Diary of a Survivalist
Over the past two weeks, I have focused on buying some non-food items. We're pretty far along on things to eat, but there are plenty of other consumables. Here's a short list of what I have added to our stash.
I bought a come-along. This manual device is like a winch, but you provide the power instead of using an electric motor. This can be used to pull a vehicle out of the mud or lift a 1000-pound generator. This was another find at Big Lots.
I have not yet purchased another gun, but last weekend there was a gun show and I bought more strippers clips for .223 ammo. These devices allow you to reload an AR-15 magazine faster. (I also picked up a few more magazines.) I bought a knife that resembles a small machete that would be good for the bug out belt or if you have to go overland or survive in the wild. You can use it to hack brush, chop small tree limbs or even dig a hole, if you have to. I also bought some light sticks. They are good emergency lighting when it is too wet to light something and you batteries are dead. Sure, they are one time use, but you can use them to signal. I bought some red ones, which will not ruin your night vision, as well as the green and blue/white color. Night vision equipment is something else I would like, but will probably not be able to afford.
Speaking of guns, I am leaning heavily towards another AR-15. I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I really liked the newer carbon fiber AR-15 clones out there. I just don't know how well they will l hold up, and I don't want to spend $1300 or so on a gun. I would much rather spend $750 on a gun and another $500 on ammo. I still haven't purchased a second Ruger 10/22, and I am not sure if I will. The .223 is a priority.
I bought two new chains for my chain saw, one already mounted on a new bar. I also bought a manual sharpener, which is a file with a guide to make sure you get the right angle. I bought more chain and sprocket oil and enough oil to mix 7.5 gallons of gas for the saw. That should last a heavy wood cutting season, I would hope. I wanted to get a spark plug of two, but there are so damn many, I have to pull out the one in it now and write down the number. I also bought an air filter, which is really just a piece of foam, something I do not think I have ever changed.
I bought some tarps, simply because they were an excellent buy. The downside is that they are blue, not exactly a color to hide in the woods with, but they will keep you dry, patch a hole in your roof or can be spread out at an angle to catch rainwater. I haven't done the math, but I bet a 16' x 20' tarp could funnel rain into a 55-gallon barrel at a pretty fair pace.
I am seriously considering burying a cache somewhere in the area and burying a weapon, some ammo and spare mags for my regular guns, a flashlight and some batteries, some warm clothes, a water bottle and some purification tablets, and a couple cases of MREs. This is not supposed to be enough to bug out with, but if we were forced out of our home for some reason, this would be enough to start winning it back. The gun does not have to be a terrific one -- I would only use it to take a superior weapon from whoever my opponent is. Once you have kicked me out of my home and taken my stuff for yours, it's open season as far as I am concerned. The veneer of civilization is gone and you better look behind you every other step from that point forward.
Well, I do not want to go into great detail about this, but I would recommend everyone reading this prepare a little bit of something outside of your home or car. Maybe you will need it to fight back. If this doesn't appeal to you, you can use it to run. In either case, it's good to have a plan B to fall back on.
I am pleased to see that Y2K is appearing in the news more and more, recently. It is also mentioned in dozens of magazines. So far in July alone, I have seen a Mother Earth News, American Handgunner, Handguns, American Survival Guide and a Harris publication dedicated exclusively to Y2K. It is getting increasing coverage in newspapers. I predict we will soon see it appearing in women's' magazines and other widely read consumer publications. Most of the coverage will be watered down, but even if people are prepared for only three or four days, it will be better than no preparation at all.
Now a suspicious man would say that the three or four days gives the government a window of opportunity to institute all their plans and plots to use Y2K to deprive us of our rights. A less suspicious man might say that three days is simply the length of time it will take to get the power back on. I will let you decide for yourself, but as discussed a few posts back, I think the problems will last longer than a few days. In fact, many might not start for a few days.
The tone of the media coverage is interesting. It has started to focus on the contingency planning efforts of companies. I find it amusing that the same publications who scorned people who were preparing are so eager to accept that companies must prepare. What good is a company without its employees? If they can't, or won't, go to work, how long will the company survive? And while you or I could store a year's worth of food, no company can afford to store a year's worth of inventory or raw materials. So many of us may be better prepared to weather a severe multi-month than the Fortune 500, despite their satellite phones, crisis centers and global networks. The complicated infrastructure and global nature of a large company may be strengths in business, but they are weaknesses when faced with a potential global disaster such as Y2K.
I think a big question is where does the employee's loyalty lie -- with their employer or their family. Suppose that I am a Senior Systems Analyst for a Fortune 100 company. They want me in their crisis center the weekend of Dec. 31 through January 3. But I am also the father of two children and we want to spend the weekend at my elderly parent's vacation house in the country. Do I send my family and stay at work? Do I go with them and blow off my job? Do I pretend that my pager didn't work? In short, do I endanger my family or my career. Hopefully, I can delegate the task to the 24-year-old on my staff who has no family and will do whatever is required to get ahead at work. But he may be smarter than that, and he may also lack the experience and knowledge to do as a good a job.
Now replace the systems analyst with the cop, the National Guardsman, the banker, the grocer, the electrical utility worker, etc. Now I know that most employees are probably more loyal to their employer than they should be. They are responsible and want to do the right thing. But I bet there are some cases of the "blue flu" the first day and if things deteriorate quickly, I bet we see even fewer and fewer people going to work. If there are blackouts, there is no need for most employees to come to work, and if there is looting, martial law, etc., it would not surprise me if even in so called "essential" personnel and those in "mission critical" jobs fail to show up.
I look at Y2K as a camel and we're just looking for that last straw. It could be an electrical failure. It could be a water failure. It could be the food supply. It could be the banking system. It could be any little thing. The only thing we know for sure, I that not everything will be fixed. Maybe we won't reach the point where we load that next straw on. But I wouldn't want to bet my life on it.
OK, folks, it's been pretty busy around here and I haven't had much chance to write. You can expect only one or two posts a week through the end of the month. Please be patient with me -- summer is a busy time and we are doing family stuff.
I do have some good news however. Captain Dave and I are both planning to buy diesel generators from China. We have joined forces to make a volume purchase, so if you are interested, send an email to Captain Dave. We are looking at 8 and 10 kilowatt generators and anticipate a waiting period of one month from the time we place the order. The price range will be in the low to mid $3000s.
Now I have to decide if I want a large 280-gallon above-ground fuel tank or a few 55 gallon drums. I am thinking of the drums. My thought is to buy several and mount one in the back of the pickup, go get fuel at a station far away. Then pump it over to a stationary one. Then repeat at another location. This seems fairly secure to me. I mean, if you bring a tanker truck in and fill up on fuel oil, its kind of a giveaway. And I must admit that I am becoming more paranoid and concerned about who knows that we are preparing. While I have always had a healthy dollop of paranoia, it seems to be expressing itself more forcefully as we get closer and closer to the big day.
I still have not had a chance to package the many dried food items we purchased over the past month, but I hope to do so soon. It turns out that I should have bought more pasta. We eat pasta much faster than I thought we did, with a pound equaling the portion for one meal. (If I ever see shells and macaroni and rigatoni and such on sale for 39 cents a pound, I am buying an entire cart full.) I sometimes look at our basement and closets and think that we have too much food, especially in cans. But then I see how much we eat, with a grocery bill of sensibly-purchased foods coming in at approximately $500 a month (more now that the boys are out of school.) OK, so a portion of that each week is Y2K supplies, but not that much.
In any case, despite my earlier resolution to buy less food, I still buy a bit of food here and there. This week was not much, except some huge 33 cent tootsie rolls at the Big Lots. These candies are very satisfying, last a relatively long time and are cheap at this price. They will go into our nice surprise pile with the puddings and hot chocolate and similar foods.
I did buy four pounds of barley at only 49 cents a pound. We do not usually eat barley, although it is an ingredient in many soups. But you can boil it up like rice and it is tasty and will stick with you. I have also seen recipes where it is in a red sauce like pasta. You do have to be careful because it will get kind of gelatinous if you cook it took long and it runs together. But if I'm starving, gelatinous or not, Barley will be a welcome change form rice and wheat.
At the same time - and what really attracted me to the aisle -- was a sale on dried beans. I bought a eight pounds of white northern beans. I was thinking of buying some molasses or brown sugar, too, so that we can make baked beans, but the brown sugar is about three times the price per pound as the beans. I need to find a good recipe for baked beans and try it out. It has years since I have done so, and all I really remember was start about 24 hours in advance and soak over night. Then cook the heck out of them. It's a good dish for use on a wood stove.
My final purchase was a gallon of olive oil. A bargain at about $7. Its not extra virgin like we usually use, but it will be better than nothing. And Jill actually likes the flavor.
Ouch! It's been hotter than normal around here, and I for one am thankful for air conditioning. I can't believe how early in the year we've had such high temperatures in the NorthEast. It reached 99 around here on Monday and has been in the 90s just about every day since.
Now I have never seen any scientific proof, but it is my personal opinion that we adapt to the weather. In the winter, if you never go out in the cold, you cannot adapt. But if you spend a few hours out there in the bitter cold, your body gets a signal and adjusts. And each time you stay out there in the cold, the better you adjust and the less you feel the cold. And in the summer, if you have been outside in the heat for a weekend, your body needs the air conditioning less. I see this adjustment in how we set the air conditioning. In the first few weeks of summer, it's turned down to get 72 or so. But by now, we're comfortable at 78 degrees.
What I am leading up to is, we ask ourselves "How did our parents and grand parents live without air conditioning?" And the truth is, they adapted and didn't feel the heat as much. Now, granted, their houses were designed to keep cool with high ceilings and large windows, big covered porches and cool earthen basements. And they sat outside on the porch and rocked. And they probably also did a great deal of work in the early hours when the full heat of the day had not peaked. If we are in a situation next year where there is no air conditioning, we will hopefully have adapted and be in a similar vein.
This sounds simple, but by opening the windows at night and allowing the cool air in, you can really cool things down, at least around here when it sinks to the 70s even now and is usually in the 60s at night. Then you lock up the house in the morning and keep some of the cool air in. In my experience, this usually works until late afternoon when the sun heats everything up too much and you might s well open the windows again and at east hope for a breeze.
In this kind of weather water is increasingly important. Not only has the near drought conditions and lack of rain caused many small streams to dry up, you need to make sure your water filter can handle the increased demand your family will require in this heat. Here's a true story about water and its importance. This happened just last week to a young couple we know:
They had taken a week off to backpack along what I believe is known as the "long trail" which proceeds up and down the boarder of Vermont. They are fairly experienced backpackers and spend many weekends in the woods, so they packed carefully. They had been out hiking the recent weekends and had reached the point where they were no longer sore on Mondays, so were in pretty good shape for a long walk.
All started well, but by the second day, they found that many of the water sources on the maps, including some of the springs at the shelters along the way, had dried up. Before the week was over, the woman was experiencing a mild form of heat exhaustion and dehydration. They had to cut short their trip and beat a path to the nearest road where they hitched a ride to a convenience store and drank large quantities of chilled beverages from the nice cooler. They ended up getting a ride back to their car and heading home early. To make matters worse, when they got home, they found that their power was off due to damage from storm and the apartment was about 100 degrees, so they spent another hot, miserable night.
Now I am not going to debate that the might have been able to find other ways to obtain water. I think a true outdoorsmen probably would have been able to do so. Could you do this and hike 10 or 12 miles a day, striking and setting camp? Probably not. But to me the moral of the story is go on long backpacking trips in September or October -- not July. It's easier to stay warm than to get cool. Oh, and the bugs and even rodents are less in the fall, also. But that's another story.
Spent the weekend doing fun stuff for a change, instead of focusing on preparing, so there is not much to update you on.
Gold is at a tremendous low and seems to be heading even lower. And while I may have lost $15 or $20 per ounce, I am excited by the prospects of buying more. It may even sink to $230 or $240 -- an incredible low. We currently consume more gold than they mine, and it is only countries selling their stocks of bouillon by the ton that have depressed prices. Once this sale is over, I fully expect Gold to rocket up. So I think it is a good investment, even if you don't need it for Y2K or as part of a longer-term survival plan.
This weekend, I did go to the Big Lots store and stocked up on canned fruits. This included pears and peaches that were a much better buy than at the grocery store. I had never heard of the brands, but a taste test at home that evening showed they were fine. I also picked up large cans of chili with sausage. It is safe to say that we would not want to live on this item, but it is an alternative meat in our plans. I also picked up several cans of salmon at greatly reduced prices.
Let me take a moment to give hearty endorsement of Big Lots. In addition to some bargain foods, you can get tools at surprisingly low prices. Maybe the tools are not nationally known brands, but they work fine. I have recently also picked up seeds and other supplies there. But the opportunity to buy crackers, canned goods and drinks at about half the normal price is one that should not be missed.
