Home2020October (Page 2)

“Lost” is a word I dread. For most of us, the worst day of our lives is the day we lose a loved one. Not death. As callous as it may sound, when a loved one dies, we know where they are. Lost. I’ve been out of volunteering with animal rescue and CERT/SAR for nearly a decade, but the word can still make my stomach clinch. Losing a loved one creates questions that haunt us. We see tens of thousands of losses every single day, even in the most advanced of nations, with all of technology at our disposal. Seniors walk away befuddled. Kids disappear – from backyards, sidewalks, school trips, and camping. Spouses or friends leave and never return. We never know what happened to many of them. For some, pets also make the list of loved ones, and while the loss may not be as devastating and life changing as the loss of a human friend or sibling, it’s not something they want brushed off.

Nothing will ever prepare us for the emotions that come from truly losing someone we love, although there are books and support groups that can help. It wouldn’t hurt to do some research, because the immediate aftermath and especially a lengthy search of even just days can lead to some ugly stews of emotions that rip apart couples and families sometimes. There are things we can prepare, however, that increase our chances of getting a loved one back. A lot of them revolve around making it faster to get information out. The tips below will help you begin the process of preparing for the worst day so that you will be better equipped to come through with everyone intact.

Preparing for the Worst – Make a binder

No instruction about a binder or file is ever going to be as popular or fun or sexy as talking 5.56 bullet weight or go-faster tactical gear, canning, or the ubiquitous bug-out bag. Make one anyway. In it, keep:

  • USB drive with saved files
  • Printed photos
  • Printed “missing” posters and handouts
  • Posters and handouts with photos in place but blanks left for items like contact information and the description
  • Blank posters that can be set up for anyone, anywhere

Create lists of faxes and emails ahead of time, and possibly an additional file for the physical addresses for:

  • Hospitals
  • Rescues
  • Veterinary clinics
  • Homeless shelters
  • Animal control
  • Police stations (local, county, and state, and the nearest metro area or areas)

Don’t forget bordering states and counties, or the state and counties you’ll be traveling through to get to a bug-out location. Don’t forget the authorities for domestic and foreign travel, and the embassy, although you might exclude some of the hospitals and shelters for traveling.

It wouldn’t hurt to include blood type, friends’ numbers and addresses, and vehicle make, model, color and tag numbers for each person as well.

missing-sandy-shelter

Keep your binder in your vehicle. If there are three vehicles, make three binders – we spend a fortune on coffee, fast food, wifi, movies, and gear we’ll almost never need in most lifetimes; we can afford the printing. Ideally, also keep a binder in an off-site location like a trusted friend in a state with few natural disasters but at least not in the same flood and fire zone where you park and live.

Make a small folder with some printed photos and posters and possibly some wallet-sized handout cards to put in the bugout/72-hour bag of every adult over 110 pounds.

Set up an email account

You can add this one to your spring-forward, fall-back checklist with the smoke detector checks: Set up a special email account with an easy to remember username and password (“thenelsonsmissing@email.provider”, password: Missing2016).

Send yourself a separate email with each family member and pets’ name as the subject, and applicable photos and the standard information about each. Log in, update the files with recent photos, especially of young children that change so much every six months in those first few years. Attach ready-to-go missing posters in jpg and pdf format, and the list of faxes and emails to send it to – hospitals and authorities for humans, shelters and animal control for animals (you might also include law enforcement if there’s a chance they were stolen). You might even include the PowerPoint or word doc that you’re using to edit.for-the-worst-blank-missing

Make sure you’re not the only one who can open it. Make sure your family or a friend knows it’s there in case you’re incapacitated in the accident or tornado where your toddler or dog disappear, or where your spouse or father are disoriented from a head injury and walk off to find help, then don’t reappear.

I’m told that cell and wifi service is now at a point that we will never again see another day like 9/11 where you can’t get calls through – and there’s always the text option. I don’t rely on that, though. I know that landlines go down, too, but if I’m on my last bar of energy, I’m calling somebody on a landline, giving them the account and passwords even on a voice mail, and then I’m sending a text to everyone I know to get them to open those accounts and send emails out to the list included in each. After that, that’s when I start with my own device. And I’m memorizing the three landline numbers of people who I trust, so that if I don’t have my smart phone or a signal or book, I can still make that phone call.

Because, yeah, paranoid is a word that would apply. There are some other words that apply, though.

Katrina and Sandy are two of them. So are “Loma Prieta”. “House fire” would be two more, along with “spring break”. “Oso, Washington, 2014” would be three. “2010 Tennessee/Queensland floods” apply. Moving away from stuff that has actually happened, a regional power loss with signal disruption would be an example of a what-if. So would a stolen bag/phone/vehicle or damaged phone during an emergency or disaster, a mall visit, or a trip to another country. I can also get my mother started on media while I deal with cops, or divide the lists among people who can just log in and get them without doings searches.

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Flooding in Colorado.

The faster we are able to get photos and information out, the better off our family and furry friends will be if we lose them – however we lost them. If I can get to any phone, media and authorities can better help me find my loved ones because a backup system is in place.

What to include on posters – and when

Standard information for posters and police reports include age – I prefer using a birth-date for these so that it remains applicable and doesn’t need updated every six months for adults, but go with it if you’re hand-writing or filing these out fresh, or include both. Hair and eye color can be changed, but tend to be standard. Height is standard as well, but has more impact for adults because kids grow so fast (although people can be really bad at estimating others’ heights). Weight fluctuates, but go ahead and include it, especially if it’s different *now* than when a picture was taken. Also include build – bulky, pudgy, fat, skinny, and lithe as well as small, medium/average or large.

Include tattoos, scars and birthmarks in descriptions. Keep a list and inform authorities of dental work, implants, replacements, and previously broken bones – things that will show on an x-ray.

During the first hours of a search, clothing is important. Pay attention. Know if a jacket, purse, or briefcase is missing so you have that item to look for. It may very well be in a vehicle, on the back of an office chair, or in a locker, but it may also be laying at the edge of woods or the door/gate of an evacuation shelter or compound, or on a sidewalk. If identified, a dropped can give searchers a place to refine and focus. Likewise, a senile senior who took a hat and briefcase might be seeing Detroit or Small Town, USA, even as they wander in the woods, but if they habitually walked or biked to work, a diner, church, or a particular bus, knowing the pattern can give searchers somewhere to immediately check and can sometimes lead to a fast return. Finding the briefcase can narrow the search area.

After the first days or week, clothing becomes less important to the search efforts, especially coats and outerwear. It’s already on record and will be used as part of an initial ID or area check should a body or article be found, but it can drop off your posters. After the first week or two, save room on those for the things that don’t change.

dogs-shelter

There are still pets that have no home from Katrina.

The same applies to collars if a dog was absolutely stolen from a vehicle or yard, but otherwise, for animals, sure, go ahead and leave in their collar, harness or halter descriptions, especially if it’s unique. If it’s red nylon, say so. Don’t take up too much room in the description for those items, though, especially if there’s something else like flattened and worn-down canine teeth, a patch of fur that runs backwards, a spot that looks like Texas, or if “Fido” is more commonly called “Boog” or “Spaz” – that information is of more use to rescuers and people on the streets.

If you’re using the provided posters, go ahead and print out some that are just blank so that information can be tailored and so that you can have a fresh one available for a dog you pick up or a new partner, or if a spouse has changed their appearance drastically from the last image. If no photo is available, you can always use that space for the basic description, and add details in the smaller area.

Give yourself options

Leave the contact information blank on some of the handouts and the forms’ tear-offs. That way if you’re in a grid-down situation or traveling and something happens to the primary contact’s phone, you can pencil in others.

The same goes for leaving the description blank. It’ll take 10 minutes to fill them out if you hand off the 2-5 fully printed versions, but it’ll be a lot cleaner and neater to write them in than scratch information out, especially for the poster tear-offs and the quarter-page handouts.

Of course, that also means you want a black and blue colored pencil (it’s harder to erase and doesn’t smear as much as graphite or ink) and an ultra fine point permanent marker, and you’ll want those in a separate Ziploc from your USB stick.

Buy loved ones a better chance

Some aren’t wild about having their kids’ fingerprints and DNA taken at safety fairs and school fairs. Unfortunately, that delays ruling out or confirming the identity of a body or if there’s debate about who somebody belongs to. If you’re not going to go the route of filing those so they’re already available to law enforcement, consider getting an at-home kit to do them yourself.

petrescue_jpg

Most importantly, get the authorities involved as early as possible. Don’t screw around because “they’re just…” or somebody’s going to be mad, because you panic that you took your eyes off a kid or a gate’s open. If you saw a van and now the dog’s missing, call. If somebody should have been home or given you the call that they’re back from packing 2-4 hours ago, call. And for the sake of your child or senior, for damn sure call 10-15 minutes after you shout in the backyard or have them paged at the Smithsonian with no response. Give the cops and SAR teams a fighting chance to save them.

Lost

“Lost” is a heartbreaking word for everyone involved. Our modern world and conveniences can’t prevent it. It happened in the old days, too, and we can expect it to keep happening – pets, children, seniors. “Missing” sucks enormously. The imagination takes over and haunts us when a loved one goes missing. Unfortunately, it’s an epidemic as prevalent as cancer and obesity and abuse. 80-90K people are missing at any given moment, 500-750K cases reported a year. 10 million cats, dogs and equines go missing or are stolen every single year.

The first hours are absolutely critical. The younger the person, the more critical the very first handful of hours. Almost all of us have some scorching hot days or some really nasty frigid, windy, wet days when we opt not to go out through our year. We can use them to gather information, take some fresh photos, and make our loved ones a little more likely to come home to us.

We prepare to cart them away from the ravenous hordes on wilderness treks and in souped up BOVs. We prepare to defend them with firearms and primitive weapons. We prepare feed them. Isn’t it worth it to spend a day twice a year doing what we can to get them back from a fate that strikes daily, big cities and tiny towns?

“Lost” is a word I dread. For most of us, the worst day of our lives is the day we lose a loved one. Not death. As callous as it

You wouldn’t be reading this article trying to figure out what tools you needed to build stuff with if you thought life was like the Sound of Music. But if you’re reading this to add another layer of knowledge to your prepping arsenal, you are at the right spot. Figuring out the basic tools and machines that can get you productive in a time of crisis or in everyday life is more important than you think.

Needs

Let’s start with the basics. Having a mix of manual tools and battery operated power tools will not only keep you efficient but will ensure accuracy in whatever you decide to cut, saw, chop or drill. Here are the tools that will provide the best versatility in a time of crisis or just when you are trying to figure out how to mount those deer antlers above your master bed.

Manual tools:

  1. 16’ Measure tape and 100’ measure tape –  just in-case you want to draw that line in the sand that you dare your neighbor to cross or just need to measure the board length you are going to hand saw.
  2. 8” and 48” level – which allows you to check the horizontal and vertical (plum) of anything you want to truly keep squared.
  3. A good set of chisels – that run in sizes ¼”- 1 ½”. They work great for knocking down corners on wood and cleaning out saw cuts and joints. Make sure the handle is made to handle a hammer strike so if you need to carve out a Billy stick you won’t damage the handle.
  4. Prybars – in a few different sizes, 8” 16” and a 24” big one made for when you are really needing to pry your neighbors food supply door open.

    solarpanelstarterkit

    Solar Panel Starter Kit 400W – You might appreciate a way to recharge your cordless electric tools.

  5. Clamps– you can never have enough clamps! C-clamps, F-clamps, Spreader clamps, Pipe clamps, everything you need to hold stuff together during a glue up or spread things apart.
  6. 6” layout square – It’s a triangle usually made out of aluminum or metal used to make square cuts on lumber stock. Framers sleep with this tool like it’s the Holy Grail. You just can’t make your life any easier with such a simple device.
  7. Block plane – Used to flatten edges of wood, smooth joints and works fantastic for cleaning an edge to glue up to.
  8. Handsaw – For when your battery operated reciprocating saw runs out of juice and the solar panels you are using are working less efficiently because it’s raining outside.
  9. Mallet – Use it as an attitude adjuster or for its real purpose: to coerce things into fitting correctly without destroying or denting them.
  10. T-Bevel/Sliding bevel – Made to measure all kinds of angles you may encounter when building your survival tree-house. Use it to cut angle trim or a slew of other things.
  11. A good screwdriver set and bit set that has a Phillips, star and flathead slotted bits in it.
  12. Utility scissors – A good industrial pair of scissors will be great for opening MRE’s or cutting your jeans to treat yourself when the neighbors Pit-bull decides to use your shin as a drumstick.

workshop

Enough of the manual stuff, lets dive into battery operated POWER TOOLS! As you already know we no longer live in the Stone Age, and technology can help us even when the grid is down. With advancements in solar, hooking up and using the sun to charge your tools through solar panels and inverters is a great way to keep efficient.

With Solar in mind, your power tool arsenal list should include the following:

  1. 20 Volt Jigsaw– Great for cutting angles, circles, arches and works when you need some speed when pumpkin carving.
  2. 20 Volt Impact Driver– you never know when you need the power, but at least you have it.
  3. 20 Volt 6 ½” Circular Saw made to cut lumber quickly and rip large sheets of plywood.
  4. 20 Volt Reciprocating Saw with multiple types of blades including smooth cut, rough cut and a few for all-purpose use. This tool is a must. It’s great for cutting low-lying tree limbs, flush cutting plugs and all sorts of things inside and outside of the shop.
  5. 20 Volt drill driver or simply called a drill. You will have the manual one that you will realize after ½ a turn makes the hair on your knuckles fall off due to the strain of a screw stuck in hardwood. But when you really need to screw stuff down fast this will be your Huckleberry.

For the serious hardcore woodworkers out there, you always have the Amish option. Which is going out and buying a Tablesaw, Jointer, Planer, Sander and Wood Lathe; pulling all the motors and attaching a pulley system so your buddy who lost at your poker table the night before, can pedal power your machine while you woodwork away. For the rest of us, the list above will enable you to handle 95% of most jobs around the house or when building your dream artillery bunker!

You wouldn’t be reading this article trying to figure out what tools you needed to build stuff with if you thought life was like the Sound of Music. But if

There is always a very healthy dialog on all sides of any issue when it comes to Survival or the Preparedness movement. From Bug Out Bags to firearm recommendations and caliber pros/cons. What an individual should be Prepping for, or more precisely how they should start prepping themselves is no different.

If you take everything we could cover on the subject of prepping and list all of the permutations for each scenario, the list would be rather lengthy. Actually thinking about this list and everything you need to do can start to hurt your brain. Everything that needs to be done and purchased and planned for can be overwhelming. I have personally spoken to people who begin to wake up to the idea that they need to prepare and they feel a sense of urgency and then one thing leads to another and they shut down. “Why Bother”? There is no way they can do everything that needs to be done.

It is at this time I like to recall one of my families favorite movies, “What about Bob?” and the mantra that the main character is coached to say over and over again is “Baby Steps”. If you have never seen the movie, here is a clip below.

So, how to start? You can never have every tool, skill, weapon, supply or retreat option that you will ever need and most people won’t have the resources to buy everything they need before they may need it. You have to start somewhere.

Start with a Plan. – A plan is what gets you thinking about everything you need to do. I personally scoured websites for a lot of information, read several books and watched a ton of YouTube movies on the subject. Then I wrote down everything I thought I would need to get me to “Phase 1”. What was Phase 1? That was my imaginary line in the sand of the basics. Just the minimal supplies and equipment that I thought I would need to be marginally better off than 90 percent of my neighbors. Think about who you are prepping for. Are you only looking out for yourself or do you have others in your family? Do you have kids younger than teenagers who may not be able to carry their own load? Do you have older parents or grandparents you need to care for? Knowing the scope of people you will be responsible for, or who you think may count on you when the SHTF is important for a couple of reasons. First, you can begin planning based on numbers (6 people plus 2 pets for example) and second you can start thinking about what you will need to do when people you haven’t planned for come knocking.

Establish a priority – If I were to take everything I need or think I need to be 100 percent prepared it would be that long list we talked about. Now, if you are anything like me you aren’t a billionaire with money to burn so I have to pick and choose what my family is going to purchase and when. There is no secret formula for this and every situation is different but here is how I would prioritize things. Water, Security, Shelter, Food, Money.

Water – If you haven’t heard of the rule of 3’s it goes something like this. “A person can survive for three minutes without air,three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food.” Now you may be asking yourself, “Why didn’t you put air first”? And if you are, it’s because I think that if you don’t have any air, we have bigger problems. Nobody should be worried about lugging around oxygen tanks. OK, so lets take the most likely scenario and deal with shelter next. You don’t have water. A normal person needs 1 gallon of water per day to survive that counts hygiene also. I think that you can skip a few showers and it wouldn’t be that much provided you aren’t sweating a lot but lets stay with 1 gallon. If you have 4 people in your family and a couple of pets lets say 5 gallons of water gets you one day. You can buy 55 gallon jugs, fill them up and start that way or you can buy 5 5-gallon jugs and that gets your family 5 days without any water. Is it enough to last you for the entire zombie apocalypse? No, but its a good start. If you are near water, buy a good water filtration system or install rain barrels to really increase your supply.  Baby Steps.

Security – This category will be worth a hundred other posts but for this one, lets just say you need a way to protect yourself and your family. Again, every person’s situation is different. You may live in New York or Chicago where firearms are basically illegal. Maybe you have a baseball bat. That isn’t ideal, but its something. You need to think in terms of how you can defend yourself. It may be that all you can do is carry a taser or mace. That’s a start. Maybe you get the Crovel? For others I would say ideally you need for each adult member of your family a handgun, shotgun and AR or AK. That can quickly add up, so if you are starting from scratch I would recommend a shotgun before you purchase anything else. Why? Because they are relatively cheap (less than $200), you don’t need a permit to buy and can not only scare people but they can do a lot of damage. After that you have to consider your options. An AR would be the best bet, but since the latest flurry of government threats to take them all, the prices are off the chart and supply is very low. You can probably still score a good deal at a gun show, but time is running out I think. Get your shotgun while you can and then move on to a pistol. I won’t debate pistol caliber’s but a 12 gauge shotgun is a great start. Baby Steps.

Shelter – For most people you have a house, apartment or somewhere to live so why do you need to worry about Shelter? Just look at Hurricane Sandy or Katrina. What if you couldn’t live in your house or had to evacuate for some reason. Shelter would be nice to have.  A tent that you can carry (think backpacking) is great. A tarp and means to support it (para cord works great) will suffice. If you have or are in cold weather, I also count as shelter sleeping bags and plenty of warm out-door gear to include great footwear. You may be walking. Or, the power or heat may be out. Do you have a heater that doesn’t use electricity? Barring all else, to you have warm clothes and blankets? Baby Steps.

Food – This is one area that I think we initially make over complicated. The average family doesn’t have more than 3 days worth of food in their pantry according to some experts. I think it would more likely be that people could make it a week. Again, they wouldn’t be eating well, but they could exhaust everything they have. You can think about this in terms of how long you want to go without being hungry. You can run out and buy boxes of freeze-dried food or you can simply buy some more items that you normally eat. Ideally it would be both, but we are starting here. It is pretty easy to take your one week supply and build that up to two weeks, then a month if you put your mind to it. It does take discipline and remember this isn’t like Christmas. You shouldn’t go put another month’s worth of groceries on the credit card. Build your supplies slowly, rotate your stock and you will begin to be more ready for any supply disruptions that happen.  Baby Steps.

Money – There are a lot of ways you can do this depending on what you believe is the most likely scenario. Even if we are talking about $20 a month you have to start saving and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the bank. I personally think each person should have cash on hand and some precious metals like Gold or Silver stashed away. The first thing to happen would be that you can’t get your money out of the bank. It does you no good to have $10,000 in the bank if they won’t let you take it out. We will discuss later why this is a very real possibility. So buy some Silver; its cheaper than gold, keep some cash on hand and this will give you some security if it all heads south before you can make it to the ATM.

Is that all you need to do? No! I don’t want you to think this is an all-encompassing post either, but it is a start for people who don’t have the first clue where to begin. My personal list was probably a whole page of notes and included a lot of things I don’t yet have, and in all honesty may never acquire but that’s OK. I am not going to sweat what I don’t have (too much) but I will keep striving to be better prepared. I am still working on my preps too, but I have most of the basics covered and I feel more comfortable about building on the preps I have. You will too, if you start with Baby Steps.


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There is always a very healthy dialog on all sides of any issue when it comes to Survival or the Preparedness movement. From Bug Out Bags to firearm recommendations and

Having a plan in place for Communication in a disaster or survival situation is important to your preparations. This may be a plan for communicating with your family if you are away. It could entail group communications at a retreat or neighborhood watch scenario or it could be as simple as letting family members know where you are if you are forced to separate? Taking the time to plan your communications now can save someone’s life and make any other plans you have function more smoothly.
Communications also encompass staying aware of news and information. If you are in the middle of a natural weather event and you need to know what if anything else is coming your way or which parts of town are the most impacted, you will want to stay in touch with the outside world. If there are traffic snarls that are blocking your retreat route or rioters or vigilantes have cordoned off a section of town you need to go through, you need to know this well in advance of trying to lead your family through there and adjust your plans accordingly.

Know your neighbors

This has certainly been discussed at great length but it bears repeating. The simplest and closest forms of communication you have are the people who live right next to you. During hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, neighborhoods banded together quickly after both of these tragedies for support and protection. This is another reason to stay focused on your surroundings and practice good Situational Awareness. You as well as your neighbors should know who lives in the houses around you. They may know if one of your neighbors is on vacation and someone strange is lurking around their house. Neighbors can check on people who may be older or need special assistance when regular service isn’t possible.

It is highly likely that after a disaster you may not have the ability to call the police or paramedics to assist people who are injured. Your job in this case would be to join up with your neighbors to take care of the injured and help anyone who needed assistance. The power of the group will make you all much more successful at staying alive, fed and sheltered as much as possible.

Special Family Signals

If you are forced to leave your home for whatever reason and a member of your group isn’t able to leave with you a predetermined symbol comes in handy to pass the unspoken message of where you have gone. Some of you may recall in one of the Doomsday Prepper episodes, Johnny O had a secret communication plan for his family. I think in Johnny’s case there was a wooden bear on his front porch with a fish lying in its lap. His family was taught that if the fish was turned a different way or was not “normal” that was a signal for his family to immediately head to their bugout rendezvous location.

Having a similar signal like this could be beneficial for you. I would caution that the secret signal should be a little harder to accidentally trigger. In my case, it would be easy for one of the neighborhood kids to knock the fish over and I would come home and think everyone had left me. Less obvious signals can be devised that can alert family members to your status and what is to be done next.

Another aspect of this type of survival communication is simply leaving a detailed record or note for someone. If you are a backpacker and plan to go into the woods on a multi-day hike, it is always a good idea to leave a note with your plans and expected arrival date with two people. I would leave one note with a close friend or family member who would contact the police if you didn’t show up at the appointed time. I would also leave another note face down on the dash of my car. The information should let anyone who is looking for you, have a really strong idea of where to start looking.

Solar Powered/Hand Crank Radio

Ambient Weather WR-111B Emergency Solar Hand Crank AM/FM/NOAA Digital Radio

In any emergency situation, staying informed not only gives you information but it can be reassuring or even motivating to you and your family. I would recommend that everyone have at least one emergency or weather radio at any of your locations. I keep one stored with my emergency supplies and only have to walk into the other room to grab it out of its box. You do want a radio that is powered by batteries in case the power is out and a nice option is to have either a solar panel or hand crank to power the radio in case you don’t have batteries.

There are tons of options on radios but The Adventurer is currently the highest rated according to Amazon. It runs off batteries, crank or solar and has an optional USB port to plug your phones in when they run down. Additionally it has a light to shine around while you are listening to either weather/AM/FM or NOAA broadcasts.

 

Cell Phones

Cell phones are the first thing you would think to grab in an emergency scenario and actually, having a fully charged phone and spare battery are great contents of any Bug Out or Get Home Bag, but they might not be in use in a major catastrophe. If you remember 9/11 cell phone traffic was knocked offline. Even during the relatively minor earthquake in Virgina in 2011, cell phone service was interrupted. Imagine if a real catastrophe or earthquake happened.

This problem isn’t limited to cities either. If you are too far off the map, your cell reception may not be sufficient to make a call. For example, you can look at just AT&Ts coverage map and see that there are giant portions of the western US that are completely uncovered by AT&T’s towers. You don’t want to depend on your cell phone in an emergency.

Internet

Can the internet be useful for communications? Of course it can, but like cell phones I wouldn’t rely on that for my disaster plan. In most emergency situations there isn’t power. You could take another route and say that the communications on the internet may compromise you. There are ways to stay anonymous on the internet, but they do require some level of work and every day more systems are designed to snoop on you regardless of the safeguards you have in place. Now if your entire family is a bunch of hackers with backup power generators, have at it! The common person shouldn’t rely on this method in most disasters.

CB Radios

Cobra® 29 LTD BT CB Radio with Bluetooth

CB or Citizens Band radios have been around for a long time. I remember my father had one in his old Mercury Capri and we would turn it on every once in a while and listen to the truckers talk while we were on a drive. I would try to come up with a clever handle, but it usually just revolved around whoever my favorite TV show hero was at the time.

CB Radios generally have a range of 5-20 miles depending on the terrain. Each channel is a different frequency and channel 9 is the emergency channel. You can listen to channel 9 for news updates and stay in touch with friends or family well away from your home. Some models like the Cobra® 29 LTD BT even have Bluetooth now so you can take calls on your CB. You just need a CB and an antenna and you are in business. Installation is simple and you can talk to anyone who is within your range.

 

Scanners

PRO-164 1000-Channel Handheld Scanner

A great companion to a CB Radio is a scanner, sometimes called a Police scanner that randomly scans all of the radio frequency channels. It surfs for you and when it finds traffic, it will stay on that channel during the broadcast. Some scanners hold thousands of frequencies and you can use this to hear what emergency service personnel are saying. You can also hear news before it makes it to the TV. If the scanners are still working and your police department isn’t blocking the frequency somehow you can hear what is happening in other parts of your town and make plans to bugout if necessary.

Two-Way FRS radios

FRS Band Radios

Everyone who has ever been to WalMart has seen the FRS radios or walkie talkies. These are great on car trips when you want to stay in contact with another driver in a different vehicle. They are also good for camping trips when one group wants to separate from another group. They do have a much smaller range and this is highly impacted by line of sight. I think on the pair I bought, the range says “up to 23 miles”. Yeah, right! Maybe if you are standing the in middle of the desert and you can see the person 10 miles away. And you have a tail wind…

These radios are better than nothing, but the communication (as with CB’s) isn’t secure so don’t think you can purchase two of these and set up a foolproof command center at your bugout location. They would be great if your communication didn’t need to be secure though and most models now have sub channels so you can set your main frequency to channel 12 and your sub or “privacy” code to 110. This way, without a scanner someone would have to be dialed into the exact same frequency to hear you.

Military Surplus

TA-312/PT Military Telephone

Once again, one of my favorite options (for certain scenarios) is a good old field telephone (TA-312/PT). These are pretty simple. You have two phones and they are connected by a line. Communication line, it’s really just a two strand line. When you want to talk to someone you crank the arm and the other phone rings. I think you need two D batteries also to power them, but since this is really low voltage, they will last a long time. This is as secure as the phone line and may work at a retreat area with one phone out in an OP and the other inside the house as long as the line is buried.

Regardless of the method you choose (we have several) it is wise to think about different scenarios and the communication plan you would use to keep in contact with your family. What other ideas do you have for communicating with your group?

What about Short Wave or Ham Radio? Good question. I think Ham Radio is an excellent option, but it is a complicated topic with a higher entry cost, learning curve and commitment which means its worthy of its own post. I will be discussing Ham radio in the future.

Having a plan in place for Communication in a disaster or survival situation is important to your preparations. This may be a plan for communicating with your family if you

Is it just me, or are there entirely too many T-shirts in the world?

Perhaps I had a few as a youngster, but the first I can truly recall was a white T-shirt with a rubbery photo of a Studebaker on the front. I wore it with stylish orange hip-huger bell-bottoms embroidered with butterflies. Because I was 14 and bought the shirt with my dish washing earnings, I wore it until the emblem eroded and the fabric turned gray.

Now it seems, T-shirts are everywhere and often free, given out at fundraisers, sporting events and as advertising. Our local thrift stores receive so many donated T-shirts, they simply bag them up as shop rags. Trash bags crammed full sell for $4. Many of the shirts are brand new.

 

Fortunately, there are a gazillion ways to those brightly colored garments. Jersey fabric of 100-percent cotton is so versatile. It can be stretched, sewn flat, weaved, hooked, crocheted, dyed, tied in knots, and, best of all, the ends don’t unravel.

tomato-mulch

Use an old T-Shirt to mulch your tomato plants

Weed-free veggies

One of my favorite uses for surplus white T-shirts is as garden mulch. Simply cut the side seams and under the arms. Lay the shirt flat with a plant growing up through the neck hole.

Yes, I know, the T-shirt looks funny laying there on the ground for a while. But the fabric quickly fades and does such a wonderful job of controlling weeds that I soon forget it was once a shirt.

Two fun up-cycling uses of T-shirts include weaving strips of jersey fabric into place-mats, table runners or rugs. Another is the pioneer-favorite braided rag rug. Both projects are uncomplicated and use materials at hand. You do not need an expensive loom, sewing machine or other gadgets. I’ll briefly explain weaving here.

placemat

Create place mats with old T-shirts

Loom-less weaving

To weave T-shirts into useful household articles, you’ll need to assemble a loom – basically a wooden frame, like a large picture frame reinforced at the corners. This frame can be four sticks of wood fastened with screws. For large projects, use 2X4’s secured with angle iron.

A good loom size for scatter rugs is about 30 inches by 36 inches. To create larger rugs or table runners, several finished woven pieces can be stitched together (laced, actually).

To begin, tie off the warp (vertical) string to the bottom of the loom. Do not tie it in line with the frame side, but in 4-6 inches to make weaving easier. Wind the string figure-8 fashion to the top and bottom of the frame, pulling tightly and winding about 10 strands per inch. As you run out of one roll of warp string, simply tie on another. The knot will be hidden as you weave. When you have the desired width, tie off the end. For a finished width of 26 inches, that’s 260 loops around the loom.

stitching

Jersey fabric is very versatile.

No-fray fabric

Next cut your shirts into strips. Cut off the shirt bottom below any emblems, embroidery or other embellishments. Cut off the hem. If the shirt has side seams, cut those off. If not, just cut one side so that you end up with a large rectangle.

Depending on the fabric weight, cut strips 3/4 inch to 1 1/2 inches wide. You’ll want your strips to be a fairly even thickness once rolled. So, cut heavier fabric into thinner strips and lighter fabric wider.

Now, this is one of the really neat aspects of jersey – it rolls into a tube when stretched. When you have a nice stash of strips, begin stretching them to create a yarn-like tube.

So you can weave longer between stops, several strips can be stitched together to create longer strips. To create less bulk in your woven article, stitch the strips together diagonally by placing the end of one strip on top of another, right sides together, forming an “L.” Stitch a seam on the bias by hand or machine.

Ball up your T-shirt yarn until ready to use. Your strips can be sorted according to color to create a pattern, or woven at random.

Begin weaving first with the string you used for the warp. Weave over and under 4 strands of warp at a time, working your way back and forth until you have a band of about 1/2 inch. Weaving can be done by using a shuttle, a sort of long wooden spool, although fingers work just fine.

rag-rug[

The finished product

The fun part

Finally, it is time to weave your old T-shirts into something beautiful. Start weaving the first strip a few inches from the end, threading the strip over and under each warp string. When you reach the end of a row, beat down the yarn with your fingers, a wide-toothed comb or fork to keep the rows tight and straight. Then, come back the other direction with your yard, in the same over-and-under pattern.

When you come to the end of a fabric strip, stitch on another one and keep going. Instead of stitching, you can also knot your strips together for a bumpier, more rustic look. End your strips somewhere within the woven article and not on the end.

At the upper end of the woven article, after weaving the last row of fabric strips, weave another 1/2-inch wide band of warp string again.

To remove the article from the loom, cut the warp string from the frame, 8 strands at a time and tie it into overhand knots. Continue cutting and tying across the top and bottom of the woven article. Finally, lay the finished piece on a flat surface and trim the strands evenly to whatever length you prefer.

Braided rugs

To make a braided rag rug, cut strips at least 2 inches wide, again avoiding any thick emblems or embroidered designs. When you have a worthy pile of strips, begin by pinning together three strips and anchoring them to an immobile object, such as a doorknob or piece of furniture. Keep braiding and attaching more strips until you reach the desired rug size.

Here are a few tips about braided rugs made of T-shirt fabric:

  • Large rugs are heavy and difficult to wash, so plan to use the rug in places without heavy foot traffic.
  • Wash your rug by hand in a large tub outdoors and then line dry in the shade to prevent fading. Remember, it’s heavy when wet!
  • Use a strong, thick cord for lacing the braids together, as thin carpet thread or plastic fishing line will eventually cut through the T-shirt fibers.
  • Lining the back with an old sheet takes only another hour or so of effort, but will lengthen your rug’s life considerably.

Now, get busy, have fun and just think of how many Studebaker T-shirts you saved from the landfill.

 

Want more?

Here’s what the HuffPost Parents and HuffPost Women Facebook audiences said about giving T-shirts a new life.

Without further ado, here are 20 ideas for upcycling T-shirts, from the simple and practical to the downright creative.

Reusable bags

“Turn them into a reusable bag. Cut fringe and tie along the bottom, cut off sleeves to turn into handles.” ― Teri Lynn

“A no-sew reusable bag! So easy and I still get to see the cool shirts I’ve collected from races or fundraisers every time I use them.” ― Cari Cowling

“We host Family Service Fairs (where families do good for local nonprofits), and used old T-shirts to create reusable grocery bags to help get plastic bags out of the environment. The organization that inspired the station is called Boomerang Bags.” ― Doing Good Together

Quilts

“I’ve saved all my daughter’s scout, sports and school T-shirts and made her a quilt for college.” ― Della Yurasek Csehoski

“I made a blanket from old band T-shirts when I was pregnant to give to our son when he gets older but I’ll probably never really let him have it, it’s too cool!” ― Ali Walter

SaveThe Polka Dot Chair25 DIY Gifts for Dad on Polka Dot Chair Blog1K+Kathy ZellerT-shirt quilts

Jewelry

“My friend makes baby-friendly jewelry from old T-shirts ― necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and scarfs, etc.” ― Krisztina Oláh

“Turn them into headbands and jewelery, using braiding, knotting and macrame.” ― Danielle McEwan

“Cut them into strips, braid them into necklaces so my kids chew on them instead of their T-shirt collars.” ― Hortencia T. Benavidez

Pillows

“Stuffed the leftovers into a travel pillow for the kids. A tad bit harder than I would have liked it, but they don’t seem to mind. Otherwise, they are used for rags and other DIY projects.” ― Sylvia Salas-Brown

“We cut around the T-shirt design and add other fabrics around it to make pillows.” ― Marie Meidinger

“Pillow covers when kids are sick or I’m sweating at night.” ― AnneMarie Greenfield

Art

“I stretched some of my husband’s race tees over square art canvases. They hang in our family room along with my medal rack.” ― Anna-Marie Ward

“I frame my old concert tees in record album frames and then hang them up in my screened porch.” ― Michele N. Lotman

“Put them over canvases to hang on the wall.” ― Karla Marie

“Put into small embroidery hoop for ornaments or large for display.” ― Neelloc Niffit

Savefeelincrafty.wordpress.comold t-shirts turned into art. I might have to do this for my boy’s Harley room instead of a quilt with the Harley t-shirts I have.983Tegan BennettLovely D.I.Y. Stuffs!!

Towels

“Towels for my curly hair!” ― Sarah Beth

“Use them to towel dry your hair, smoother than actual towels so supposed to be less damaging.” ― Soma Chatterji

Kid clothes

“Turning a T-shirt into a romper for a child.” ― Heidi Else

Pet accessories

“I have a dog who shreds her bedding when she boards so I make dog blankets for her by sewing four T-shirts together. They’re harder for her to destroy and cheaper than dog beds.” ― Melissa Westmoreland

“I have dogs, so anything fabric gets its second life as dog bedding.” ― Melissa Lynserra

“Our Aussie shepherd mix likes to play tug (and rip!) and then sleep with them.” ― Kathleen Wright

“Knot and tie into dog toys!” ― Tara Olivia

“My Key Club uses them to make chew toys for the local animal shelter.” ― Teri Madewell

“Old T-shirts make great surgery recovery shirts for dogs. My dog HATED that stupid cone, but the shirt didn’t bother him one bit!” ― Lauren Olcese-Mercurio

SaveSheKnowsDon’t toss that old T-shirt! Snip it up to make this toy for your furry friend.32Helen DaleFor our pets

Donations

“Donate them to Rethreaded, an organization that helps people ‘sew a new story’ in their lives. They make and sell items, including various items from T-shirts.” ― Anita Davis Sullivan

“Donate them. I’m not crafty enough to make things, and there are always people who need gently used clothing. Pay it forward, y’all.” ― Erin Hablenko

Sleepwear

“I just sleep wearing them and use them in that way until they lose their usability. Best bedroom clothes for me.” ― Natalia Shveykina

“My daughter takes them to wear for pajamas.” ― Wendy Greve

Rugs

“I cut a bunch of shirts into half-inch strips and knitted a small area rug for our kitchen.” ― Elina Singh

“Braided T-shirt rugs with the pieces left over after doing quilts/pillows and rags.” ― Ashley Edinger

“You can cut them into strips to knit or crochet rag rugs.” ― Kelly McDaniel Whitney

Savefromjumblejoy.comLearn How To Make a No-Sew Round Braided Rug With T-Shirts!1K+2MaryEllen HagerlCrafts that interest me

Doll clothes

“My kids cut up old T-shirts and make clothes for the Elf.” ― Claudia Reis

Scarves

“I made T-shirt scarves for my daughters out of their old T-shirts.” ― Kimberly Anderson

“Cut it straight across, right beneath armpits, and create an infinity scarf.” ― Laura Coronado

Lampshades

“I’ve turned one into a macrame lampshade!” ― Danielle McEwan

Makeup Wipes

“Make reusable makeup-removing wipes (soaked in micellar water).” ― Lauren Neiger

Rags

“Mine go from T-shirts, to PJs, to rags after that the trash!” ― Brandy Allen-Burgard

“I use them for polishing silver (inherited a bunch, pain in the butt to maintain).” ― AnneMarie Greenfield

SaveKalyn BrookeEver wondered what to do with tees that were stained, had holes, and generally weren’t good enough to donate? This tutorial teaches you how to turn old t-shirts into dust rags, and includes the secret to getting crisp edges every time!226Nancy IsomCleaning

Hair care

“I wear them when coloring my hair and tear them into strips for hair curls.” ― AnneMarie Greenfield

Reinvented clothes

“Give it new details … i.e., cut off the sleeves and give it a different neck.” ― Mish Buonantuono-Rausch

“Re-design to new shirts, bags, skirts … ” ― Rachelle Carrillo

Gardening aids

“Garden ties for holding up plants like tomatoes.” ― Neelloc Niffit

“Tear them into strips and use those strips to tie up tomato plants in the garden or other plants/trees.” ― AnneMarie Greenfield

Recycling

“Recycle them. School has a bin and it raises money for the school.” ― Stephanie Tapia

 

What do think? Right when you thought there’s nothing much to do today..


On a different note, here’s some other self-sufficiency and preparedness solutions recommended for you:

The Lost Ways (The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us)
Survival MD (Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation)
Backyard Liberty (Liberal’s hidden agenda: more than just your guns…)
Alive After the Fall (Build yourself the only unlimited water source you’ll ever need)
The Lost ways II (4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis)
The Patriot Privacy Kit (Secure your privacy in just 10 simple steps)

A T-shirt can be stretched, sewn flat, weaved, hooked, crocheted, dyed, tied in knots, and, best of all, the ends don’t unravel.

You need to have confidence in your ability and training to be able to handle hostile situations. Over the years I have had students come to my classes who have been through self-defense and tactical programs and told how they can prevent themselves being victimized and how as a potential victim they could defend themselves. To me these people were already being placed at a severe disadvantage by being told they were a potential victim, you’re only a victim if you let yourself be. You need a positive attitude, why should you be afraid of some scum bag that tries to intimidate, bully and rob people for a living.

What a lot of people forget is that when a criminal is going to commit a crime they are going to be scared; they are breaking the law and can get arrested, beaten up or shot in the process. Criminals look for easy targets; they don’t want problems as they are bad for business. Remember if you are going to be scared and nervous so are your attackers. Your attitude needs to be that with the knowledge and ability you have you can stop anyone who wants to mess with you, your clients or your family.  The criminal made the mistake of starting the fight with you and they are going to lose, that’s it!

The bad guys will have put together a mental plan and strategy for attacking you, so shouldn’t you have a plan for dealing with confrontations? The easiest way to assess someone’s personal security is to go up and ask them a question like what’s the time etc. By doing this and reading their reaction you can tell if they are security aware or clueless. Now think about how you would react if a stranger approached you and asked you the time; what’s your body language going to be saying, are you going to tell them the time, will you be looking at your watch or assessing their body language, will you be in a defensive stance, are checking for any obstacles in your area that can trip you up, can you access your weapons, would you even be thinking about your weapon etc. The criminals want to set you up and catch you off guard, to do this they will use distractions or surprise. If you understand how the criminals operate you can hopefully spot a potentially hostile situation and avoid it or if it’s unavoidable reverse the situation and set the criminal up for failure.

Once you have identified that you are going to have to deal with a violent situation you need to quickly workout your strategy and put into operation your counter attack. There are three elements needed to win a confrontation; surprise, speed and aggression. If you can combine two of these elements in your counter attack, there is a greater chance you’ll be successful.

  • Surprise: This is the main thing that you require. Surprise will give you the edge in all confrontations, if the criminals don’t expect you to attack them; they won’t be ready to defend themselves.
  • Speed: Your actions need to be fast and decisive, no hesitation!
  • Aggression: Aggression will always beat fancy techniques.

If you understand how the criminals operate you can hopefully spot a potentially hostile situation and avoid it or if it’s unavoidable reverse the situation and set the criminal up for failure.

Other things you will need to consider is what do you want your body language to say, can you access your weapon, are your standing on slippery or uneven ground, are there objects that can trip you up, look for objects that can provide you with cover etc.  If you have already planned you reaction you’re not going to panic, you’ll just be going through your procedures and be setting the criminal up for your counter attack. So, if a stranger approaches you start setting them up by assessing their body language, assessing your surroundings, getting yourself into a defensive stance, consider what you want your body language to be saying, select target points on the stranger and think about how you’ll access your weapon.

Shootings generally take place at very close quarters and there will be many obstacles which you can trip over like curb stones, chairs and tables etc. be aware of what’s around you. Chances are you will not have the space or time to get into textbook shooting stance, so this is where training in one handed close quarter shooting is a must. You should use distractions as they can give you the seconds needed to deploy your weapon or move to cover. When you are out and about on your daily business always consider how you would react if attacked by those around you. The next time you are at the mall or in a coffee shop look around workout if you could access your weapon quickly, are you in a good position, what you could use as cover and how you would exit the building safely!

One of the main things that you need to learn is how to assess someone’s body language and control your own. This is very important skill as you need to try to identify someone’s intentions and not telegraph to them your potential response.

There are three main components of communication between humans; spoken words contribute 7%, vocal tone and volume make up 38% and body language makes up 55% of the message. So, let’s say you’re approached by someone while pumping gas into your car and they are telling you how much they like your car; their breathing rate is shallow and accelerated, their sweating and making agitated movements with their hands. Are you going to engage them in a conversation about the car or read their body language, assess your surrounding and be ready to deploy your weapon!

What to look for – Observe these very common traits and you should be ready.

Start reading people’s body language, at a basic level you can generally tell if people are happy, sad or angry. Even though it’s not 100% reliable, someone’s facial expressions are good indicators to what mental state the person is in. If someone is stressed, their faces will be flushed, they may be sweating, have veins protruding in their neck or forehead and they may be a tensing their facial muscles.

When you are out at the mall or in a restaurant or bar, watch the people around you and try to identify what mood they are in or what type of discussion they are having with others. It should be easy to identify if a man and a woman are on a romantic date or two business people are having a heated discussion, when in a coffee shop try to determine what people are looking at on their laptops; are they concentrating or goofing around. You must learn to read body language, because this will help you identify, avoid and if necessary react to potential threats.

When a person is involved in a stressful situation their body will undergo over 150 different physical stress reactions. These stress reactions will happen to you and criminals alike, you need to be aware of them and be able to notice them in yourself and others. A bodies stress reactions include: adrenal surges, increased heart rate and blood circulation, sweating, increased respiration, increased muscular tension, reduced peripheral field of vision, reduced decision-making ability and auditory exclusion.  If you have ever been involved in a car accident, try to remember how you felt just before, during and after then try to remember if you felt any of the above reactions. If you have ever tripped over something and subsequently fell, try to remember what it felt like; for example, did the time between you actually tripping and hitting the floor seem longer than the fraction of a second it took in actuality, were you sweating and was your heart beating rapidly when you hit the floor?

Learn to read your own body language as well as others, if you are in a situation and your heart rate starts to increase or you start to breathe quickly; try to identify why this is happening. Look for these stress reactions in people around you, if someone approaches you and their face is flushed, eyes are wide and bloodshot and have veins protruding in their forehead and neck, maybe you want to try to avoid them or get ready for a confrontation!

Warning signs that identify someone is agitated and a potential threat include direct prolonged eye contact, flushed face, accelerated breathing rate, sweating, veins in neck and forehead are protruding, hands moving towards a concealed weapon, hands rising getting ready to strike, eyes narrowing, looking to see if you are armed or at intended target’s areas on your body, changing to side on shooting or fighting stance and lowering the body before launching an attack.

Always remember, if the criminal is street wise they will be monitoring your body language and trying to predict your reactions. You should never give any indication that you are going to defend yourself or are armed; your reactions should be a total surprise to you attacker. You must have an offensive mindset, not defensive. You should always keep a low profile, do whatever you can to avoid problems but if put in a situation where you have to use force the bad guys will be totally over whelmed. Remember, fighting is for amateurs, you just end things!

You need to have confidence in your ability and training to be able to handle hostile situations. Over the years I have had students come to my classes who have

I believe there are several factors that make Food Storage stand out for people but above them all, I think the main reason is that everyone is so much more in tune with hunger. You don’t have to go more than a few hours some days before your stomach starts grumbling and I think the prospect of going hungry hits people in the gut (no pun intended) more tangibly than almost any other aspect of prepping because we know what it feels like. We feel it every day!

Think about it for a minute. We all eat pretty much every day, but how often are you fighting for your life, trapped in a bunker shooting hordes of zombies with your tricked out AR15? How often do you have to stitch yourself up after cutting your hand on a piece of rusty metal you were using to add more protection the family mini-van? Food Storage is important because you have to eat to live, but it should be the easiest preparedness item you can check off your list.

In this post, I hope to cover a lot of ground with the different aspects of Food Security as I see them and how to make a plan for your family and actually start building your food storage so that minor or even major disruptions in the food supply won’t impact you nearly as much.

The 3 Pillars of Food Security

In thinking about food storage or what we should do to have a well-balanced approach to storing food I think we are looking at three main categories. The first would be the food you eat every day. Next would be longer term food storage and lastly we would need to have a plan for growing our own food should all hell break loose and the other two options are depleted.

Buy more of what you already eat everyday

Unless you are the rare person who eats out all of the time and have nothing but some baking soda and a bottle of smart water in your fridge, chances are you go to the grocery store at least once a week. Your family probably has favorite meals or you have patterns of food that are regularly consumed because you like them. One of the easiest ways to build up your food storage for most people is to simply buy a little bit more of what you are already eating.

Long-Term Storable foods are a smart investment when you are ready.

This sounds easy enough right? Even I tried this on my wife at first and said, just buy more of the stuff we eat. The problem is that she has a grocery budget. Anything extra, costs extra and her budget wasn’t allowing her to build up any supplies. We could have cut in some areas and bought a little extra which we have done before but then you get off-balance. You end up with a freezer full of meat and nothing to go with it. I know, what’s wrong with that?

Stocking up extra is going to take some extra funds, but this amount can grow or shrink as your resources allow. Start by purchasing a few extra of all of the canned food items you buy. Then work your way out to the staples and baking goods and sundries like toilet paper and shampoo. You can make do without shampoo and I would even say toilet paper, but you can’t make do without food. Don’t run out and buy 55 extra value packs of Charmin ultra if you don’t have enough food to last a week.

If you have a windfall you can hit the local Sam’s or Costco and purchase some bulk items, but it is vital to make sure that you are using these items quickly enough that they don’t spoil. Giant tubs of peaches aren’t as great when they are 3 years past their expiration date. As a goal, I would try for 6 months of the foods you normally eat stocked away. This is well within the normal expiration dates for most of the food you buy except refrigerated items. By purchasing the foods you eat regularly and by maintaining a good rotation policy you should easily be able to keep things fresh in the pantry.

Buy and store foods meant for Long Term Storage

Once you have 6 months of the food you normally eat in the pantry, you should augment your supplies with long-term storage foods. These are foods with a shelf live measured in decades not years and they are the perfect set it and forget it option for long term planning. There are several different methods of buying processed foods or you can do the work yourself and save some money in the long run.

There must be dozens of suppliers of freeze-dried or dehydrated foods on the market and one even advertises on our site. The products, packaging and processes used to create these options vary somewhat but the end result is generally the same. This is food that you can purchase that requires no refrigeration although a cool storage environment is ideal. You purchase kits usually that have a set number of meals all individually stored or in #10 cans. I think that all of the vendors are moving away from #10 cans though and going to the stack able plastic tubs. This not only stores all of your food which come nicely packaged in Mylar bags, but the buckets can be reused when the food is all gone.

There are many ways to determine the value for each vendor but before buying a thousand dollars of freeze dried food, I would do your research. Once you have settled on a few vendors you want to test some of their products out. Most companies will either sell you a sample pack for a really low price or they will ship you a small sample for free. For those who have never had freeze dried food, it is an experience and I would caution you that while some of these meals are really good, this isn’t gourmet food you are buying. You are buying food that will last 30 years in your basement so that you can eat when you are starving. You aren’t going to get Ruth Chris’ flavor out of your freeze dried ground beef but it will keep you alive.

Build capacity to grow your own renewable food source

The last category is usually what people leave till it’s too late. It could be that you live in an apartment or have no room to plant a garden. It may be that gardening is hard work and you are unable to get out there and bust up a plot of ground or you may have tried and ended up with a patch of weeds that would make a Billy goat choke. Regardless of the reason, having the ability to grow your own food is going to be the most important part of your food security plan. This is hard because it will actually involve work and more importantly your time.

As far as I know you can’t go buy a garden in a can. I know there are a lot of places that sell survival seed banks and this might be something to consider if you have a garden already, but you should not expect to walk out your back door after the grid has gone down and have a Jack in the Beanstalk miracle overnight. Gardening requires a lot of energy at the start with clearing the land and preparing the soil. Once you have the ground ready, seeds take time to germinate and then it may be months before you actually have anything edible coming up in your garden.

Disease, pests, poor soil and even weather will all conspire to keep your garden from producing fruit so when you don’t have to depend on a garden for the food that will feed your family, that is the time you need to put in the work to get a garden established. Another aspect of gardening is that you can learn to can your own food. If we do go through a horrible grid-down scenario there will likely not be any power. Canning your vegetable harvest is going to be the simplest way to preserve food. I think its better to practice and purchase your equipment now as opposed to having something horrible happen and you have no way to save your food for your family.

So what should my plan be?

Here is my recommendation and I am happy for someone to tell me otherwise, but I think if you are looking to build up your food storage it should go something like this.

  1. Start planning a garden now. Next year’s growing season will be here sooner than you think. Now is the time to get your area set up and start getting the soil ready to grow your vegetables.
  2. Build up your stores of food you eat every day until you have a good 6 months’ worth of food on-hand. The goal should be that you don’t need to run to the store if the power is going to be out due to a winter storm. You shouldn’t be fighting the crowds if you only have a few hours of notice before something bad happens.
  3. Once you have 6 months’ worth of food, you should look into long-term storable food. This is food that will last you for years that you won’t need to worry about rotating and will give you a great option for supplementing your regular meals if needed.
  4. Use and rotate your food stores. This will accomplish two things. First, it will give you exposure to the menu options you have and secondly it will allow you to keep your inventory fresh.

Other tips and Resources

To find out how much food you want to stock up, you could look to the Church of Latter Day Saints. They are nearly famous for their stance on storing food and mandate (don’t quote me on this) that every family have a years’ worth of food stored up. There is a food storage calculator online that you can look at to see how much of various types of foods the LDS recommends you have on-hand for a certain family size. It’s amazing when it is all in on list like that.

Are there other food options? Of course, there are so many different ways to provide food for yourself from sprouting to livestock. This is just one path you can take. The point is to start moving in the direction of building up your stores. Worst case scenario you will have food to eat…

We also have some other posts that cover this subject from certain angles that you can check out.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope this gave you some ideas for how you can make your own family’s food storage plan stronger.

I believe there are several factors that make Food Storage stand out for people but above them all, I think the main reason is that everyone is so much more

Planning a day hike can teach you so many skills that you can incorporate into your bug out plans. I have advocated that longer backpacking trips are extremely valuable for the lessons you can learn from them, which apply directly to any plans you have of strapping that heavy pack on your back and hiking into the local forest. A day hike gives you similar opportunities to learn, practice your bug out plan, and get some great exercise at the same time in the beauty of nature. What’s not to love?

You shouldn’t just walk into the woods unprepared though even when by definition; a day hike should have you home at night. Accidents happen and that is one reason why I am a prepper. I like to think that even small day hikes present opportunities for me to be able to take care of myself or my family if something unexpected happens.   Do you think Aaron Ralston, famously portrayed in the movie 127 Hours didn’t plan to make it home that night he left? Aaron spent over 5 days trapped by a giant bolder and was only able to free himself by first breaking, then cutting off his own arm. Talk about survival!

Each year there are numerous people lost or stranded in the wilderness so it makes perfect sense to me to pack for unplanned visits to the woods.

All of that isn’t to say that I think you should bring your full Bug Out Bag with you, but for some of you that might be a good idea to see how it feels after a few hours. My wife and I did this before our first backpacking trip to try out items like our portable stove, water filtration items, eat some of the freeze-dried food we would live off of in the wilderness but most importantly to see how lugging our new backpacks full of gear felt. That short day hike taught us a lot about our packs so I put together this list below for any of you who might be considering the same thing  on a day hike scale.

Day hike checklist

Feel free to print this day hike checklist off and use it for your own adventures. The items I list below are just suggestions. Where you live , the environment you will be experiencing on your day hike and personal abilities should all factor into your own choices, but this list should cover the basics needed for survival.

DayHikeChecklist_

A day hike checklist will help you be prepared for unforeseen situations.

Navigation

Map and Compass – Who wants to get lost out in the great outdoors? Having a good compass and a map of your area are very important for anything but the shortest hikes in a National Park where the trail is well-marked and usually less than a few miles. Maps are more important if you aren’t familiar with the area, the terrain is treacherous,  steep or the environment is harsher (think Grand Canyon). National Geographic Trails Illustrated Maps are excellent and usually available for most of the larger destinations. These maps are waterproof which is a huge plus if you sweat like a beast or are planning to ford the local river to punch your bad ass hiker card.

You also need to know how to use that compass and be able to read a map.

Sun Protection

Sunglasses – Sunglasses, especially polarized lenses are a must have if for nothing else than looking cool. Seriously, sunglasses will protect your eyes and keep you possibly from loosing your footing in the gaze of the setting sun.

Chap stick/Lip Balm –This is one thing that I never used to carry until I went backpacking in the winter one time. Usually I never use chap stick, but this one time I had a cold and my nose was stuffed up which meant I was breathing out of my mouth. Eventually, my lips were nice and chapped so some good lip balm, although it isn’t a life saver, sure makes the journey smoother. Yes I said that.

A good headlamp doesn’t have to cost a fortune and can be a lifesaver if you are walking in the dark.

Hat – I try to always wear a hat when I am in the woods. In the winter it is something to keep me warm like a toboggan or I can go Crocodile Dundee with my Outback Trading Company River Guide hat. Nothing beats one of these if you are caught in the rain. They also do an excellent job of keeping the sun off your face. In hotter weather a lighter option might be better like the OR Helios hat.

Protective layers – In the wintertime this is usually more of a thought but even in the summer I plan for something should the temperatures drop or I am forced to spend the night in the woods. This can be as simple as a capilene base layer or a shemagh. When you are hiking you are burning energy that keeps you warm. I try to plan for what I would want as clothing if I couldn’t move.

Light – Always have a light with you. My flashlight is part of my EDC kit and even sitting here at my computer, I have a flashlight on me. When I am going hiking I always take a headlamp as well because I think they are superior when you are walking in the dark. These come in all prices but you don’t have to spend a fortune on a good headlamp.

First Aid Kit – I don’t expect anyone to take the supplies to be able to suture their arm if they have to hack it off with a dull multitool, but a good first aid kit should always go with you. I have the ultralight first aid kit from Adventure medical, but I augment this with a tourniquet and an extra blood stopper bandage. We have had to break into the first aid kit on multiple occasions for simple cuts and scrapes to aspirin.

Ability to make fire – You may be forced to spend the night in the woods and if this happens to you it makes sense to have something to make a fire with. Normally if I am out on an official backpacking trip I have several methods just in case, but for day hikes I have a simple Bic lighter that I have wrapped about 3 feet of duct tape around just in case. This way I can easily start a fire if needed. I keep this in a waterproof case and obviously you can also take a magnesium striker as backup.

Tools – It may sound like overkill but I take a knife and my multitool. I don’t lug my big end of the world survival knife on day hikes but I have my favorite folder as well as my Leatherman which should cover just about any need I have. Even if that need is to saw a bone in half.

Camelbak Antidote 100 oz. capacity and tough as nails.

Food – A lot of people take off into the woods thinking they will be back in a few hours only to find themselves stranded for a couple of days. Now, you won’t die technically for a pretty long time from starvation but I always pack some food in my backpack . If the duration of the hike is longer, I will even pack an extra day’s meal. This can be as simple as an MRE although there are lighter options like a Freeze-dried pouch of something like my favorite, chilli-mac, or a few Cliff bars or some trail mix. Even if you don’t eat them, it is a good idea to have them just in case.

Water – This can be as simple as a bottle of water or a water bladder. I have grown to appreciate the usefulness (and capacity) of my Camelbak Antidote 100 oz. Plus, I don’t have to stretch my arms behind me or take off my pack to get a drink. If I am going to a new place then I also pack my Sawyer Mini water filter so I can resupply if needed. I haven’t had to use that yet as the Camelbak has always been enough for my hikes, but you never know.

Shelter – For me I usually just have the simple emergency mylar blanket or a survival bivvy . They aren’t perfect, but they are better than nothing. I wouldn’t likely put a sleeping bag in a day pack. You might argue that you should be able to build your own shelter and I agree, but what if you are trapped by a bolder or for some other reason aren’t able to build your favorite debris shelter? Options.

Extra items – Depending on the location I will take a GPS to back up my map reading. Sometimes I will take extra batteries for the electronics, but usually I just put fresh rechargeable batteries in there before we leave. Other nice to haves are dependent upon how much room I have in my pack like a mat for sitting down that I made out of a piece of reflective insulation material. It’s very lightweight and could even double as a signaling device. I will also take a trash bag sometimes because they, like duct tape have a lot of uses. My packs all have whistles as well. You will have other items you want to bring.

What items did I miss? What do you pack on your day hikes?

Planning a day hike can teach you so many skills that you can incorporate into your bug out plans. I have advocated that longer backpacking trips are extremely valuable for

A term you will hear frequently on Prepping and Survival websites is a Get Home Bag. You could also hear this called by other names (Get Me Home, Get Back) and they are all pretty much the same thing. Today we are going to discuss why a Get Home Bag is so important and something you should consider having if you are like most people and have to commute away from home every day for work. A Get Home Bag is similar to your Bug Out Bag but they have different purposes and what you need to put into your Get Home Bag will be different.

What is a Get Home Bag?

A get home bag is simply a bag of supplies you can use if you are forced to walk back home after some disaster or crisis. The assumption is that for whatever reason you are away from home, possibly far away and you can’t simply call AAA or a cab to come and get you. There could be several levels of Get Home Bag and I will discuss those below depending on how far away from home you are which could determine how long it will take you to get back home.

I used to have a job for a short time that had an 86 mile (one way!) commute. It was an opportunity that was too good to pass up but thankfully I found another position much closer to home. Every day I would jump in my car and set out on the highway for an hour and a half drive. Naturally, I never really imagined anything would prevent me from driving back home at the end of the day, but if some disaster struck while I was away, 86 miles would be a pretty long haul on foot.

When I worked that job I didn’t have any supplies with me except an iPod probably. I don’t even think I had water in my car. If something had happened, I would have been in trouble if I had to rely on what I had on hand and a Get Home Bag is the answer to that problem. You don’t have to work 86 miles away from home to need a Get Home Bag because the important supplies you have in there could save your life even much closer to home.

GetHomeBag2

Maxpedition makes excellent bags.

Is a Get Home Bag even necessary?

You may be thinking ‘Hey, I don’t work 86 miles away from home’ so why would I need a Get Home Bag and I will concede that in some cases, the distance you are traveling away from home will dictate what you might need to make it home in the first place. Let’s say there is a disaster and you are only 5 miles away or closer from home. You could probably crawl home if you needed in a day. Assuming you didn’t live in an insect infected swamp, the dessert or in a war zone, you might not need a get home bag.

But there doesn’t really have to be a disaster for a get home bag to help you out. Winter storms are a natural occurrence. Last year, there was a huge traffic snarl in Atlanta when a relatively minor amount of snow and ice shut the city down over night. Your Get home bag could give you the supplies you needed to make it home or just as easily make your overnight stay more comfortable.

Get Home bags don’t have to see the end of the world as we know it. There could be earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, landslides, winter storms and on and on. Just having this backup could come in handy.

Your Get Home Bag packing list

So enough about the purpose of a get home bag, what do you pack in there? I think that we could logically break this down into different tiers or levels for how long the get home bag would need to be called into service to get you home. There will be seasonally adjusted items but I will call those out on the list below.

Assuming the average uninjured adult walks approximately 3 miles per hour we will have three tiers below for distances of 3 to 90 miles. As with everything else in prepping your needs and situation as well as the actual disaster will have an effect on what you will need to use and how your preps would be different. This is just a general guideline but should be enough for the average person in average conditions.

Tier 1 – 1 – 3 Hours away

If you had to walk back home for 3 hours that could mean that you work approximately 9 miles away from home. This is very similar to my commute now and unless meteors hit the ground or we were bombed by someone, I think all things being equal I would be home in a relatively short time. Anything I pack is going to help me along my journey but does not anticipate an overnight stay. I would add some items just in case because I like to be prepared for surprises.

  • A good folding knife – This should be common sense. A knife and actually the first 6 items on this list are part of my Every Day Carry (EDC) so technically I have them wherever I go. I carry the Spyderco Tenacious.
  • Multi-Tool – From pliers to a small saw, there are a surprising number of things you can do with a good multi-tool.
  • Bandanna – Bandanas make a great filter for the first stage of water, a dust mask, bandage, and sling or if you plan on robbing a bank you will be in style. Just kidding on that last part.
  • Flashlight/headlight – I have a flashlight on my belt and a headlamp in my Get Home Bag. You can’t beat a headlamp at night when you need to have both hands free.
  • Water bottle – Ideally a stainless steel water bottle which can be used over a fire to boil water. Even if you don’t have a stainless steel version, something to carry water in.
  • Concealed Carry Weapon – Never leave home without it.
  • Comfortable/Sturdy footwear – I have written about the importance of good footwear before. You don’t want the S to hit the fan and you are in flip flops.
  • Rain gear – Always plan for rain because you do not want to be soaking wet without a chance of drying off. Hypothermia will sap your energy and could kill you at even moderately warm temperatures. An umbrella isn’t a good option because it will require you to hold it and you will just look like a dork if you have to run.
  • Gloves – Sturdy gloves will be a huge advantage if you have to do work you aren’t accustomed to. They can prevent cuts, burns and blisters.
  • Simple First Aid Kit with Blood Stopper – I am not talking about the cheap kind with Band-Aids and some Neosporin. If you have to walk home you can tough minor cuts out, but a blood stopper or Israeli bandage can be used for large bleeds. If things are bad enough you are walking home, you probably don’t want to go to the hospital if you can avoid it.
  • Dust Mask – I have regular dust masks that are really only good for dust and N95 masks which should be used in certain situations.
  • Hat – Good at keeping the rain, sun or snow off your head.
  • Sunglasses – The ideal pair of sunglasses are also safety glasses to protect your eyes from debris.
  • Snack/Energy Bars – Let’s face it you will not die if you have to walk home for a few hours but a little snack bar can lift your spirits and occupy your mind for a while. A little shot of energy never hurt anyone either.
  • Spare Ammo – Make sure you can refill that magazine if it empties out.
  • Lighter – I have a couple of lighters because they are just simpler than using a fire steel.
  • Spare Cash – In a power outage or worse, you may not be able to access the ATM. Credit cards may not be accepted either but cash usually is.
  • Paracord – A million and one uses.
  • Duct Tape – Two million and two uses.

Nalgene_stainless_steel_mug_fire

A Stainless Steel water bottle like this Nalgene will allow you to boil water if needed.

Tier 2 – 4- 8 hours away

To walk for 8 hours at the average pace of 3 miles an hour that would put you approximately 24 miles away from home. I would have everything in the Tier 1 Get Home Bag plus the following items.

  • Spare batteries for flashlights
  • Bivvy sack or Wool Blanket – SOL makes a great emergency bivvy sack that will keep you alive in pretty cold temperatures. This or a wool blanket if you have to spend the night outdoors.
  • Tarp or Poncho – Either can be used to keep the rain off of you. A camouflage poncho can also help keep you hidden.
  • Garbage Bags – You can lay or sit on these to keep water off your backside.
  • Spare Medications (if needed)
  • Spare socks – If you are walking for over 4 hours or are sweating a lot you will want to change your socks. Hang the old ones off your Get Home Bag to dry out. As a bonus you may want foot powder and moleskin for blisters.
  • Additional Layer for warmth – Simple base layers are lightweight and take up little space.
  • Wool or fleece cap – Nights get cool even in the summer.
  • Radio
  • Tinder materials for fire – I have seen some people add dryer lint and some WetFire tabs and place them inside their roll of toilet paper.
  • Water purification tablets – Simpler than bleach, cheaper than a LifeStraw and take up less room than most filters. Of course if I was going to carry a water filter I would carry the Sawyer Mini water filter because it takes up minimal room and weighs ounces.
  • Toilet Paper – Hey, when the SHTF you might need to take a… well you know what I mean. Also useful for cleaning glasses, blowing your nose or as tinder for a fire.

Tier 3 – Overnight Distance 80 + miles.

If you are like me and the commute was extra-long or the traveling conditions were hazardous it may take you 24 hours to make it home. This will involve sleeping somewhere overnight unless you just have to plug on and make it all in one shot. For a Tier 3 Get Home bag, I would add to the contents of the first two tiers, the following:

  • Sleeping bag – Size and temperature appropriate to your climate and season.
  • Large fixed blade knife – This could be used for larger chores like chopping firewood for your fire or making larger holes in people. I carry the Gerber LMF II.
  • Spare magazine for pistol – Can’t be too safe.
  • Walking Sticks – If you are walking 80 miles you would probably need a walking stick before it’s all over with. Walking sticks relieve pressure on your knees and can also be used with your poncho to make a shelter.
  • Advanced First Aid – Blood Stoppers, Celox and Ace Bandage
  • Additional Energy Bars or Survival Rations

What is the best bag to use for a Get Home Bag?

That is the million dollar question isn’t it? Well, first it helps to assemble all of your items to see how much space you need. For my Tier 1 Get Home Bag I use a Maxpedition Jumbo Versipack which fits everything I have, minus the shoes very nicely. I haven’t used them personally but am interested in the 5.11 Rush bags that come in three sizes to coincide with the duration of your stay (12, 24 and 72). I know the 5.11 brand and have several of their products, just not any bags and they have been of the highest quality. You do pay for that quality, but I think it is worth it and I want to get my hands on one of these bags for a review.

I have also been interested in looking at the Paratus 3 Day Operator’s Pack from 3VGear. The price is certainly reasonable so I am considering getting one of those to review also. At less than half the price of a 5.11 bag, it’s worth considering. There are so many options out there and you don’t have to spend a fortune on a bag to hold your gear. Most likely you aren’t being dropped into hostile territory in Afghanistan so most regular backpacks will do the job for you but your own needs and tastes will decide what works best.

In conclusion, you might be wondering what the difference between a Bug Out Bag and a Get Home Bag is and if you count all of the tiers together, throw in some more food and maybe cooking utensils you are pretty much looking at the same thing. It might be a good indicator that you have too much if you can’t tell the difference. Either that or you work a long way from home.

Hopefully this helped with some information. Any items I missed?

A term you will hear frequently on Prepping and Survival websites is a Get Home Bag. You could also hear this called by other names (Get Me Home, Get Back)

One of the hardest cords to cut for homesteaders is dependence on commercial feeds. Our modern livestock – even a lot of the dual-purpose homesteading breeds – are accustomed to certain types of feeds, heavy on mass-production monoculture grains and hay. Sometimes planting options seem limited, sometimes storage space is at a premium, and sometimes we struggle to figure out what folks did before Buy’N’Large made kibble and meal mix cheap and accessible. There is no one way to do anything, and no solution is going to work for everyone. However, I’ve put together some ideas for root vegetables and their tops that can cut some of our feed bills and feed dependency and alternative or “forgotten” ways of storing and using grains, legumes that might help cut feed costs and increase resiliency and self-sufficiency.

The methods here can be applied from sprawling homesteads to suburban homes and lots. Some of the tips actually apply to humans, too, especially the storage tidbits. There will be another article on alternative livestock feeds that will have even more help for smaller lots with livestock like rabbits and a couple of ducks or goats, and will also include some alternatives that are feeding people and animals on a larger scale in other parts of the world.

Corn Storage

Corn can be collected sweet or allowed to dry on the stalk for grinding and feed types, and an awful lot of livestock is happy with rough-grind “cracked” corn. Dry corn can also be soaked overnight to become more palatable and attractive to livestock. Natives used to dry corn on mats, both shucked and rubbed from the cobs or still attached to cobs, and colonists regularly had stacked racks that allowed good airflow beneath a roof for further drying before corn is transferred to a bin. Corn will keep better (stay dryer) if it’s left on the cob. Leaving the cob on can be space consuming, however. White folks have traditionally used large silos and smaller cribs for dry corn. Once it’s dried on the stalks, husks that have been left on can also be braided into ropes or wider bands, then suspended from ceilings in barns, cellars or homes. Birds and rats are still a risk, but it can be a space-saving way to store corn compared to old-style cribs, since it can go right over our heads, livestock heads, or additional storage areas.

Common grass grains

For households that are putting in limited amounts of grass grains like wheat, barley and oats, each square foot is precious. When there are small amounts, such as turning one or a few 5’x20’ plots and 5-10 pounds of seed into 40-65 pounds of grain or next-year’s planting-for-consumption stock, it’s incredibly important for that seed to dry properly. On a small scale, the cost of specialty machinery may not be available, especially at first, despite the time it can save.

Old-school stooking of stalks helps get them up into the air and at least somewhat away from some pests. However, if a corn bin has drying racks, or there’s a shed with wide doors and enough power to run a box fan, heads can also be cut from the stalks after bundling into stooks, and the bundles hung upside down in tiers, similar to old tobacco barns or even overhead in homes and barn walkways. Doing so cuts down on the amount of floor space needed while protecting the grains from rain, and increases protection against pests.

Old tobacco shed (braided corn or inverted grain bundles can be stored from racks and chains as tobacco once was)

Old tobacco shed (braided corn or inverted grain bundles can be stored from racks and chains as tobacco once was)

Storing corn and other grains overhead, even once bagged, can save space on the floor and shelves for harvests of apples or* potatoes, autumn and winter squashes, yams, and sweet potatoes, or for jarred and dehydrated produce.

* Potatoes and apples in the same space will make each other ripen/rot faster, but pears, yams and sweet potatoes get along like white on rice with pretty much all other crops once they’ve had their cure period. Since grain storage is ideally drydry, crops that like bins of damp sawdust and sand like carrots and turnips aren’t really great sharing space with corn, oats, barley, teff, buckwheat, or any other grain.

African grains

Millet and teff are incredibly difficult and time consuming to mill, but poultry can handle them easily without that step. Teff also makes a good hay and an excellent straw. The major advantage to the relatively rare teff is that this African crop is accustomed to some pretty harsh conditions, nutrient-depleted soils, and hand- and low-mech harvest. Millet is largely seen in game plots and songbird feed, but has plenty of nutritional value and some of the millets can handle pretty much any conditions. Both millet and teff are available in varieties can be had for serious clays, droughts, flood-drought, and saturated field tolerances, which can make them a huge asset for small homesteaders trying to cut feed-store cords.

Millet and corn kernels can also be turned into a type of silage for storage, or the entire still-green plant can be used – as can other grains, legumes, and leafy plants.

Silage

Silage is basically a type of fermentation that produces a high-moisture feed. Haylage and oatlege are basically just specialty types of silage. Brits produce a version called balage. In World War II, farmers sometimes used silage made from turnip and rutabaga tops to help get their breeding pigs and cattle through spring.

It can be created small-scale in heavy-duty contractor or special-purpose bags, in kegs and casks, by round-bale equipment and covers, or in bins from 5-10’ stock tanks to pits and shelters measured in meters. The green matter is chopped, packed down in layers, and covered. Sometimes something absorbent and lightweight like finished straw or chaff is added on top or a sweetener like honey or molasses or tree syrup is used in the layers. The important part of any silage process is to press out the oxygen, and to cover it against reintroduction of oxygen and precipitation.

Silage

Cows munching on silage.

Silage can be beneficial in that the starting moisture content is very high. A hay harvest that would be ruined by dews and rains can still become safe animal feed by converting it to silage instead.

It’s not pretty, but just like it got some of our heritage and rare breeds through World War II, in a disaster, the waste-not, want-not aspect of using the tops of storable feed and food crop, “ruined” hay crop, or a grain crop that isn’t going to get all the way to our frosts and freezes to feed our livestock may make it worthwhile for some raisers.

There are naysayers on the topic of silage as animal feed, so do research about the nutrients of various components and methods. Ducks and turkeys can’t have it and I haven’t seen a horse willing to chomp in, but most goats, cattle, pigs, chickens, rabbits, and donkeys could have at least part of their diets replaced, putting that much less pressure on hay and grains for winter and spring.

Roots & Tubers – Swedes, Beets, Sweets, Yams, Radishes and Turnips

Along with pea hay and straw, something farmers haven’t done in a while is maintain big stacks of root veggies along with their tall stacks of hay and straw, or keep tubers in big cellars to haul to their calves, rams, and steers. Forking forage turnips and swedes to cattle and pigs used to be just part of daily life, especially early in winter, and it wasn’t uncommon even up until the 1950s for British farmers to shred or grate swedes to a consistency we’d use for drying apples or potatoes, then use it for weanling cattle and goats, or “slop” them for their meat chickens and pigs.

Turnip Slicer

Image – Turnip slicer from WWII

Britain’s farming directives in response to World War II offers us a fair number of clues for hard-times livestock feeding, and one of the other fabulous nuggets that came out of it was the cooking of slop for pigs. Cooking makes things like potato and sweets and yams safe to eat, skin to “meat”, and boiling allows things like junk meat from pest animals to be included.

Although they aren’t as traditional, most of the cellar- or pit-worthy long-storage root crops like African yams, Chinese yams, and sweet potatoes can be used the same way for our vegan livestock (oca can be used for some livestock in low quantity, but those New Zealand and South American “yam” is a gas-producer capable of twisting up even goats and pigs). They tend to be low on protein, they aren’t the calorie powerhouses of grains, but they work well for stud stock, meat stock, un-bred stock, and things like rabbits and chickens that convert leafy foods efficiently.

Forage and sugar beets and turnips can be had relatively inexpensively as deer plot and pasture-improvement seed. Daikon-type radishes are available in the same genres, but some of the field-improving radishes are bred to produce a spongy biomass and then dissolve in a pretty short amount of time, so we need to pay attention to what we purchase.

BeetFodder

Image – Dairy cattle on forage beets.

Some livestock will eat a daikon radish as-is, but some will pass it unless it’s been boiled – and it’s as much animal-to-animal as it is species or breed. Introducing new foods should progress slowly, but livestock that is regularly exposed to a variety of foods is more likely to nibble something new when it’s mixed in with the old favorites.

Things like sweet potatoes, radishes, turnips and beets are double winners, because both the tops and the roots are edible – for us and for livestock. They can either be grazed early and allowed to develop roots later with pasture rotation, pigs can be rotated in after goats and cattle to dig up tubers (not sweets), tops can be culled and delivered to livestock as green food a little at a time to avoid serious stunting where climates are less forgiving and then the roots can be harvested, or tops can be removed and fed or added to silage when the tubers are being harvested.

Some of the root veggies are ideal to grow in spring, others in the heat of the year. With yams and sweets on the Southern summer end of the spectrum and swedes and Daikons on the shake-off-frosts end, there’s a livestock augmentation in the root crops for pretty much everything but ducks, horses and turkeys. Even donkeys can chomp into some cooked radishes, yams and sweets along with their hay.

*Ducks can nibble some, but they aren’t really supposed to be grazers; they really need grain seeds and more proteins than root veggies provide.

Apples and Pears as Fodder

Images – Hogs on apples

Images – Hogs on apples

 

Chickens and hogs have historically been scrap compactors, turning odd ends and wilted produce into nummy bacon and eggs, but, again, evolution means they’re not quite as good as it as they used to be. Look for foraging-capability in breed and lineage descriptions (sometimes in percentages and sometimes a rating system), and try to buy from people who at least partly pasture raise their livestock.

Goats, sheep and cattle will chomp into apples, pears and plums as well as the chickens and pigs that go ga-ga for them, but chickens and hogs can handle a higher amount of sweet fruit in their diet. Chickens can also easily handle crabapples and wild plums. Using even just windfall and wormy fruit from existing trees or planting some storage and needs-to-cure apples to our tree fruit can help increase the amount of nutrients and calories we produce on our property, especially if we’re able to situate chickens and rabbits under the canopy – stacking our food production into an even smaller footprint.

Extra bonus: Most meat stock that is finished on apples, pears or beets ends up with really excellent flavor once it’s in the pot. At least a week, but up to a month with a diet supplement or change in those directions can make a huge difference. They still need access to hays while finishing. In Southern climes where sweet potatoes will grow in abundance between traditional crabapple and wild plum hedges, they can have the same effect on hogs, lambs, kids and chickens, making for some seriously succulent eats.

Growing & Storing Livestock Feed

Another article is in the works looking at alternative livestock feeds, things that go even further out on a limb than turnip-top silage and researching African grains and tubers (like tree hay and tree fodder options, and boosting protein for game birds and young chicks).

Even with more traditional foods and feeds, we can start impacting our livestock costs by looking back at history to see what was used – and how – before we depended on fuels and electricity for delivering kibble. We can learn a great deal especially looking at hard times when farmers and small raisers had to make due with limited feed options, such as in Great Britain during World War II and Cuba during the initial months and years of the oil embargo. Those methods can help us figure out how to cut costs and how to develop a sustainable plan for our modern livestock should we ever need it.

As mentioned, modern livestock – even the heritage breeds to some degree – has half a century or more of the Green Revolution under its belt. They are accustomed to pressed and formed feeds in large part, the condensed calories of grains. Modern livestock is largely built for enormous feed conversion, which may be slowed or delayed with certain types of feed, and in many cases, they won’t have correct gut microflora to immediately switch to something new. Always keep good stock records of production and feed, and always transition feeds slowly for livestock, especially small and young livestock.

One of the hardest cords to cut for homesteaders is dependence on commercial feeds. Our modern livestock – even a lot of the dual-purpose homesteading breeds – are accustomed to