Survival Seeds in a Can-9 Years Later

"Vintage" 2000 Nitro Pak Survival Garden Seed Can
"Vintage" 2000 Nitro Pak Survival Garden Seed Can

I, like some of you, have in the past purchased canned or packed “survival seeds” that are advertised as if they can be saved and planted when disaster hits.  Mine came from Nitro Pak Preparedness Center and were packed for 2000 (yep, that’s 9 years ago).  We didn’t get into the Y2K scare, so it’s really just coincidence that that is the year they were packed for, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one that has a can or two of these seeds sitting on the food room shelf waiting to plant them until I “need” them.  They are non-hybrid seeds, meaning they produce seed that will grow the same plant it came from when it is planted, so you are supposed to be able to harvest your seeds and grow more food next year with it.

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Messiest pantry contest: cast your vote

Shelf Reliance, maker of the famous rotating shelf system, is holding a Messiest Pantry Contest. It began on 19 April with contestants submitting photos of their messy pantries or food storage rooms along with a description of why they deserved the makeover. The entries have been narrowed to five semi-finalists which are now competing in an online poll on Shelf Reliance’s blog to be one of the three winners. Continue reading “Messiest pantry contest: cast your vote”

Pandemic Quarantine Preparedness

pandemic-rescue2smlSwine Flu is gonna kill us all! Swine flu is going away! Swine Flu is man-made! Swine Flu is a natural mutation! Oh, we offended the pigs. It’s H1N1! Does anyone know what’s actually going on??? Does it matter? Whatever the truth is about this H1N1 (formerly known as Swine Flu) virus there is ONE THING we can each know for sure. Has the last week caused you to think very seriously about your Pandemic Preparedness? Have you reviewed and identified holes in your preps? Have you done something about it? Are you Ready for Anything?

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On Quarantine and Cabin Fever

image from survivetheflu.com
image from survivetheflu.com

With the Swine Flu news is coming talk of possible quarantines.

When I was a kid my family was quarantined by the county health department because my baby sister contracted whooping cough at less than a month old and more than one of the rest of us were carriers. We were pulled out of school in the middle of the day and escorted home.We were not supposed to leave or have anyone over. Homework got deposited in our milk box where we would retrieve it when the deliverer had gone. Thankfully there were medications we could take and the quarantine period was under a week—just until we weren’t contagious anymore. But what about a disease there is not medication for? How would that be dealt with? How long would a quarantine need to be in place to be effective? And what would you do with all that time isolated from society?
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Skills as a prep

A few weeks ago a guest author on a popular preparation blog discussed the value of gardening as a resource. He put forth the opinion that while he enjoys gardening as a pastime, the decision as to whether to engage in it should be based solely around time and cost. Citing the inability to move a garden in an emergency and the amount of labor required to get to harvest, he concluded that it is better to save your seeds for a bug-out and expend today’s efforts and money on a trip to the grocery store. “It’s all about time,” he says, “not a skill or desire.” Continue reading “Skills as a prep”

Gardening In Utah

Recently I had a small message in my inbox that came in via the contact form here on the blog.  It was somebody named Alex mentioning that he had a blog we might be interested in.  A quick check showed that he was right, VegeNag is a blog about vegetable gardening in Utah.  I know I’m always looking for all the help I can get, so it’s nice to have somebody that can give advice that is local and knowledgeable about our specific soil conditions and other factors.

He is adding on quite a few useful articles on things he is doing to help plants grow around here, and has many useful links directly to useful locations such as the Utah State Extensions which provide very useful on agriculture, horticulture, insects, in short everything you might need to know about growing anything in your own county.

It looks like in the future he is planning on expanding his blog to also give alerts for when you need to take certain actions in your garden according to our climate.  And if we’ve learned anything this spring, it’s that a little help in knowing the real planting/safe dates can really help (I still can’t believe I got snow again today!)

Pandemic Preparedness – DIY Sanitization

san-prodsPandemic Preparedness is one of the simpler types of prepping – mostly because it relies heavily on you already being prepped with other things like food storage, water storage, etc.  A major component of Pandemic Prepping is preparation for quarantine.  Sanitation is a major part of Pandemic and quarantine preparedness.  While sanitzation is always important, during quarantine, sanitization will be extremely important in order to keep everyone healthy.  In this post we’re going to talk about killing germs and how to do it safely with household products.

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The Boy Who Cried Wolf: Procrastinating Our Preparedness


photo credit: BuddyBradley

“This has happened before, and it resolved itself just fine. There’s no reason to worry about this time, either.”

In the past couple days, I’ve seen this argument made in all sorts of variations, with people asserting that there have been other non-threatening flu virus strains in the past, as well as other pandemic threats. Despite the media hype, these non-events have faded into history with only a minuscule amount of death and injury. While I agree in part, I believe that there is a “boy who cried wolf” danger to simply ignoring current and future threats, all on the assumption that since previous ones did not escalate, that other ones will not as well.

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More Swine flu / Pandemic Preparedness Info

viramask_n99esc3501Since my post from yesterday regarding Pandemic Preparedness in light of the current Swine Flu outbreak, I’ve talked to several other preppers and want to provide our readers with more information.  Specifically I want to share some other/better mask information, some great links for info on the virus spreading and to discuss sheltering in/quarantine a bit more.

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Pandemic Preparedness – Swine Flu Outbreak

pandemic-troops

See all of our Pandemic Preparedness / Swine Flu posts here.

With the current Swine Flu scare coming out of Mexico and popping up here and there in the United States, it is prudent to become familiar with the situation and especially prudent to review your Pandemic Preparedness Level.  I should also stress that this is a “DON’T PANIC, Just Prepare!” post.  Continue reading “Pandemic Preparedness – Swine Flu Outbreak”

New Author: Angela

Hi all!  I’m Angela from Adventures in Self Reliance.  I’m so excited, honored, and admittedly a bit nervous to have been given the opportunity to be an author for Utah Preppers.  A little about me–I live in fabulous Emery County with my sweet husband and three children, a dog, a cat, a horse, some fish, and some chicks.  I am a preparedness junkie and love camping, hiking, archery, fishing, shooting stuff, sewing, chocolate, and historical reenactments among other things ;-)

I love a good adventure and learning new things.  As far as prepping is concerned, we’ve been actively at it for a few years, so have had time to make lots of mistakes and learn from them!  I believe in having supplies on hand and knowing how to use what I have, so it seems there is always something to learn, try, or work on where our preps are concerned.

I’m excited to start posting here, and hope to be able to encourage and help others in their preparations and ability to be self reliant.  I’ve found the more I share, the more I learn, so hopefully we can all help each other out!  In the meantime, you can visit a few of my favorite posts from my blog to kind of get a feel for what I’m about:

Why I do this Crazy Stuff
Sprouted Wheat Experiment
Deer or Elk Jerky

Looking forward to learning and sharing with you all!