What did you do to prep today?

[Cowboy]

Strange you should mention that. Last week I was down under the house changing out the filters on the a/c and I thought that I'd better check the emergency storage box that I keep down there for when we're hiding from tornadoes. Stuck right down at the very bottom of the crate was 1 can of each, both 4 years past their "use by" date.

I don't know whether to eat them, feed them to the dog, toss them in the trash or call in the Federal Emergency Response Clean Up Team to get rid of them.

I hope you have another 4 years to wait for them to show up Frank.

As far as i am concerned that is a "best used by date" and has nothing to do with the safety of eating it. IMO, If the cans still sealed good and not blown out of shape, once opened if it looks good, and dont smell bad i would eat it before feeding it to an animal. But then again i aint near as picky as most folks.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

As far as i am concerned that is a "best used by date" and has nothing to do with the safety of eating it. IMO, If the cans still sealed good and not blown out of shape, once opened if it looks good, and dont smell bad i would eat it before feeding it to an animal. But then again i aint near as picky as most folks.

I'm with ya, Cowhand. I figure if it ain't growin' mold, it's probably fine

 

[luvs]

checked in on my stock of this:

i think i'm good for now. it's the equivalent of ensure plus, 375 calories a can. i've only opened 1 pack, & have ensure in the pantry & in & on the 1 fridge, & other boxes of ^ in a spare room.

 

[Tweeker]

Picked up a spider paint ball rifle.
just need a few hundered rounds of pepperballs and I'm good to go
Tweeker

 

[Garmins_Dad]

All you with wood stoves... Don't forget to own your own brush and the ability to clean your own stove.. A case of matches is always handy also....

 

[bczoom]

Speaking of wood stoves and such. Last night I got another full truckload of scrap lumber from a friend who owns a company that does the finish carpentry on high-end new houses.

It's all solid wood that would be used in making cabinets, moldings, baseboard... Oak, ash, cherry etc.

Will be cutting it up and storing for kindling for the woodstove but mainly for small cooking fires outside. Now that the summer heat has passed, we'll have an outdoor fire several times a week and cook over the flames. This wood is nice for that as it heats quickly, makes a good bed of coals but isn't huge chunks where it burns all night (when I only wanted a 2-hour fire).

 

[Dargo]

On the inverters, I too wouldn't go less then 2000w unless you're just running some lights off it.
My approach (instead of the tractor) is to do pretty much what's in the picture (I grabbed off the internet) below.

I put a deep-cycle marine battery in the box and strap the inverter to the top. It then sits in the house, ready to go. I normally keep it in the same room as the wood stove since if the stove is running and the power goes out, it's a quick grab to get the inverter connected to the stove to run the fans so it doesn't overheat. With the deep-cycle battery, you can run it for a few hours (depending on the load and battery size) without having to re-charge the battery.

Being a packaged up unit, I can grab it and throw it in the truck, ATV, RTV... for portable power wherever I need it.

Kind of the same idea but different. I also topped off and now have around 1500 gallons of diesel. I've also since cleaned the dirty hand prints and grease off the generator and the grass my son splattered on the fence...

 

[EastTexFrank]

Kind of the same idea but different. I also topped off and now have around 1500 gallons of diesel. I've also since cleaned the dirty hand prints and grease off the generator and the grass my son splattered on the fence...

Dargo, that is one of the sweetest set-ups that I've seen. It's way too big for my modest needs though but I'd sure like to see one out back.

 

[squerly]

Wow, that's a real comfort maker for sure. Looks kind of thirsty...

 

[Dargo]

Wow, that's a real comfort maker for sure. Looks kind of thirsty...

Relatively, it's not that bad. It sits on a 110 gallon fuel tank and with a moderate load (not with 4 A/C units totaling 9 tons capacity running), it seems to burn just under a gallon per hour. I'm trying to burn off some of the old diesel that was in it, but with no load, it doesn't seem to drink much in 20 minutes of 'exercise' with zero load.

It's sitting on 4 pieces of 4"X8"X3/4" rubber pads and the concrete is heavily reinforced and 12" thick. I didn't bother with bolting it down. With fuel, it weighs around 6000 pounds. I'm not thinking it will blow away too easily with the house and fence blocking wind out of the west and south. Here's a pic setting it in place. My track loader didn't have the reach I needed and my forklift is for use on concrete only. It was all my mini-excavator (7 ton class) wanted!

 

[Garmins_Dad]

Wow that's a nice machine.. I was proud of my 7500 watt diesel gen set.. Your's is mighty night..

 

[squerly]

Bought (used) ANVIS-6 Gen3 Night Vision. What's left to say? They're AWESOME!

 

[Kane]

After Katrina, one of the biggest threats was looting. Some wards and parishes were absolutely pillaged, with instances of extreme violence. So preppers, seeing this, now take pause and consider arms and ammo.

After Sandy, tho, looting is almost non-existent, even in the most heavily populated part of the country. Maybe stocking arms and ammo is a myth?
.

 

[squerly]

After Katrina, one of the biggest threats was looting. Some wards and parishes were absolutely pillaged, with instances of extreme violence. So preppers, seeing this, now take pause and consider arms and ammo.

After Sandy, tho, looting is almost non-existent, even in the most heavily populated part of the country. Maybe stocking arms and ammo is a myth?
.

I don't know how the quality of the population plays into this but there is a considerable difference between the good folks living in Nawlans and the people living in NY. In New Orleans, proper looting skills are taught in school. Thievery in NY is far more refined.

 

[Kane]

I don't know how the quality of the population plays into this but there is a considerable difference between the good folks living in Nawlans and the people living in NY. In New Orleans, proper looting skills are taught in school. Thievery in NY is far more refined.

Nah, I doubt is demographics has anything to do with it.

 

[muleman]

Last report was 13 people were busted for looting shops in Manhattan. NYPD and Guardsmen take things pretty seriously down there. It is a good idea to stay stocked on ammo as you never know what will happen in these elections.

 

[AAUTOFAB1]

Just finished splitting my second cord, one more and I'm set for the winter. had a sweet spot on the mountain where the forest service had done some thinning but found out they are doing a controlled burn there this weekend so it'll be a week before i can finish my wood pile

people some times make fun of preppers, well i think we will see more story's in the future of how prepping is not such a crazy thing to do after all. my thoughts and prayers go out to all the people affected by the hurricane.

 

[muleman]

I have noticed for the past 6 months that Sam's club is carrying a lot of prepper stuff. More folks than ever are expecting bad times and preparing. This storm just reinforces the need.

 

[EastTexFrank]

I have noticed for the past 6 months that Sam's club is carrying a lot of prepper stuff. More folks than ever are expecting bad times and preparing. This storm just reinforces the need.

I haven't been to Sam's in quite a while. Maybe I need to make a quick trip.

For me, prepping doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the Doomsday scenario but it's more to do with handling the road bumps that life places in our way. I'm not going to disappear into a hole in the ground and live there for a year but I can hole up at the house and get by for a few months.

PS ... picked up some more ammo and freeze dried food last week.

 

[squerly]

After Katrina, one of the biggest threats was looting. Some wards and parishes were absolutely pillaged, with instances of extreme violence. So preppers, seeing this, now take pause and consider arms and ammo.

After Sandy, tho, looting is almost non-existent, even in the most heavily populated part of the country. Maybe stocking arms and ammo is a myth?
.

OK folks, here's what's really happening in Sandy land... My wife has a girlfriend in New Jersey. While she (and her husband) are lucky enough to have power her brother, sisters, and Mother/Dad are all without. They have generators but there is little fuel to be had. Her brother stood in line for 4 hours today to buy $20.00 worth of gas (the max they will let you buy). Looting and burglaries are common place and there is a "be off the streets when it gets dark" curfew.

On a positive note these people are "prepper conscious" and have more than enough food, water and medical supplies to last them until order is restored. They are short on fuel, but given they have power it's not as big a deal for them as it is for many others.

 

[squerly]

Bought (used) ANVIS-6 Gen3 Night Vision. What's left to say? They're AWESOME!

Here are a few pictures I took at 3:00am when the dogs decided they wanted to go outside. Picture 1 is looking across the field (from my deck) to the open eye. Picture 2,3 and 4 are taken from the same location but with me holding the ANVIS up to the camera.

The animals in picture 3 are my 2 GSD's, 1 is sniffing around and the blurry one is running toward the deck. You really can't appriciate how awesome these things are until you stand in the darkness and see nothing vs looking through the ANVIS and suddenly see everything!

 

[luvs]

wow, squerly- prime pix!

 

[muleman]

I would love to have one of those. Always critters of some sort running around at night up here. Tough to get the light on them and hold the binocs at the same time.

 

[muleman]

A quick look at what is going on in NYC and Jersey is a good reminder to stay prepped. Those folks don't even have enough food or fuel to make it for a few days. That would scare me to be that unprepared. I added another item to the stash that will last 1,000 years and still be good. Honey from our hives made 5 gallons+ some gift jars.

 

[EastTexFrank]

A quick look at what is going on in NYC and Jersey is a good reminder to stay prepped. Those folks don't even have enough food or fuel to make it for a few days. That would scare me to be that unprepared. I added another item to the stash that will last 1,000 years and still be good. Honey from our hives made 5 gallons+ some gift jars.

I came back from Colorado with 5 jars of honey. I hadn't eaten any honey in about 150 years (that's a long time). I couldn't believe how good it tasted. I've got 4 jars stuck away in the cupboard that I'll hang on to for emergencies.

Like you, I couldn't believe how unprepared some of those people were, then it dawned on me. Most of us live out in the sticks and we have room and space to store things like fuel%2

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Finally grew our water supplies in preparation for Sandy. Didn't need any of it, but we needed more in the rotation anyway. Right now the trunk of the Taurus is temporary water storage for what I can't get in the kitchen.

 

[tiredretired]

I bought another generator prior to Sandy as a backup. Yesterday I placed the order for the stainless steel Kelly Kettle. Invaluable for boiling water quick and easy.

I need to find a nice battery charging solar setup to keep batteries up to snuff for the pellet stove without running the genset for it.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Yesterday I placed the order for the stainless steel Kelly Kettle. Invaluable for boiling water quick and easy.

I need to find a nice battery charging solar setup to keep batteries up to snuff for the pellet stove without running the genset for it.

I wasn't familiar with the Kelly Kettle and had to Google it. That is an interesting piece of gear. I was all prepared to pick up a Biolite Stove before this winter but now I'm in a quandry .... which one will suit my needs best?

Thanks for the info.

 

[BigAl]

I took a shower

 

[Leni]

Since I live in earthquake country I always try to be prepared. My big problem as someone already pointed out is room for everything. I do have a lot of canned food and charcoal so that I can cook. When the Northridge earthquake happened I had enough food and water plus meds to keep us going. We did not have a looting problem in my part of the Valley. DH had an FFL license for 20 years so we have plently of amo and weapons. I finally convinced him to buy a generator. He'd be talking about buying one for years but never did it. Had to kick his ass with my pointed toe shoe.