Posts

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Searching for the Cure (Bacon)

My brother passed along a video today that fits right in here on the blog. As many people know, I have a long love of cured foods.  Bacon, of course, ranks at the top of my list.  Bacon, and country hams were an important staple for survival to people in the Appalachians for hundreds of years before refrigeration was introduced.  While I don’t have a setup for curing my own bacon (yet), this video sure encourages me to get that setup sooner than later.  This 10 minute documentary is about a man who run’s a business curing bacon and ham the old fashioned way.

As I told a friend, the subjects Appalachian accent is like a Barry White with the sequences of frying bacon and country ham.

Once you’ve watched, you’ll probably want to go buy bacon or ham from their site and then once you’ve tasted the difference, try to cure bacon on your own.

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Powerless Cooking Event

Join us for an evening of free information on different options for cooking when the power goes out.  Representatives from great companies such as Sun Oven, Volcano Grills, Humless, and InstaFire will be combining with Jodi and Julie from Food Storage Made Easy to help you learn about these products as well as several free or inexpensive tools you can make yourself.  Come and enjoy free handouts, event discounts, giveaways and more!

Cost: FREE! Bring a friend!

Date:  Thursday May 10, 2012

Time:  7-9 pm (7-8 will be instructional, 8-9 will be Q&A at individual booths)

Location: 

American Preparatory Academy
12892 S. Pony Express Rd. (Just off of I15 and Bangeter)
Draper, Utah 84020

Click here for more details and to RSVP

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Testing Seed Germination Rates

If you have seed saved from prior years, it is a good idea to test the germination rate before planting your whole garden with it. Depending on the rate of germination, you can decide if you want to plant normally, plant more thickly, plant single sprouts, or just toss the seed out and start with fresh seed.

Testing seed germination also just happens to be a requirement for the Boy Scouts’ Gardening merit badge, so my son got to do this project for us this year while I took pictures. Here’s how we do it.

1. Gather the seed you want to test. Just for fun, I gave him some cucumber seed I had left from the survival seed can packed for planting in 2000. That’s 12 year old cucumber seed.
Continue reading “Testing Seed Germination Rates”

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Creating your own Bug Out Location

You have a perfectly set up 72 hour kit/bug out bag for each member of your family. They are located in vehicles or in a grab and dash spot so you can be on the road and on your way within seconds. Now what? Where are you going? Generally speaking, an evacuation plan should include a few set locations that you and those you are bugging out with are familiar with. One common solution is to head to a family member’s house some distance away. This solution might work in some scenarios, but in many circumstances you might find that you’ve placed a burden on your family by bringing more mouths to feed in an extended crisis. In other situations you might find it difficult to get to your family member’s home due to distance, lack of fuel or inaccessible roads depending on the nature of the disaster that has caused you to leave your home.

When starting your journey down the rabbit hole of preparedness you’ll often see terms referenced such as GOOD (Get out of Dodge), BOL, BOB (Bug out Location, Bug out Bag) and other acronyms that hint at evacuating an area should there be a disaster, civil unrest or many of the other events that we prepare for. One question that can’t be answered by a simple acronym however is WHERE?

My nearest family is about 10 hours away and in either highly populated areas or in areas with limited access in a disaster, so my family needs to consider something more local for our evacuation plan. We decided that as part of our general preparedness efforts we would like to work towards obtaining a property to eventually build a bug out location as well as provide a place for our family to camp and enjoy nature on a frequent basis. I’d like to share some of the things I learned in this process on creating your own bug out location.
Continue reading “Creating your own Bug Out Location”

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The Great Utah ShakeOut

Today (April 17th, 2012) at 10:15 the state of Utah is participating in an Earthquake drill (The Great Utah Shakeout).  This will be the largest earthquake drill in Utah history.

If you are just now learning about this event head over to www.shakeout.org/utah.  In particular check out the how to participate page.  Here is an example of what you as an individual could do (taken from http://www.shakeout.org/utah/individuals/):

  1. At 10:15 Drop, Cover, and Hold On Drop to the ground, take Cover under a table or desk, and Hold On to it as if a major earthquake were happening (stay down for at least 60 seconds). Practice now so you will immediately protect yourself during earthquakes! (See this page for what to do if you are in bed, outside, driving, in a tall building, or other situations.) For people with disabilities or access and functional needs, download our preparedness guide (661 KB) PDF.”
  2. While still under the table, or wherever you are, look around and imagine what would happen in a major earthquake. What would fall on you or others? What would be damaged? What would life be like after? What will you do before the actual earthquake happens to reduce losses and quickly recover?
  3. (Optional) Practice what you will do after the shaking stops.
  4. After your drill is complete, have discussions about what was learned and incorporate these lessons into your disaster plan.

This is a great opportunity to look at your emergency plans.  Have you thought about earthquakes?  Is your 72-hour / bug-out-bag ready to go?

If you are on twitter you can follow @UtahShakeOut and the #shakeout hashtag for more up-to-date info.

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New Products Announced at Shelf Reliance Convention

As a consultant for Shelf Reliance, I had the opportunity to attend their annual convention in Salt Lake this past weekend. It was exciting, educational, and exhausting (especially with my 10 month old in tow). There were quite a few new product announcements that I’d like to let you know about, so before they even get the new products launched on the site, I’m letting you in on them right here.

NEW THRIVE PRODUCTS:



Continue reading “New Products Announced at Shelf Reliance Convention”

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Giveaway: Threat Journal Radiation Safety Kit

It should come as no surprise that the UtahPreppers site will accept advertisers to help cover the costs of hosting. It’s also nice when sponsors are willing to give out some of their products to our readers. So  I’m pretty happy that one of our new sponsors here has a little contest .  The Threat Journal is a free newsletter that focuses on different possible dangers to people in the US, and what you can do to be ready for those dangers. The newsletter covers a broad range of disasters, and discusses the plausibility of each. This should give you the reader a chance to become more informed about various dangers, and decide for yourself how likely they are to affect your family.

For the giveaway, the publishers of Threat Journal are having a drawing for three (3) radiation safety kits.  These packages are designed to help with the three most basic tasks you face during a radiation emergency:

  1. Detect
  2. Measure
  3. Protect Continue reading “Giveaway: Threat Journal Radiation Safety Kit”
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NPS and Motorola PM1200 Transceiver

For those of you local to the Salt Lake City area, there is a great store called NPS.  They are located at:

1600 South Empire Road
Salt Lake City, UT 84104
801-972-4133

NPS calls themselves a “salvage and freight recovery company”.  What that means is their inventory is always changing.  They’re setup with a department store layout, for example: clothing, electronics, house wares, hardware and even groceries.  Generally you don’t go to NPS looking for a particular item, but to see what deals they might have.  Most of their product is reduced from retail prices.  The prices range from being just under retail to steals of a deal, it just depends on how lucky you are. Continue reading “NPS and Motorola PM1200 Transceiver”

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Utah Prepare Conference and Expo – Ticket Giveaway

Interested in a day of workshops focused on preparedness? Who wouldn’t?  Utah State University, BYU, and BeReady Utah have combined to host a day of classes and booths called the Utah Prepare Conference and Expo. Now, the title is rather similar to our name, but hey, it involves many groups that we rely on for well-researched information.

I’m really excited about this conference, in that it is *not* a sales machine. BeReady is the state organization charged with getting citizens ready for known disasters in the state, and it has teamed up with some of the best resources for preparedness around. Anybody who has done real research into local agriculture, animal husbandry, or food preservation has come upon materials published by the USU extension. They are the standard for food preservation testing in the country, and we love having them locally.

Of course, there are vendors there as well, so don’t fret about missing out on the “toys” and fun there as well, but the conference itself is not “consumer-first”, and that should mean a lot to real preppers.

Continue reading “Utah Prepare Conference and Expo – Ticket Giveaway”

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The Great Utah Emergency Preparedness Expo: April 6-7, 2012

Following up on last year’s very successful Emergency Preparedness Expo, a new preparedness based company Free Food 2 Go is sponsoring a preparedness event the first weekend this April. The expo will play host to a wide range of well know presenters in a variety of preparedness subjects as well as an expo hall for vendors, all at the UVU campus. This is the second year for this particular event which saw 1,500 attendees in 2011. This year the expectation is 2,500 to 3,500 attendees.

Free Food 2 Go, the expo’s overall sponsor appear to be a vaguely MLM/Co-op plan for food storage. As the sponsor, they will obviously have plenty of information prominently featured. However, if MLM sales pitches turn you off remember that while featured, they are just one of many vendors at the event. With the number of vendors and experts on hand this should prove to be a great chance to get hands-on with many of the suppliers and products discussed here on UtahPreppers.com and in other preparedness circles.

Continue reading “The Great Utah Emergency Preparedness Expo: April 6-7, 2012”

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Utah County Amateur Radio Emergency Service New HAM night tonight!

HAM Radio
HAM Radio

I received this email announcement from a HAM Radio friend.

For any of you who

  • have recently received your amateur radio call sign
  • are thinking about getting it and want to know more
  • you’ve had your call sign for awhile but never really been introduced to the UCARES organization

This is a good event. You can meet some of the organizers and people who’ve been in it awhile, and talk to them about what the organization is all about. Runs from 7 – 8:30PM.

More info here
put your mouse over the New Ham Night on the right.

Directions