"Preppers"? are you one?

For those of us that would rather have something and not need it, rather than need something and not have it… Given recent events, what items/more of particular items are you adding to your stock? Potassium Iodide? Gas masks? Depending on where you’re getting your information, you may/may not know certain gubments around the world are in a frenzy right now buying up large quantities of specific items. Ominous times we’re in…

 

Before I buy up lotsa pills, I think an underground shelter (built in a basement is doable) would be a priority. If we have to be out of the elements for 2 weeks minimum, that would be first concern. Then, stocked with food, water, poop buckets, air filtration.

Longer term would be kinda ugly.....seeds, various equipment, food for a year or more....
Its been a while since Ive thought of any of that.

Sca

 

Check in with Ice Age Farmer (www.iceagefarmer.com). He's on top of a lot of things global food chain wise. He's been talking about fertilizer, food and energy shortages for months now.

I picked up a chamber vac on sale to replace my vacuum sealer that's starting to give me issues. I hunt, fish (I'm trying to improve here lol) and garden so food storage is something I do. I also have a small flock of chickens for egg production. I've raised backyard meat birds 2 summers ago when they were showing pics of empty meat shelves during the supply chain problems in 2020. If I dont have meat and coffee I'll be miserable lol. Backyard meat was something I've been wanting to do for years and 2020 gave me an excuse to do it. I have a nice little library of homesteading, animal husbandry, gardening and butchering books in addition to a bunch of cook books.

I've decided to switch even more of my gardening over to hydroponics (dutch bucket and NFT systems) after last year's trial run. My raised garden beds will grow more culinary and medicinal herbs in addition to veggies that don't take to hydroponics. I have some elderberry plants coming in a few weeks also. The reasons I'm switching to hydroponics is fertilizer concerns (I bought 2 16# buckets of maxi-grow back in Sept. That'll last me years and its easy to store), the plants had less pest damage last year and did better than in my raised beds, I can grow indoors, year round, if things get really bad.

Also if you're gardening I would also look into picking up canning equipment. I bought a big 1970s All American Pressure Cooker 10 years ago for $100 on Ebay. That thing is a beast and is holding it's value. Pick up canning jars, lids and bands when you see them. There was a run on them over the last 2 years.

If you have a portable generator look into converting it to propane/nat gas. I found a converter on amazon last spring for $30 and it just bolted right on to my Generac 6500. Both of my gens are now dual fuel and run off 20# bbq tanks. Eventually I'm going to have a gas line ran from the basement to a quick connection so I can just quick connect the generator and run off of the house gas. Dont have to worry about running out or going to refill the tank. But I prefer running the propane over gasoline by a lot.

Also know your neighbors! I have a great relationship with most of the people on my small block and we help each other out and will crack a beer open and bs when the project is done.

 

Also just be careful with buying into "The End is Coming" talking heads, especially the ones trying to sell you something. There was a lot of that in the late aughts/early 10s and it scared me out of putting $ into the stock market when things were down.

 

Our old propane stove you could light with a match, it was great for when we lost power for week, and other long outages. My wife wanted a new one, it won't light with a match if there is no power. Stupid stove.

 

CNN is pretty reliable right?

 

If you’re Putin!

 

I'd be more informed if I was to get all my news from The Onion

 

They are still made, aka analog gas stoves.
No plug to the wall.
D cell battery runs the igniters for the cook top AND oven.
$400, cheaper than the silly computer driven ones. No gee gaws.....lights, clocks, timers, computers, and crap.
Brand: Unique

 

Many people have nothing on hand now, the national average is 3 days of food. Those people will do anything to feed themselves and kids. By far, the biggest threat to all of us here will be, people behaving badly. We all will have varying amounts of "stuff", they will have none, and they, by the thousands will try to take our "stuff". Be prepared for that. Someone is going to have to be pulling security duty in shifts 24/7.

 

I think all of us are to some degree prepared, we cut our wood knowing it's for three years from now. Many of us garden/hunt/fish, and many home can, pickle, ferment, dehydrate, deep freeze. And most of us do it because that's way our parents & grandparents did it, at least mine did. My mom was a child in the depression, she always talked about not having enough to eat, when I was a kid we had canned food stocked to the rafters. She never wanted to be without food ever again.

 

Yup. Way I was raised too. We can tons of stuff each year from the garden, enough to last a year and give some to our parents. I’ll hunt bear and can bear meat but not every year. I’ll buy up bulk dry beans from a farm up north cheap and can up baked beans. Canned sweet potatoes for our daughter, she loves them we hate them. We get potatoes 50 pound bags for $12-$15 from the farm year round so don’t bother trying to preserve them. Can up some tomato sauce when we get a decent crop of them. Wife’s mother has a huge raspberry and strawberry plot we go ravage and make jams. She’s 80 and doesn’t really care about it anymore so we pick a bunch for her to do whatever and Keep the rest. Make our own BBQ sauce and can it. Make some different types of hot sauces depending on how the peppers grow. It keeps us from just sitting around.

 

It doesn't seem to me that you have much time to just sit around. It sounds to me like when do you have time to sleep?

 

Wouldn't call myself a prepper but I do keep a month of supplies on hand. My biggest concern is losing power for several days or weeks

 

From my experience, 24 days IIRC if it’s just your house, you can run to the gas station, fill generators it’s not convenient but it’s certainly doable even during snowstorms.

My concern would be in the event of a disaster, where everybody’s trying to do the same thing even finding the parts you need.

 

There are events and possibilities that most people will have a very difficult time planning for.... You can have a generator and gas to run it for "x" amount of time, and preparing things/prepping for those let's say 2-3-4 week events can be hard enough. But if things are bad enough on a larger scale, you will run out of gas and not be able to get more. If things are that bad, you are probably a target by running a generator when everyone else's is silent. Preparing for that kind of situation is a whole different ballgame and mindset, and honestly one that many people will have difficulties with and fail at....

 

Propane exchanges still work even if power is out at the pumps or no fuel deliveries. It should be available longer than gasoline is a bad scenario. Remember that "ransomeware" cyber attack last year that caused parts of the country to be without fuel deliveries for a few days. All that did was mess with their billing side of things and it caused people to panic at the pumps.

 

Seeing that I live in between 2 nuclear air bases, if it gets really bad I probably will wish I had a jug of 10,000,000 spf sun block. But yes we are trying to remain as stocked up as possible on a limited budget. Just the inflation on food has been painful and diesel fuel jumped 70 cents a day ago and gas 40 cents.