
· gauze pads
· butterfly bandages
· cotton balls
· small roll of gauze
· adhesive tape
· cotton swabs (Q-Tips)
· safety pins
· Pepto-bismol tablets
· antacid tablets (good for bee sting)
· cold pack
· hydrogen peroxide
· alcohol (disinfectants)
· smelling salts
· medicine dropper tweezers
· alcohol wipes
· Benadryl capsules
· aspirin (promotes healing of burns)
· Tylenol (chewable for children)
· collapsible scissors
· thermometer
· crushable heat pack
· special prescriptions or equipment
· small tube or packets antiseptic cream
· ointment
· small spool thread/two needles
· toilet paper
· comfort food items
· book or reading material
· sleeping bag if you are going to exit your home or office
· change of clothing and comfortable walking shoes
· jacket(s) based on the climate in your area
· copy of your financial records, photocopy of your ID's and credit cards
· important telephone numbers including an out of state contact
· cash - $100 - $200 cash in small bills (you won't get change back)
· quarters - a roll or two of quarters for telephone calls - know where pay phones are located
· portable radio with fresh batteries
· flash light with fresh batteries

Miscellaneous items to consider for your emergency kit include:
· light stick
· small self-powered flashlight
· extra batteries
· pocket hand warmer
· compact fishing kit
· compass
· pocketknife
· 50 ft. nylon cord
· plastic poncho
· garbage bag
· paper or cards
· pen, pencil
· fine wire
· extra plastic bags
· small scriptures
· favorite songs
· small game, toy, etc.
· spare glasses
· additional money (small bills and change)
· field glasses
· toothbrush/toothpaste
· metal mirror
· comb
· razor
· pre-moistened wipes
· additional toilet paper - will be worth a lot in a barter
· feminine products
· sunscreen
· soap
· lip balm with sunscreen
· bandana (may be used for hat, washcloth, mask, sling, tourniquet)
· tube soap, bar soap, waterless soap
· identification/medical permission card
· special blanket or such for little people
· portable radio with extra batteries