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If you are going to try to buy up a lot of fuel, like people did here post Hurricane Harvey, check to see what your state says about that......you may need a permit or licence to buy "that much" all at once. Ie, like it says here as an EXAMPLE. https://www.turbodieselregister.com/...pickup.199596/
"I would think if you oven pasteurized meat or fruit in jars and you can see the the vacuum dimple you would be good to go especially if it popped when you opened the lid but I will look further into that."
Botulism is a toxin unaffected by pasteurization. And it's not just limited to meat (a lot of food poisoning happens from incorrectly home canning potatoes). Here is a good starting point: "USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2015 revision" https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/p...ions_usda.html
"I could easily convert that into an alcohol still with just a little bit of work"
It would be safer to convert a toilet into a still.
ComeCloser,
That toy claymore mine is pretty darn cool.
I think that would be great Christmas presents for several kids I know.
Im sure the kids you know would enjoy it, but it was designed and sold by a survivalist company for perimeters.
What events are you prepping for exactly? You can buy top of the line equipment, but the simplest and most primitive will prove the most valuable if the SHTF.
If what you get needs electricity, then you need to consider what happens if the power grid drops,
if something creates overcast conditions that disrupts/inhibits any solar energy production,
when the batteries die,
when you run out of gas for your loud generator that gives away your position for as far as sound can travel in your area.
A few of those toy claymores will be cool in anyone's bugout bag, along with at least 400 yards of dental floss. Lightweight, easy to pack and carry, and effective - as previously stated, on shed doors, root cellar doors, as a camp perimeter. It doesnt rely on anything but the energy and intelligence of the person that places it...where ever...
Of course, it is limited too. Once you run out of caps and cant replace them, you will need to switch over to sound - bells, cans, deer hooves, anything that will make noise to alert you.
On another note I also want to learn to to jar things like fruits, veggies and meat.
This seems like a good value .
Once again thanks.
The Ball Blue Book will teach you about canning. It should be available wherever canning supplies are sold. The USDA also publishes The Complete Book of Home Canning.
For preserving low-acid or low-sugar foods, pressure canning is highly recommended. You can denature the botulism with heat, but that's pretty scary. The best way to preserve meats is pressure canning. As a plus, that tenderizes the crap out of tough cuts of meat. Pressure canning is also the best way to preserve fish, clams, etc.
The best pressure canner is the All American, which does not require a (replaceable) gasket. If you buy a cheaper one, like a Presto, keep spare gaskets handy. You also need to retrofit a dial pressure gauge to any canner. The local extension service will test your pressure gauge annually for free. Buy the largest you can afford. A pressure canning cycle can take an hour and a half, and if you get stuck doing two or three batches it can get really tedious. I have a cousin in your area who set up his man cave with a canning stove and a large screen TV. He can load the canner and watch football games for hours.
A friend in Astoria salvaged an old hospital autoclave that will do six dozen half-pint jars of tuna in a single run. Half pint jars are the right size for crab meat, fish, or clams. You can also preserve chicken, rabbits or other small animals by boiling and boning them, then pressure canning in their own broth. I roast chickens first, which gives a nice roast chicken flavor to the jar.
Water bath canners are great for high acid foods, like fruits and juices. I can half gallon jars of cider by bringing the cider to pasteurization temp and giving them a 15 minute boiling water bath. If you have apples, the only ingredient you need for apple butter is apples. Maybe a little cinnamon or apple pie spice. Apples have their own pectin, and are plenty sweet with no added sugar. I don't even peel the apples, just quarter and boil them and run them through a sieve before cooking them down.
Stock up on jars, lids and rings. You will need a lot of them. Twenty years ago you could buy them for a buck a dozen at thrift stores, but finding canning jars nowadays mostly means retail. Take the rings off as soon as the jars cool. They have a tendency to stick, and the lid vacuum seal is all you need.
A smoker is a great idea. You can buy the fancy electric or propane smokers at Bi-Mart, but for smoking a ham you need a smoke house. It does not have to be big and fancy. I built mine out of concrete blocks with a sheet metal roof, about 4x4x6' with a sheet metal door that just hangs on hooks. The fire box is a stack of bricks 10' away and a little downhill, with a 6" hunk of scrap yard pipe. According to the first edition Joy of Cooking, a salt cured ham will keep for 3 months in cheese cloth and buried in wood ashes. I've never tried it, but it's good to know.
You mentioned big game. If you use the whole animal without wasting it, you will need a smoker. Lean wild game is best preserved as jerky or sausage. You can grind it with suet for sausage and smoke it. Turn the small intestines inside out and scrape them to make the sausage casing. Pickled sausage is great too. Jerky is handy for soups and stews, since it will cook back to tasty smoked meat and will salt the whole pot. Get a good book, like https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-co...ition=22294386
Speaking of pickling, a couple large stoneware crocks are great for making home fermented dills or sauerkraut. Here in the PNW, kraut or pickles will keep for months in an unheated area, or you can water bath them. You can do small batches in junk restaurant gallon jars. I fill a ziploc baggie with brine as a weight, or you can use a plate and a shiny rock to keep the food below the brine. You can also make vinegar pickles, but kraut has to be fermented. My fermented pickles are a big hit with my friends. Lactic acid from fermentation has a completely different flavor from vinegar acetic acid. Vinegar pickles are quicker, which is why the pickles at the store are vinegar pickles. I have never made pickled sausage, but it's on my bucket list. I don't like the commercial pickled sausage. Too greasy. My mother was fond of pickled fish, but she grew up in Nebraska a century ago, where fresh fish was a rarity.
You need to stock salt for both smoking and pickling. Pickling salt does not have anti-caking agents like table salt, so you may want a salt grinder. A good sized mortar and pestle will serve. Leslie sells a meat cure that is part sugar.
That leaves drying. Nut drying is a snap. Plant a few walnut and filbert trees, and they will gift you with pounds of tasty protein every year. My dad had a wood stove and ceiling fan in his shop. He built screen racks that hoisted above head height to dry nuts. The flavor improves with a light roasting. Cracking and picking walnuts or filbers is a great thing to do while you watch TV in the evening. Black walnuts take an industrial nut cracker. Some people spread them in their driveway and drive over them to crack them. I have a geared black walnut cracker with a long handle that works well. Or you can use a hammer and anvil. Drying also works well for cooking and medicinal herbs. You might make tinctures of medicinal herbs.
Dried fruits will keep without refrigeration. Use fine screens to keep the flies off of them, or use an electric fruit dryer. Dip them in ascorbic or citric acid to keep them from browning.
This may sound really complex and time consuming, so spend some time on efficiency. Set up to do large batches. A couple people can pick 100 lbs of berries in one day, then process them the second day. You can use a Squeezo to juice them quickly, make juice, jam, or can pie filling. You can buy a hand crank Squeezo, but I use the Kitchenaid attachment.
I use a hand crank apple peeler/slicer for preserving apples, and a couple little cherry pitters are really handy for cherries and wild plums. Good tools will make your life easier. Big stock pots. Heat diffusers under the pots so you don't have to stir them every 2 minutes. Colanders, peelers, slicers, strainers, jar lifters, funnels, measuring cups, kitchen scale, rubber gloves, candy thermometer, smoking thermometer, oven thermometer, you will figure out what you need when you are in the middle of preserving and don't have it.
The payoff is flavor. You will never find tomato sauce in the store that tastes as good as home canned, vine ripened tomatoes. It will always be easier to buy stuff at the store. A homestead orchard and garden will send you a long way toward self-sufficiency if the food doesn't go to waste. If you are in the Sequim rain shadow, you can grow an amazing variety of fruits and vegetables. On the west side, a little greenhouse might be handy. My next project is a little cold frame topped by a couple of glass shower doors I salvaged a while back.
.......
Should I also install a lock on our shop freezer to slow down a thief?
........
You might want to do that to slow down an idiot for they may kill you quicker than anyone else.
Think 60s Lost In Space Dr. Smith who just doesn't "understand" (like the time he used all the water to take a shower because he was feeling icky).
The power was out in a scheduled outage here at work. Computers were on the emergency generator but not the refrigerator. Not a problem as long as that door stays shut; it ought to be able to keep the food good for 2-3 or so days. I was taking the shift at midnight from my co worker and watched in HORROR, despite my warning, when he said he was getting his lunch out of the fridge and opened the door. Containment broken, I sent email to the executive secretary advising her to tell everyone who had food in the fridge to write it off.
People seem to think that open the door just quickly is not going to cause that much damage but the basic truth is, that door stays closed always unless you have power. As far as various people not understanding when a crisis situation exists, of what emergency circuits are for.....watch out for them, guard against them.
Another thing to keep in mind is how much of your life runs on instant gratification from the Net, from your cell phone and at least have alternate plans to activate should that go out. Remember, you are only one cell tower away from having no communications.
Yesterday, my weather radio went out. I have had it for 4 years, it had been showing signs of not staying on, and yesterday, it would not stay on at all. Well, I can't live out here without a weather radio, so I immediately went to the Net and ordered another one to the tune of $100+.
After I had made the order, it occurred to me, "What if it is......." and YEP!, the batteries were going out and with new batteries, "You are listening to NOAA weather radio, Station WRIX, the voice of the National Weather Service".
I still kept the order going for as I said, I can't live out here without one and having a spare of the same type so it fits my adapter, my SW antennae, seems like a good, if immediately expensive, notion. I may put this new one in one vehicle (there is another one, of a different maker, in the bail out bag).....maybe this is the year I get the CB radio, #2, installed in the truck.
There may come a time when I can't immediately go to Amazon to order what I need to have it arrive in a day or two.......try seeing things in those terms.
Greetings all,
I am interested in learning and doing more about prepping for disasters or hard time situations.
So I’ve been doing a lot of reading up on it and could appreciate some advice.
I was raised LDS so I’m not really all that unfamiliar with it but it’s been a while and things have changed.
We are way out in the sticks on the Washington Olympic Peninsula on a few acres.
We are on well, septic and have a very large propane tank that is only for our whole house generator.
There is large game here and we also have oyster beds, clams beds and all that goes with that on the property.
We don’t have solar yet but we have a perfect large southern roof for it.
I plan on doing that in the near future and using repurposed electric car batteries.
Some of my buddies are hip to that and have taught me a lot so I think the repurposed batteries are a good value.
I like the idea of an attached narrow shed to the backside of the house with solar fans like sailboats have for ventilation.
So.....
Here are some of my questions .
Can I load up several plastic 55 gallon drums with bags of dried foods and store them my shop.
The shop has heat but I don’t heat it.
It has a concrete floor.
Should I isolate my food off the floor with some sort of insulation like thick expanded rock sheeting?
Same question on my gun safes and ammo pallet.
Should I also install a lock on our shop freezer to slow down a thief?
What driveway security system works the best.
I want to do this now, like a doorbell chime because the driveway is a couple hundred yards long and we can’t see the street.
On one forum one guy said to get a couple of geese because that are better than dogs.
He actually said they work well with dogs because they get the dogs on alert quick.
I use game cams but they won’t fit this bill.
Also what would be a good emergency form of transportation?
I like the idea of e bikes.
We are going to get a couple soon.
I even want a trailer to haul game or supplies if needed.
We have 4 or 5 first aid kits that are ok but I would like to get a really good one.
Any suggestions to better fine tune my needs would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
*Hand pump for the well
*Driveway alarms are great, but animals/critters (mostly) set mine off, so lots of 'false' alarms. I have dogs that don't bark unnecessarily, Catahoula's. My drive way alarm also is 'heat' sensitive with infrared. Geese attract Bobcats. Solar motion detector lights are good for startling a intruder.
*I get food quality 5 gal buckets/ with lids and seals from the smoothie shop. They get powdered whey in them. I used them for everything. UV breaks them down.
*Food keeps best in Mylar bags You can also get the really large bags that are normally used for fabric/clothes long term storage... you know those bags you can use a vacuum to remove air. They come in all sizes.
* Transportation... what's best? depends on situations. The best all around choice IMO is a 95-98 4 x 4 Dodge diesel 5.9 with mechanical injectors. Also dirt bikes (4 stroke) can go almost anywhere... fast. Horses are work... ebikes with foam filled tires. Side by sides are popular, can be street legal and are capable. For all transportation except horses … The tires are the weak link. Think that through for everything.
* Trailer large enough to put another vehicle on it. I have a 22' cargo/car haul trailer I use a lot. Make sure the axles are at least 3500 lbs per...
"Should I also install a lock on our shop freezer to slow down a thief?"
An upright freezer should always be locked if it's not a frostless variety. Ice builds up on the back of the shelves from condensation (basically it makes a slope towards the door) and over time it pushes the food forward. It doesn't take long before a shelf of food slides forward, pushing the door open, and you wake up in the morning with half your food on the floor and everything in the freezer thawing. This is the main reason why you see every upright freezer sold with a built-in lock, and not so much with chest freezers.
I don't recommend anybody buy a frostless freezer unless their electricity is free. They use more electricity on the "frostless" feature than they do on "freezing" (their core function). The defrost cycle runs about 700 watts, while the freeze cycle runs about 100.
The freezer lock is a micky mouse lock that is never going to stop a thief. If you pull really hard, the freezer will open without tools. It's mainly to keep things inside from falling out. A modern freezer "lock" doesn't even include an actual key. It's just a nub. Your freezer "key" will open your neighbor's freezer. In other words, the freezer "lock" is only going to keep out honest people.
Last edited by terracore; 01-15-2021 at 09:12 PM..
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