Your Car Emergency Kit should be designed to accommodate a wide variety of potential Emergency Situations that may occur while you are in or near your vehicle. There are several categories that you should carefully consider when you are assembling your kit. The most important thing to remember is to not forget about it – an Emergency Kit is never something you just throw in the back and never think about again. You’ll want to maintain it and adapt it regularly for the season.
Blue Chip Food Storage Group Demo in Salem
Blue Chip Group is a Salt Lake based manufacturer of Emergency Food Storage supplies. They will be providing a demonstration of their products on February 5th in Salem, UT at 7 pm.
Here is the info I received on this event:
The Blue Chip Group will be in Salem at the Community Center, 151 W. 300 S. on Thursday, February 5th at 7:00 p.m. Come and taste test Blue Chips food storage items. Preparedness Items will be there for demonstration also. This is a night to help you feel more confident in what you will have in your food storage in case of emergency. Recipes available and you can use these foods in your everyday cooking…they’re that GOOD! If you can’t make it on the 5th you can still group order. Pick up your food storage order form at the Salem city office building. Order forms and money will be due on the following Thursday Feb. 12th at the Salem city building. Please make your check or money orders payable to Kristy Beck and put your check and order form in a sealed envelope.
This is all the information I have at the moment. For those needing directions, please check here.
Review: Volcano Stove II
Last week I had the opportunity to get in on a group buy for the Volcano II stove. (Sorry, I would have shared the details but I found out about it very last minute and barely made it in myself!) I had heard good things about this stove, and after a brief review of its features and online ratings, I decided to acquire one.
The main reason I wanted to add this to my supplies is its versatility—Volcano stoves can use charcoal, wood, or propane (with the adapter). I found this setup very desirable, since while my fuel may be diversified, this single stove can handle almost everything I throw at it. It’s made to accommodate dutch ovens, or you can lay down the included grill on top and use a normal pan, pot, or cook your things directly on it. And cleanup is as simple as turning the stove over and dumping the remnants out (unless you’re using propane, of course).
Another great feature of the Volcano is its unique heat chamber that channels the heat upwards towards your food, instead of wasting fuel by expelling heat out the sides and bottom. This also means that the area surrounding the stove is cooler than conventional stoves, allowing you to cook with the stove on a variety of surfaces that you normally might not use for putting your stove on.
Below are the pictures of my grand unveiling when I opened and first used the stove.
Adding to your long term supply using dehydration
Someone sent me these great videos on dehydrating food and using it in your food storage. The woman in the presentation is very knowledgeable about the subject and shows the correct way to dehydrate, store and use your food while helping to avoid some of the common pitfalls along the way.
These videos have changed the way I think about dehydrating food at home. Many of the tips about using oxygen absorbers, buying buckets, etc. are useful for other types of food storage as well.
Give them a thorough watching, take notes and let us know what you think.
Continue reading “Adding to your long term supply using dehydration”
Home Gardening Course in North Mapleton
MAPLETON NORTH STAKE HOME GARDENING COURSE
Saturday, February 7 – March 14, 2009 –
Be prepared to grow large crops of delicious fruits and vegetables in your own garden. In this six week (2 hrs. a wk.) course you will learn all the basic principles and practical gardening methods which make home gardening easy, enjoyable and productive: including varieties, planning, planting, soils, mulching, tilling, control of weeds, insects, and other pests, climate, watering, fertilizing, pruning, and fruit tree culture. You will come away with a “green thumb”.
The instructor, Gordon Wells, is the author of Successful Home Gardening, the 120 page textbook, which is free to all students. He has a Masters Degree in Agriculture from University of California, Davis and has taught home gardening for many years. (For questions about this class call 423-2655.)
When:
Saturday, Feb. 7 – Mar. 14, 2009 (6 classes)
Time:
9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
Location:
1600 North Main in Mapleton
Slimline Can Roller Project
Ever wanted to find a way to store a bunch more cans, especially those big #10 sized ones? Love the idea behind products such as the Shelf Reliance, but maybe you don’t have enough money for one, or better yet, maybe not enough space because of oddly sized rooms? Maybe you’re like me and maybe several of those are true all at once. What follows is a restatement of a post I did last year about some home-made can rotation shelving I built, along with the basic instructions you need to create your own (and you’ll want to).
Two HAM radio classes in Pleasant Grove
TWO NEW TECHNICIAN CLASSES
The Technician license is the entry level license for getting started in HAM radio. The Amateur Radio Club of Utah Valley often presents one day courses followed by a test to obtain your Technician class license. They have just announced a three day class and another one day class in the Pleasant Grove area. I obtained my license about three years ago. It really is easy!
04-07.Feb.2009
Three-day Technician Class (Trent, N7GMT)
14.Feb.2009
One-day Technician Class & Exam Session (Steve, NV7V)
(See http://www.arcuv.org/ for more info)
Continue reading “Two HAM radio classes in Pleasant Grove”
On Junk Silver or Silver Coins or Bullion Coins and Bartering
I’m trying to get this all figured out, it’s kind of confusing! Junk Silver, Silver Coins, Bullion Coins, Pre-1965 Coins – it turns out they all pretty much mean the same thing! Hard-Core TEOTWAWKI Preppers know that pre-1965 silver coins are made up of actual silver and have good potential barter power. That bartering capability comes from the fact that the U.S. Mint has guaranteed the amount of silver in these coins so they have a known value. Bullion Coins are generally considered the easiest way to have known values of precious metals – hence their potential barter usage. So far this is fairly common knowledge, but there is a lot more to know in order to do this properly – and I’m trying to get it all figured out.
Continue reading “On Junk Silver or Silver Coins or Bullion Coins and Bartering”
Keeping your data safe
This post is a followup to the recent post on backing up your data on flash drives. As stated, keeping your important data safe is extremely important. 
Keeping a copy with you, and in a remote location is required practice for me. But keeping your data safe is much more than just keeping a copy of your data around in case of hardware failure, fire, or evacuation. You need to actually protect the data itself.
Nowadays, people should be familiar with the concept of Identity Theft, and the threat it poses in your everyday life. With even basic information about you, a fraudster can cause huge problems to you, now imagine if they picked up a nice little flash drive that had copies of everything from birth certificates to bank statements? Of course you should be very careful with your nice little key fob, but you’re probably careful with keys and wallet too, and how many people lose those? Continue reading “Keeping your data safe”
Dry-pack Christmas
For Christmas this year, we decided to forgo gifts and add to our dry-pack food supply. With access to a dry-pack canner through the local unit of my Church, I decided the most cost effective and efficient route this time would be to buy in bulk and do the canning myself at home. I purchased all of the food and supplies from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Home Storage Center in Sandy.
We were able to get everything we wanted except wheat which they were out of until the first of the year. I will be going back in a few weeks to finish off that part of the order. I did learn exactly how much will fit in a 4Runner, although I had more than the traditional blind-spot to worry about on the drive home. For this round, I canned rice, sugar, pinto beans, black beans, white beans, potato flakes, dry milk, dried onions, apple slices, and both quick and regular oats. Continue reading “Dry-pack Christmas”
Prepping for Prepping
Prepping – it’s an endless activity that has few rewards, and those rewards often are not close in payout to the amount of time and effort that went into them. The interim rewards in prepping include not having to run to the store constantly to keep your food stocked. When you’re a Prepper your grocery store is in your own house, going to an actual store is akin to going to a warehouse to get resupplied. The other reward is great personal satisfaction and comfort in knowing that you are ready for anything – well, almost ready – there’s ALWAYS something else that can be done. The big payoff rarely comes for a Prepper – and that is when things get bad enough that you’re able to make it through it solely because you were prepped. This lifestyle, with it’s small rewards and rare big payoff, can be tiring – even overwhelming at times.
Making Preparedness a Family Activity
One of the best ways to prepare and to get your family on board with preparing for an emergency is to include them in your preparations. This may seem a daunting task, but as Phil801 has shown us with his eight children, it can be done. Just look at some of his How-To posts to see evidence of them helping out.
For some of us though, we may just be starting out, or we may not have our family on board with what may be for some a significant lifestyle change. Fortunately, the LDS church which has always urged preparedness from its members has had the foresight to put together a series of family friendly preparedness activities which are perfect for those families just starting out.
You can access the activity list and lesson plans here.