What have you done to prep today?

[thedigininja]

Being able to acquire fresh clean water is the single most important requirement for survival and precious few actually know how to do it properly (I'm sure myself included).

I also want to comment on what Nemo said about his mrs. I think it's important to have your spouse/life partner/whatever actively involved in your preps (unless you plan to eat them first). mrsninja and I have been on the same page since day one, as a matter of fact on our first date we walked past a camping shop having a sale and left with a few items for our BoBs.

[Burt Gummer]

mrsninja and I have been on the same page since day one, as a matter of fact on our first date we walked past a camping shop having a sale and left with a few items for our BoBs.

[JohnyMac]

  Burt, you are a hoot!

[thedigininja]

Serves me right for trying to make a serious point 

[JohnyMac]

Don't listen to us thedigininja! Most of us are a bunch of goofs 

[Burt Gummer]

what Jmac said...
I'm just a sad lonely guy who's still waiting for "the one"...

[Nemo]

what Jmac said...
I'm just a sad lonely guy who's still waiting for "the one"...

You will be waiting a long time.  "the one" is gone-- I got her.

Nemo

[JohnyMac]

  OMG, this is deteriorating quickly. 

When I read Burt's words, "I'm just a sad lonely guy who's still waiting for 'the one'..." I immediatly thought of Hawkey in Last of the Mohicans in the Cameron Cabin scene when he was joking about moving to Key-tuck-ee finding a squaw and saying "you are the one."

Crap! I haven't watched that movie in years. I love that movie but my wife doesn't. She thinks that the first 100 times I made her watch it was fine but she has seen it now enough to last the rest of her life.
 

[thedigininja]

Started growing some micro greens today. Got a few different types to play with and see what works. It seems like a great way to build towards a sustainable lifestyle if you're pressed for space. Also upgraded my BoB a bit by getting a decent camo hiking pack, ordered a few items to make life a lil more comfortable if I'm forced to bug out and found some headlamps for a great price so I grabbed a few.
Also started (very slowly) working out and training again, focusing on getting my back back to full strength again.

[HH]

Consolidated Several small/partially used first aid kits and some other medical items into a large trauma kit.
Double checked supply/exp date of doxycycline (general antibiotic good for most things) 

[thedigininja]

Doing some serious food preps. Built a small "greenhouse" on the balcony. Got a dehydrator (using it for some biltong first but then I'll start storing fruit and veg). Doing some pickling, fermenting and canning. Being a chef by trade I can't wait to start experimenting with some prepper cuisine once everything is ready.

[JohnyMac]

> Bush beans coming in and canned a bunch last night.
> Working on cutting up a 30" wide ash tree that blew down several years ago. The bummer is it
    is on a 45 degree angle so it will need to be cut in 8-10' logs and pulled to the road with a
    "skidder".
> Planting our winter veggies.
 

[thedigininja]

Do you dry any of your bush beans for long term storage?

[JohnyMac]

Nope thedigininja I cann them.

When the sweet corn comes in I will par boil for 1 minute or so, put the cobs in ice water then cut off the kernels and freeze. Yum!

MrsMac and I canned 7 qts. of pickles earlier today. Five more need to be done tomorrow.

Sunday we will cann peaches. 

[JohnyMac]

I am beat!

Well I have this 30" x ?' Ash tree that was blown over in a storm several years ago on our property. It is just off a state road. I have been working on cutting it into 8' and 10' lengths. The challenge is it is on an embankment that has a nice 45' angle from the road to the bottom of the gully.

An acquaintance who is working my brother and my blue stone quarry volunteered to help by pulling up the now logs onto the road with something called a "skider" into 22" stove length. To me a skider is just a small very maneuverable fork-lift that is 4 x 4 and all of the wheels turn when you turn the steering wheel so you can make tight turns in the woods.

Well... we were able to pull up from the gully about 1/3 of the tree (In 8-10' lengths). We cut it up in 22" lengths and pushed/rolled the logs into the front bucket of my neighbors New Holland tractor. Then I hauled them back (About a mile) to the cabin - Dumped the load and headed back to the pull/cut zone to pick up another load. Each cut-up piece was 22" x 30" (L x W) and took two guys to roll them onto my neighbors bucket.

Tomorrow we are going to pick up the rest of the afore mentioned logs I cut. We are down to 14-18" diameters so we will load the logs onto a trailer and haul them back to the cabin to be cut and split at my leisure. It was figured that the 30" x 8-10' logs were going to be just too much for the trailer hence we cut them up on the state road and loaded them into the bucket of the New Holland.
 
By noon I was sucking down my friends super cold Miller Lite. He lectured me on the amount of work being done for "F%^&*k'en stove wood! Yeah...yeah...yeah. But man O' man it is aged Ash which will burn hot and long this winter. 

As we were sucking down that Miller, a Conservation Officer came by and stopped. My skider buddy walked up to him and said, "Hey Officer XXX what the phuck you doing on our mountain? Hunting season hasn't started yet." The officers response was, "Are you keeping out of trouble YYY? Hunting season is about to start?" My buddy broke into a laugh and offered the officer a beer and a opportunity to help us. The officer just shook his head and smiled then said, "Make sure you get a license this year YYY. The poached deer I took from you last year tasted SWEET!" Then he drove away.

I am going to give my skider friend a "Grant" when we are done. He doesn't want any money but heck when we are all done he will have put in 3-4 hours plus fuel.

By the way...The state road doesn't look to bad where we dragged the logs onto the road to be cut. 
 

[JohnyMac]

Planted my winter veggies - Cabbage and Turnips.

Cleared a spot in the garden that my earlier planting didn't take. Spent a LONG TIME clearing the 4'x14' spot. Took out all rocks no matter what size and worked into the area rabbit manure and vegetable food waste. Then planted my seed.

We will see what happens. 

[thedigininja]

Bunny poop is a handy thing to have around. Fertiliser, mixed up with some saw dust or tinder it's a great fire starter and I've even heard rumours of guys using it for bio fuel but I don't know how many of the little bastards you need for that to be viable. Anyone seen the video of the nut who used it for a flamethrower?

[special-k]

Because......I've been looking for an excuse...

Show content

*Don't click it Reaver!!!*

[Kbop]

You know, I expected - even hoped for - out of the box thinking.  You guys are not disappointing me in the least.  I can't get the image of the bunny from Monty Python's Holy Grail movie out of my head now ROFL. 

[Burt Gummer]

This weeks haul.
Not pictured:
1000 rounds of 5.56 and this amazing head webbing for my M40 mask. (sooooo much more comfortable.)

[Rowdy1]

Buying a 5th wheel, had the well cleaned out and my buddy brought down a bobcat. We built a pad for the trailer and my plan is to make the trailer self sufficient. I've got a solar trickle charger for the trailer and a generator to run the well when the water tank needs to be refilled. Now I've just gotta put in a septic system.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TrailingSpouse]

Its 10am - had breakfast and logged on here The wife and little one are back home in the UK now so

Yesterday we were on a soft lock down.  No big deal but a good reminder...  There were street protests about the proposed changes to the constitution that would give Kabila an extra term as president - looks like we are headed for dictatorship.  This country is cursed by its wealth.

So…
Carried an extra 50l of water up into the safe room. 
Tested the radio and left it on - nothing but radio checks all day.  Also tuned into a local station Radio Okapi - nowt but hot air.
Checked the grab bag was in place (the airplane-friendly hand-luggage sized one).
Sharpened my kukri - best form of meditation there is IMO :p
Chatted with the security guards for a while - in a group and on their own - "What's the score?" type questions.  Phoned some friends who might not be in the loop.
Scouted the back gate and a bit of the area beyond (an open sewer leading to the river) which I only recently found out existed. 
Split some seasoned giant bamboo and ran it through the planer-thicknesser (laminated bow project Mk5) I'll post on this one day.
Read up on shielding stuff from EMP (bit of a tangent - but the recent solar flare got me wondering about that stuff) and its not much more complicated than creating a metal box basically??

[JohnyMac]

Man TS, you have some serious crap on your plate. 

[Nemo]

Double checked supply/exp date of doxycycline (general antibiotic good for most things)

Something good to know if in case you are unaware of it.  Any and all prescriptions I get have a one year expiration date.  I am confident they are good long past that.

Nemo

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx%3Fid=44979

DoD News
Program Extends Drug Shelf-Life
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 29, 2000 – Military health officials have saved American taxpayers millions through a testing program that extends the shelf life of drugs.

All services participate in shelf life extension program, said DoD officials. The drugs are mostly those that are militarily significant items, said Army Maj. Marc Caouette, a pharmacy consultant assigned at the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency at Fort Detrick, Md.

Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said the testing applies only to stockpiles of drugs and not all of the $1.2 billion in prescription and over-the-counter drugs DoD buys each year. Bacon said March 28 that the war reserve stock of drugs encompasses about $87 million in drugs.

The program grew out of a 1985 Air Force initiative. The Air Force went to the Food and Drug Administration and asked if the FDA could check the expiration date of some of the drugs in the stockpile, Bacon said. The Air Force wanted “… to find out if the drugs were safe and potent beyond the expiration date set by the manufacturers.

“The FDA did this and found basically that the expiration dates tended to be very conservative, and as a result, many of these drugs could have a much longer shelf life than the manufacturers said.”

Caouette said an example of one of the drugs with an extended shelf life is ciprofloxacin. “It’s a broad spectrum antibiotic that’s used to treat many different bacterial infections, and also happens to be a medicine that can be used to combat biological warfare.”

The military has large quantities of this drug. So much so, in fact, that the manufacturer will not agree to take back the drug for credit when it expires, as they do for civilian users. “So rather than wasting it, we’ve put that product into our shelf-life extension program and have the FDA conduct the testing to see how long we can use that material past the labeled expiration date,” he said.

In the case of ciprofloxacin, the original expiration date was 1993. With the testing the shelf life has been extended to 2001 and further testing may extend it further.

Other drugs include the atropine automatic injectors DoD developed to combat chemical weapons pralidoxime chloride, diazepam (also called valium) to combat seizures brought on by nerve agents, and chloroquine anti-malaria tablets.

The products don’t get the full amount of shelf life following testing, Caouette said. The FDA measures the potency of the drugs and assigns another expiration date.

The FDA does all the testing. “They have all the laboratory facilities and they have all the product release specifications because they were the ones who approved the product in the first place,” Caouette said. “The drugs are tested to the same specifications as new medications just coming off the line.”

In fiscal 1997, DoD avoided spending $23 million to replace these drugs. “The testing cost $172,000,” Caouette said. “This means $135 saved for every dollar spent.”

In fiscal 1998, DoD saved $40 million with $260,000 spent on testing for a ratio of about 154 to 1. The fiscal 1999 figures to date indicate $33 million saved on $240,000 spent on testing. “Not all the tests are back from the fiscal 1999 tests, so we expect the 137 to 1 ratio to be even better,” Caouette said.

He stressed the military stores the drugs under optimal conditions. “Either a controlled room temperature warehouse where we monitor conditions. If the drugs have to be refrigerated we have purchased the appropriate refrigeration devices.”

Caouette said service members should not believe drugs in their medicine cabinets that are past expiration dates are safe and effective. “Probably the worst place in the world to store drugs is in your bathroom medicine cabinet,” Caouette said. “The worst possible place you can keep any medications is in a wet, hot environment. It’s the worst area to maintain stability. A cool, dry place is best to store drugs.”

[thedigininja]

Finally got a pretty serious looking water filter with 6 stage filtration and silver pellet purification. Now to try it out and test with the old ppm meter.