Ok, well, the title of the article may be a lie. I claim no ownership of these ideas, as many are just regurgitated common sense. It’s not so much a philosophy as it is a way of framing the prepping that I do. Anyway, take all this with a grain of salt.
I was inspired to talk prepping after reading a couple of Animal’s great articles on Armageddon prepping. None of this is meant as a shot at Animal or his articles. They’re awesome, and got me thinking about complementary topics which started off as a post In a forum that people encouraged me to turn into an article.
All that said, I don’t love the term “prepper” but I embrace it. Maybe I am even trying to reclaim it from the people obsessed with zombies and nuclear holocaust. I spent long enough in the boy scouts to have “be prepared” echoing in the back of my head on a regular basis. To the extent that prepping is the act of being prepared for what life may throw at you, I’m a prepper.
The single worst thing you can do when preparing for the future is get tunnel vision. You can get tunnel vision as to the type of events you’re preparing for. You can get tunnel vision as to the types of preparations you do.
To me, preparation is a lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. I may not be fully self-sufficient, but I do things every day that reduce how much we HAVE to rely on others if push comes to shove.
Many preppers I’ve encountered remind me of the chicken legged weightlifter at the gym. Impressive chest press, but probably could’ve used a leg day every once in a while.
Prepping for the small events in life is the leg day of prepping. It’s not sexy. It’s not something you brag on survival forums about. It’s something you do because you’re an idiot to skip it. How many people have MREs stacked floor to ceiling, but would be put out by a flat tire? How many have gas masks, but would be screwed if their fridge gave up the ghost?
Principle 1 of practical prepping is to tackle the low hanging fruit. Tackle the cheap/easy solutions to higher likelihood problems first. The mundane issues that are a crisis to you, but don’t result in the Red Cross bus parking in front of your house. These are the squats of prepping. Not pretty, not fun, but damn important.
I always look at a prepping issue using a three axis analysis. How likely is the issue? How much damage will the issue cause? How much will it cost to insure against the issue? A highly likely issue that will cause large damage and is cheap to fix is the easiest low hanging fruit to go after.
Let’s take, for example, a water main break. Now you don’t have water pressure for 48 – 72 hours. What are you going to drink? Well, for $15, you could buy a few packs of bottled water, stick them in a corner of your garage, and never have to worry about that issue again.
How about a financial emergency? How are you going to pay for a window that gets broken when your lawn mower kicks up a rock? Do you have an emergency fund? Do you have a plan to pay off little emergencies that get charged to the credit card?
Too many people start getting tunnel vision and miss the broader point of prepping. Prepping isn’t synonymous with stockpiling, and certainly not with doomsday stockpiling. Sure, a doomsday stockpile may end up being a part of a holistic prepping plan, but it’s certainly not mandatory. Prepping is about finding and executing a plan to insure against issues that could thrust your family into trying times. Often, you can’t stockpile your way out of a crisis.
Principle 2 is to layer your protection. As an example, job loss is a major catastrophe for most families. If you only have one layer to your protection (some money set aside in an emergency fund), you may be in a tight spot if emergencies compound or if the job loss takes longer to recover from than expected. Here, you can layer not only multiple protections of the same type (e.g. Emergency fund + Vacation fund + Roth IRA + 401k + Gold & Silver + Kids’ 529s), but you can layer different types of protection (e.g. E-fund + tradable skills + stockpiled essentials + community support). This is really where the full vibrancy of prepping shows itself. There is not a single solution to a problem, so you hedge your bets by putting some effort into each of the viable solutions.
Principle 3 is to diversify. Diversification isn’t just for stocks. It’s about breaking through that tunnel vision and imagining how things could go wrong or even go right. Sure, own some gold and silver to hedge against inflation, but also own some mutual funds to protect against the scenario where inflation isn’t as bad as you expect. Sure, stockpile some things, but also learn some skills that you can make money doing in a world where your day job is no longer there. Specialization is for insects, diversification is for preppers.
Principle 4 is to grow your capital. I don’t 100% agree with everything the authors laid out when describing the 8 forms of capital, and, frankly, I find some of it a bit too New Agey, but it’s a valuable reminder that your economic value isn’t just in cash and physical goods. Broad stroking it, improve yourself (skills, knowledge, experience) , improve your tangible tools (money, physical tools, livestock), improve your relationship with the world (social relationships, spiritual relationships, community) , and you’re in a much more resilient position to weather adversity than if you let your capital wither. A person with strong broad-based capital could start from having no tangible tools (broke, with only the shirt on their back) and do better in a crisis than somebody with no skills and no community, but happens to have stockpiles.
Principle 5 is to expand your preparations in layers. As you build interleaved protection for the mundane crises of life, you will have the opportunity to expand your preparations to cover less likely and/or more costly issues. It’s, again, easy to get tunnel vision and spend an outsized portion of your time, money, and energy getting ready for one specific scenario. Instead, do a little bit here or there. Spend some money on ammo earmarked for when society crumbles. Spend some on a high quality first aid/trauma kit for when the Yellowstone supervolcano blows. Add some water to your stockpile. Go take a class on seed saving for your garden. This is really the same lesson as diversification, but writ large. It’s not enough to prepare for the most front-of-mind issue in a number of different ways. You need to make steps toward preparing for any number of different issues that may occur. The scattershot approach is more likely to bear fruit than targeted doomsday prep. Sure, protect against roving hordes of amoral scavengers, but also protect against a run of the mill home invasion.
All said and done, I hate that prepping has such a negative reputation. Prepping should be a bare minimum activity for all adults. It’s simply the act of being prepare for possible future issues, and is part and parcel of having personal responsibility. Taking responsibility for your present is character. Taking responsibility for your future is prepping.
It’s simply the act of being prepare for possible future issues, and is part and parcel of having personal responsibility. Taking responsibility for your present is character. Taking responsibility for your future is prepping.
I want to make a snarky comment about how Progressives think personal responsibility is a sign of a privilege, but I can’t make one that works.
Nice write-up.
One of those things that’s a little too true to be funny…
Like a taking fully stocked lunchbox to work every
daynight, even though I only get hungry at work once a week at most?Brown-bagging it is also a hell of a lot cheaper than buying takeout or from the vending machines.
Tell us more about your lunch box.
Is it boring or something more fun.
I like this idea. We live just outside city limits so we’re kind of in the country. We have had a few emergencies and we’re trying to learn from them. A few weeks ago our power went out for about 6 hours. We do have flashlights and batteries and candles, but our well pump was out so we only had a few toilet flushes. I have since bought a few gallons of distilled water from the grocery store. I do need to buy a generator while we’re not in the middle of an emergency.
Long term, we do have some useful assets. We have space, knowledge, and seeds for a garden. We have food that we canned, and we have the equipment, supplies, and skills to can more things. We also have the skills and equipment to make alcohol.
One advantage in my neck of the woods is that natural gas is ubiquitous in houses. So even if the power goes out, as long as you have matches/lighter/something to make a controlled spark you can still cook. The house will still get damned cold though in winter.
I’ve got gas for my furnace and water heater, but the stove isn’t (not sure why, could’ve been remodeled after being built). That’s one of the few major things I’d like to update in this place.
I’ve got gas for the furnace, but I’m not so sure the system that controls and ignites it isn’t dependent on electrical mains.
It’s most likely dependent on the electricity for things like the fan to blow the air through the house.
Good points. Though I suppose a backup generator could handle that far better than A/C in a SE Texas summer. *Makes note to price backup generators again soon*.
I’ve got gas for the furnace, but I’m not so sure the system that controls and ignites it isn’t dependent on electrical mains.
One time we lost power back in the Lower Rainland™ after a particularly nasty wintertime Pacific storm, I looked at the UPS attached to my PC and thought “Y’know . . . “ Fifteen minutes later it was hooked up to the HE furnace, and managed to power it through several heating cycles.
And I now have some FORKIN’ ENORMOUS UPS units from an office closure I was at a couple of years ago (meant for powering banks of rack-mount servers — still have to replace the batteries in ’em), which could certainly do the same thing for us in our present home. The furnace (HE) and hot water heater are NatGas, but the stove’s electric (which I prefer). So I have a Coleman stove and fuel out in the garage, should the need arise . . .
Our house is heated by a wood stove and an oil stove, the latter of which is electrical-dependent. The kitchen cook-stove runs on propane from a tank just outside, and we can light with a match if need be.
The house is wired to accept a backup generator, which is something we’ll be looking into.
This isn’t necessarily “prepping” in the word that it’s commonly used. The weather alone from November to May is more than capable of disrupting things.
Yeah, here on the Gulf Coast, a generator isn’t needed often, but when it is, it can sure be handy – hurricanes have a nasty habit of knocking out power.
Our power grid (here in S.W. Ohio) has been a bit crappy these past few years; there are more outages than I can ever remember. I thought about a generator also, but I dunno… The power is never out for more than few hours, so the fridge isn’t a concern. I think the more economical way for me to prep for power loss would be to get a Sterno stove, tons of candles, and a hand-crank phone charger.
Us too. All our gas lines seem to be well protected, so as long as we have a lighter we can cook. I even found that heating up water on the stove is almost as fast as using a microwave. And heating up food that way makes it heat more evenly. Who knew. (Besides all the people who never had a microwave).
/tries to figure out how to fit seven gallons of water into the microwave
Natural gas cooktop is one non-negotiable thing I have when looking for a house. For heating water though, electric kettles beat both microwave and stove.
Yup, we got a cheapo electric kettle from Aldi and it boils in half the time as the tea kettle on the stove.
What I’m hearing is that I should buy a second car.
One that runs on a gasifier!
For those that don’t know…
Neat.
Older, but reliable and able to do mild off-roading. Part of my own long term plan should I need to escape to my family that lives in the mountains.
Better name for a sloth character in a children’s cartoon: Steve Sloth, Simon Sloth or Sammy Sloth? (gotta have that alliteration)
Sammy.
Sammy
I like Simon
Me too. More ponderous than Sammy.
sammy. Steve sloth sounds horrifying.
Steve Sloth love you for slooooooow time!
I only considered that one because that was my Dad’s name (Steve) and thought it could be a way to pass on some form of memory, but it does kind of suck, and STEVE SMITH has kind of tainted the name…
Don’t let us taint something like that for you, especially if it’s going to be a mentor/guiding character.
I’m making it for my niece, her brother is already named after my dad, having Steve mention Stevie might get a bit confusing to a young kid, another thing I thought about besides the name not being that good.
I have decided, his voice will be based on USA hat, slowed down and not so evil.
Sloth Smith.
Smart businesses (and even dumb ones forced into it) develop comprehensive disaster recovery/business continuity plans. My employer has done it as part of our Risk Management program. Within that, our Vendor Management program includes confirming that our critical vendors also have such plans. Just apply the same principles to yourself or your family.
Food for thought, thanks Trashy!
If you have a family, or anyone who relies on your income, and you’re not going to do anything else to “prep” at least have a good term life insurance policy in place.
Cheap and important. Good one, CPA.
Good advice, all of it. Seems like folks bend a lot of brain cells worrying about major crises and fail to foresee smaller ones.
Check your filters! Its a bad time to replace a ruined furnace,
/prepping 101
Great stuff, Trashy!
I’d add GlibFit to the mix. Being strong can pay dividends during disruptions.
Oh, and I’m not sure if this was inked this morning, but it’s a pretty good argument to pay attention to your water:
https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinellas/2021/02/08/someone-tried-to-poison-oldsmars-water-supply-during-hack-sheriff-says/
I am strong like bull! Good stock for breeding with certain daughters…But my joints suck…having arthritic joints that don’t work in your late 30s is a bummer…
Lol. I saw you making a pitch to his Holiness, too!
You are definitely tenacious, I’ll give you that!
I have a character, and I play all my characters to their full potential. I took acting classes damnit! Now shut up and pay my student loans!
So… another excuse to get more bicycles? Got it!
Why is the computer for the water treatment facility remotely accessible
in the first place?
So someone could add IoT to their resume?
Could do that without putting the water treatment computer
on the internet. Most of the resumes I see are either complete
bullshit or I have a gross misunderstanding of what “expert”
means. No, suggesting we add an index doesn’t make you
a database optimization expert. Furrfu.
I like the “expertise takes 10,000 hours of practice/experience” thing (from Malcolm Gladwell, maybe?)
That’s 5 years of a normal 9-5 job, which should about right in order to get to “expert”.
Typically it’s because the plant workers want to go online during their shift and the management doesn’t want to shell out for a separate browsing computer, so they hook the workers’ machines to the outside, and those same machines have to manage the plant, so the plant is connected to the internet.
It reminds me of the gun guys who spend hours researching concealed carry strategies and practicing Mozambique drills so they don’t get killed by a mugger, but they eat like shit and never exercise and are probably due for a heart attack next week.
Come on gun people, hit the gym now and then. I’m the biggest gun rights advocate there is, but you’re far more likely to die from obesity and artery disease than muggers and tyrannical government.
This is a terrific interview with Dan John. He gives some physical benchmarks for every dude.
Seriously, people, if you can’t do what he recommends, get after it. As it turns out, your most dangerous enemy is the fucking floor!
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/physical-benchmarks-for-men/
The main problem I see with stockpiling is that stockpiles
can be taken away, and people don’t like hoarders. If you’re
the only one all fat and healthy while everyone around you
is starving, people are going to notice, then demand you
give up your stores, and if you don’t, you’d better hope
you have enough firepower to be the local authority.
Not that stockpiling is bad, as such, but I always think
what would have happened during, say, the siege
of Leningrad to someone how had been found holding
out food.
I think it’s better to think of your stockpile not as being
able to sit in your compound blissfully ignoring the
collapse around you but rather as a supply of money
when the fiat money isn’t worth anything and you
can’t do anything practical with gold.
This is where community comes in. If you’re alone on your compound with your family, you will eventually be hunted and killed for your things. If you have a community and prepare for the survival of the community (e.g. stockpile includes enough to trade/give), then your likelihood of surviving in a societal collapse is much higher.
But they were all already commies, only 50% of your neighbors are, it’s like a game, something to keep you occupied…
Everyone’s a communist about other people’s food
when their kids are starving.
Ha! ‘Their kids’? Shitty commies. Comrade Stalin will deal with them…
1) Live out in the countryside
2) Stockpile weapons and ammo
3) Plant thorn bushes completely around the property line
I have completed steps 1 and 2. Am currently investigating step 3.
I want to build a canal to make my peninsula an island, just have to
conquerbuy out my two neighbors.Don’t forget the apple fences!
Thanks, Trashy.
Mr. Mojeaux’s department was eliminated last week. It was a tense moment when we found out, but the terms for separation are more than generous, so we don’t have to worry for a while. Too, he is interviewing for a post in the same company tomorrow. There will be positions available and the company is giving everyone ample time to find one. If they don’t, the severance is phenomenal.
But here is where my prepping thing goes to pot. We have cash, we have food, we have water, we have candles and light sources (not heat, tho). At the risk of TMI, the problem is health insurance. We don’t take it for granted, but we did not realize how much we use it for mental health. Almost all of it, as a matter of fact. Three people in this house have serious issues and the three of us are on a raft of medications and in intensive therapy. We could never afford that on our own. So…what happens when three of us are damn near suicidal after a while being off the meds? In fact, XX is struggling right now with how to pay for this once she’s out on her own because whatever health insurance she can get at whatever job may not be as comprehensive and good as what we have. The possibility of losing that scares us to death. That said, I doubt any of us will be seeing any shrinks or therapists when SHTF and TEOTWAWKI happens. I know how to cope with it without meds. My kids don’t.
Dammit.
I intended to reply to Kinnath: barberry hedgerows. They can grow very tall.
Do they also raid mediterranian shipping?
Oh, wait, that’s Barbary Hedgerows.
I have a heroine who raids Mediterranean shipping…
Triple strand concertina wire would work in a pinch.
I’m perfectly willing to help out my neighbors in a crisis, to the extent that I’m not setting myself on fire. But if that’s not tenable, like I said before, part of a crisis plan is having the ability to stay mobile, without ending up a refugee or a charity case…
to the extent that I’m not setting myself on fire.
Yup. Charity is from the excess. No excess, no charity.
That said, my plan is to overplant, overcan, overstockpile, over-everything both as a hedge against tepid productivity and as an opportunity to put together charitable surplus.
Though we rarely have power outages we will fill a bathtub with water for toilet flushing when a violent summer storm occurs. I also keep trying to push back on the calendar but it seems that the calendar is winning. A spoonful of honey every day can only do so much.
I have a shower full of water, but only because the -F temps froze the trap. Toilet still works. Hobo showers it is for the next week or however long this Global Warming lasts…
Uffda. Anyone seen CPRM lately? I hope he isn’t having troubles telling the difference between his cartoons and real life in Wisconsin.
Personally, I’m disappointed that the dude just sat there. A manly Man would have floored it.
Metro Milwaukee isn’t Wisconsin, it’s upper Illinois.
Mebbe. But unless the truck was manly too, it probably had multiple hardware/systems failures. Flooring it would’ve been . . . anti-climactic.
Dukes of Hazzard wouldn’t have been slowed down a bit. Are you saying a Packer Backer isn’t as good as the Duke boys?
AI Voice] Homer tells the legend of Darth Plagueis the Wise
That greatly improves the scene.
That’s serious, not sarcasm.
this was auto linked and it’s amazing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqdnfjNBBB8
All said and done, I hate that prepping has such a negative reputation. Prepping should be a bare minimum activity for all adults. It’s simply the act of being prepare for possible future issues, and is part and parcel of having personal responsibility. Taking responsibility for your present is character. Taking responsibility for your future is prepping.
Great article Trsh. It’s amazing how quickly the notion of being prepared has been turned into this negative sense of paranoia.
Back in the early days of Corona when there were runs on grocery stores and a lot of uncertainty about what the situation would be like in the near future, I overheard a guy at work saying “I’m glad I’ve got some ‘good ol’ boys’ in my family who own a bunch of guns… I’d never own one, but I’m glad they do”.
So gun ownership is silly until it looks like things might get ugly, then it’s a blessing all of a sudden.
That mindset pisses me off beyond belief.
Even with ammo as expensive as it is, I’ll teach basic gunhandling and marksmanship to anyone who wants to know, gratis.
But if you expect to fort up at my house and have me defend you? As we said back in the 70’s: Gas, grass, or ass, buddy.
Alternatively Steer, Beer, or Rear.
Flatulence, Lawn Mowing or Pack Animals?
That’s really the crux of it, guns or otherwise. Being prepared is silly when food comes from the grocery store, electricity comes from the outlet, and security comes from 911. When the thin veneer of safety, security, and convenience begins to wear off, people start to get glimpses of just how exposed they are and it scares them. Of course, they don’t even have the neural pathways required to think their way out of the bogeyman they just stumbled across, so they agitate for another layer of veneer to be applied.
Stated before probably, I think you “prepare” for things that are likely. For me that mostly means some sort of storm damage and maybe up to a week (but probably just a few days) without power. Oil lamps, heater, extra storable food, water, solar charger, radio, ham radio, batteries, matches, some means of having heat for cooking (grill/camping stove), etc. Of course you should always have bear arms for defensive purposes. I have been considering getting a generator so as to not lose food that has to be chilled/frozen but I keep coming back to “I’ll probably never use it”. Then again it was nice that my dad had one when we had hurricane Isabel came through when I was a kid.
Just called called in to work a a 12hr shift in…less than 5 hrs. I’m drunk and just now eating something for the first time in 24hrs other than that one granola bar I had last night. This why I get paid the Big Bucks, less than a #LivingWage! as decided by people who don’t live anywhere near me. #CapitlalismKills!
[AI Voice] Joe Biden Ties an Onion to his Belt
goddammit this is what I get for not scrolling down.
That cackle…
Kamala Harris joked about killing Trump, Pence and Sessions with Ellen in 2018.
Can we impeach her?
The cackle is irritating. I’m not to worried about the “death threat” though.
I’m sure Ted Cruz wouldn’t be pilloried if he made a similar joke about being stuck on an elevator with Maxine Waters, AOC and Pelosi.
Lessons from the 2020 Derecho in eastern Iowa.
The whole city lost power for a week. It took 3+ weeks for some neighborhoods to be restored.
Some of the bigger food stores (HyVee) brought in refrigerated trucks to stock perishables. All transactions were cash only. No electricity, no internet, no cell service. No ATMs functioning in a roughly 30 square mile area.
Gasoline within 60 mile radius disappeared within days. Towns relatively unaffected by the Derecho still suffered shortages of most basic goods as people drove farther and farther away to get gasoline, food, and ice.
What are we doing:
I am a brewer. I have 8 or 10 5-gallon plastic water bottles that I take to get filled a the local grocery store (our well water sucks for brewing). I keep three or four full at all times. The well doesn’t work without electricity. So we need lots of water for an extended power outage.
We have three vehicles. We keep at least a third of tank in each one (enough to drive at least 100 miles to find a gas station that is functioning).
We have enough rice, beans, canned veggies, and canned chicken to survive at least a week without the fridge.
We have a lot of camping gear (at least 6 coolers) and enough batteries to run a CPAP for a week.
And I now have a thousand bucks in cash in one of the gun safes.
It’s a start.
Ditto here – we are also looking at a whole-house generator and increased our outdoor alternate cooking options.
I am so tired of this non-sense:
Statement by Katharine Ferguson, USDA Chief of Staff, on the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2021 — “We are pleased to see the introduction of the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act yesterday in the Senate, a bill that will bring much-needed economic assistance during the pandemic and begin to advance equity for farmers of color. The bill is the culmination of hard work and collaboration among members of the Senate and House and new leadership at USDA who share a common purpose to end inequity in our food and agricultural systems. It’s a bill crafted to address the immediate need for debt relief among those who have been marginalized and are hurting while also advancing long-term issues such as Heirs’ Property, tackling the root causes of discrimination via an Equity Commission, and investing in building back a new generation of farmers of color. We are grateful for the leadership shown by Senators Booker, Warnock, Luján and Chairwoman Stabenow, as well as House Committee Chairmen Scott and Bishop who we expect to release a similar proposal today. We look forward to continuing to work with Congress to strengthen the American Rescue Plan so that it brings relief to those most in need.”
Lawsuit on equal protection grounds?
Most actual, literal white nationalists believe that the US government is biased against them.
It looks like they’re doing everything they can to confirm and surpass those claims.
I came to that conclusion back in high school when I was trying to find a way to pay for college and all of the programs were for people who did not share my intrinsic characteristics.
Shelby Steele wrote something about how affirmative action programs scholarships only help the middle and upper class black students…who would have gotten into college anyway without AA. It’s a useless program to show that something is being done without actually solving the issues of inequalities in education.
According to studies by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor it actually hurts the students involved.
They Wrote a book on it that I recommend.
It was cheaper when I bought it.
I’m gonna wait ’til it comes out in Classic Comics. Or a used book store of my choice.
LBJ needs a Greater Society, first one didn’t work as intended.
While adding to it the stigma of AA hires/advancements.
Before AA, everyone knew the black guys or the women in a group knew their shit, just like everyone else in the room.
Now?
Sounds racist.
Ok, just bought my AR-AK upper kit and about to order the tools and some other accessories (thank you tax refund, etc). Using some of Vhyrus’ old articles for links and references on a few other things I need to pick up at the same time including armor, etc.
Need to pick up some mags and a few other items too. Any tips on looking for AR AK magazines? – I thought the Magpul ones were compatible, but now it looks like they might only be for actual AK clones.
Standard AR lower?
I’m using C Products and ASC. Both seem to work just fine.
Yeah, right after I posted, I found the ASC 20rd mag on palmetto state.
Gunmagwarehouse.com has the 30 rounders in stock.
Wonder how The AOC Show is going?
I’m sure the crocodile tears are flowing heavy at all of the “lived experience”, with little discussion of anything resembling evidence or fact.
Some basic considerations
Food in 3 stages
1) Start by picking up extra canned goods in your regular grocery store run. Instead of buying a new jar of peanut butter when the current runs out, just keep an extra in rotation. That’ll extend your food supply by a week or two. Same with household goods (tp, paper towels, toothpaste)
2)Extend your stockpile to several of each item, still keeping rotation. All things you eat normally. We have a couple months food supply of things like canned tuna, canned chicken, peanut butter, canned whole tomatoes, spices, etc. Same with household goods.
3)It’s ridiculously cheap and easy to bulk store rice and beans in 5 gallon buckets. We have a 3 month supply of rice and beans for the entire family. I’m working now on doubling that to 6 months. Place mylar bag ($3 bucks) in 5 gallon bucket ($5 bucks). Fill with 30 lbs rice or pinto beans ($10 bucks). Toss in an 02 absorber and desiccant. Will keep 30 years.
Water
-For short term, we have about 10 cases of bottled water that get cycled through regularly. Also consider lifestraws and jugs of bleach. Our longterm supply is a stream-fed pond if needed.
Generator
-You can set up your own whole-house equivalent generator for less than $1k. I installed an outlet directly to the breaker box. An 8k watt dual fuel generator from Costco ran us about $600. If we lose power, I just wheel the generator out, plug it into the outlet, and power the entire house. No extension cords or anything except from one cord from the generator to the house. You need to install a lockout (forgot the exact name) on your box if doing this though so you don’t accidently power the lines.
-If you have natural gas, install a hookup and power your generator indefinitely without needing to store fuel. Otherwise, make sure the generator can take propane. Forgot about gasoline. It’s difficult and dangerous to store large amounts of gasoline. Propane is easy to store. Also, when a natural disaster hits… good luck finding any gas. It was out in NJ for weeks following Superstorm Sandy. Propane was easily found everywhere.
–
Great info on the generator setup. Do you have links on the how-to side of it? I’m sure I’m capable of doing the outlet/lockout install, but I don’t know enough detail to do it offhand, and my google-fu is suspect these days.
I remember now, it’s called an interlock kit. Here’s a link to the one I used:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Eaton-8-in-Generator-Interlock-Kit/50355814
I don’t have how-to links but I’ve thinking about putting an article together on it with details. Basically you install a generator outlet on the side of your house and run it to the top left spot in your panel. Replace whatever you have there with a double pole breaker… I think I used 50 amp but need to check. The interlock kit is installed there. It basically prevents you from having that circuit and the power line active at the same time. It’s the legal and much safer way of the redneck method where people would power their panel through a suicide cord (dryer cord with two male plugs) plugged into the dryer outlet.
Nvm, I think it was 30 amp breaker. Size appropriately for your outlet and wire.
The lockout/grid-isolation switch is normally installed between the mains and the electrical panel, but in fact you don’t need a lockout switch at all — you can also put the outlet on the panel itself, after the main breaker. When the power goes out, go downstairs (or wherever your panel is) and flip the main breaker off. Congratulations, you’re now isolated from the grid. Connect up your generator to your pre-installed outlet and have at ‘er. NOTE: this is definitely not to any electrical code I’m aware of, but it works. When we had a new panel installed in our house back in Calgary and the guys had to go home for the night before finishing up the next day, a slight variation on this was what the Master Electrician in the crew rigged up for our overnight convenience. Not code-comliant, but not intrinsically dangerous, either. Just keep kids, pets and/or the village idiot away from the rigging.
The downside of this is that, should something go wrong with your branch circuits while the generator’s pumping power directly to the bus bars in your panel, you only have the branch circuit breakers to prevent turning your circuits into unintentional heating wires. It’s not as big a deal as you might think, though — most generators capable of (say) 10kVA have their own master breakers built-in.
Yep, this is what I’m talking about. You don’t technically need an switch, but adding one makes it idiot-proof and to electrical code. A transfer switch between the main and panel is a lot more expensive and unnecessary unless if you are bringing in offgrid solar power.
You don’t technically need an interlock
switchOh yeah, I should mention: if you don’t have a method of locking out your panel from the municipal mains supply, if you try and fire up your generator, you’ll feed power into the mains supply. This can be dangerous for yourself and others, but sometimes all that happens is that the high impedance of the potentially hundreds of kilometres of line (not to mention any transformers in the path) you just energized will soak up all that power and you’ll get a distinct lack of action on your local branch circuits. Interlocks or main breakers prevent death or disfigurement, but they also prevent disappointment and head-scratching.
What you *really* don’t want to do is hook up your generator and forget to open the main breaker, and then have an innocent maintenance crew get zapped while they’re working on lines near you. Usually they’ll ground the wires before working, and that’ll run your generator straight to ground too, but if their ground is bad, you can hurt someone.
Secondly, you also *really* don’t want to close the main breaker while your generator is running. If the grid has power, you will connect your system out-of-phase to the grid, and that will immediately cause major damage to your generator and probably other things on your branch circuits.
Yep. Interlocks aren’t quite “goof-proof,” but they’re close. The route I described can get much more exciting, very quickly, if you’re not conscientious.
I have a bunch of brown rice and red lentils – very cheap, healthy, and keep well if stored as you describe. You can get some packs of curry powder if you want them to taste better.
Good additions too. I’ve heard the lipid layer in brown rice reduces the shelf life to 10 years but no idea if that’s true.
Yup, it’s true.
Random thought:
Someone was commenting about “reverse sear” giving them a mental picture of a piece of meat only cooked on the inside.
Steel skewers+induction cooktop would achieve that, wouldn’t it?
I was the one who made that remark.
What’s the range of the induction effect? I’d think we’d want something like glass pan to keep the stovetop clean if trying such an experiment.
Aluminum foil?
Steel skewers and a DC battery charger or DC welding power supply. I used to use a Al nail across the mains to cook a hotdogs back in the day. Cooks from the inside out.
Chess.com update: I had said I was stuck about 950 ELO. Early on, when the ratings still moved in large jumps, I got as high as 999, before settling in around 950. I have been on a run recently, and how now broken 1000 for the first time, am currently at 1003. In the same game, the average rating of the people I have beat passed 900. I have also won 6 matches in a row for the first time ever, I did 5 once early on, which got me to 999. I have done 4 a number of times since. Also have lost 4 in a row a number of times.
Nice! I’ve not been playing much lately, but I was competitive in the 800-850 range when I played more frequently.
Calling all mediocre males…
*opera applause*
Awesome.
That’s hilarious!
Yep. So much for women’s sports.
Well damn, Noem is a buzzkill.
Stupid (Party) Uber Alles
She’s pretty shitty about drugs, but, until the Lil Rona idiocy is over, I will overlook her drug stance.
It’s the incongruity of her realizing that we can make an informed decision on our own behavior with respect to COVID, but not on recreational substances.
This.
She believes the people in her state can navigate society amongst a reasonably bad bug, but that they totally incapable of navigating smoking weed in the basement trying to keep warm in SD in February.
I get it.
I’ve turned into a bit of a single-issue person right now. Lockdowns trump everything else. I voted for Karen Testerman in the Republican primary in NH despite her views on the Drug War because of her anti-lockdown stance. Nobody both opposed the lockdowns and the Drug War, but I couldn’t see any NH Republican (the real target voter for the primary) voting for him.
Possibly one could use her lockdown stance to convince her she is wrong on drugs. A long, long time ago I was perfectly fine with the Drug War but was against gun control. A long discussion where someone drew parallels between the Drug War and gun grabbing changed my mind and sent even further down the libertarian rabbit hole.
Not when she actively sabotaged the people’s vote.
If we can be upset about “election fortifying”, we can be upset about just throwing a vote away, while making the taxpayers of her state pay for the privilege of having their vote nullified.
Agree with this. Example 1 gajillion and 27 why every pol is a fucking criminal, working to further a criminal enetrprise.
Well nobody’s perfect but that’s a particularly shitty thing to do.
It’s bullshit like this that makes me believe Team Red is as awful on liberty as Team Blue, and what keeps me from voting at all. Because while being able to smoke weed is little consolation (and frankly necessary) to watching men dominate women’s sports under the guise of equality, not having to bake a cake against my will is little consolation when I can be arrested for minding my own fucking business in my own goddamn basement.
The error, I think, is assuming that this is even fixable by voting. The problem isn’t team red or team blue, it’s your stupid fucking friends and neighbors who are perfectly fine with the parts of government that they like and hand wave away the rest.
They definitely all suck for different specific reasons and I don’t blame people at all for not voting.
One item that I recommend for any small engines that are rarely used is to periodically run them at least once a season. Use a stabilizer and or have a can of synthetic fuel to be used on the first start.
I also strongly recommend a product called “Mechanic in a Bottle”. This stuff is really like magic for lawn mowers, generators, snow blowers, and motorcycles. I started my snow blower this morning and it began running and idling really rough. I added 2 oz of the stuff and it smoothed out the idle and regained full power in less than a minute.
https://b3cfuel.com/product/mechanic-in-a-bottle/
“Tampa Mayor To Hunt Down Maskless Super Bowl Attendees“
https://reason.com/2021/02/09/tampa-mayor-jane-castor-masks-super-bowl-police-law-enforcement/
*comments, erases, comments, erases again* Here y’all go anyway.
Didn’t the FL Governor ban the mask mandates imposed by local authorities?
I think his orders put a stop to issuing fines or other penalties. The mandates are still in place but have no penalties.
Right. Now I recall it.
“For his part, DeSantis has allowed local governments to enact mask mandates as they see fit but has blocked them from collecting fines. Castor’s comments Monday would imply that she plans to eschew that; her executive order allows for $500 civil penalties and misdemeanor criminal prosecution.”
So…sorta.
Castor’s comments Monday would imply that she plans to eschew that;
Yeah, good luck with that. The state-city dynamic is a superior-inferior dynamic. DeSantis could override her quite easily.
They’re all alike.
Mayor pulls a Fauci.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/02/09/tampa-mayor-on-maskless-crowds-n2584427
These fucking people, I swear, and multiple times too.
Food, water, heat.
I keep a lot of canned food, dried carbs, firewood and I have a hot tub with 600 gallons of water. I have two 0.01 micron water filters.
Also, ammo.
No booze or does that count as food?
Food and first aid.
Yep, Everclear FTW.
I was thinking about my cutting torch and welder yesterday. I don’t use the torch much but without power I would use it a lot more. I can run a generator to power the welder but I can not get replacement CO2 bottles or O2 and Acetylene for my torch of the world falls apart. A couple of spare bottles of each would keep me in buisness fixing things for the neighbors and their farms. Combination of skill and supplys.