Preparing Deseret, one blogger at a time
If my allergies are any indication, Spring has sprung. This means it is time for Daylight Saving Time, spring cleaning, starting gardens and other activities.
What are the UtahPreppers up to?
Continue reading “What we are doing this Spring”
One of our favorite DIY sites, Instructables.com is hosting a Paracord Contest. The grand prize is a Leatherman with a custom laser etched message of your choice. Paracord is one of the best gotta-have-some-with-you preparedness items. The inner strands can be used for fishing line while the outer shell on its own provides a strong shell for wrapping or weaving other objects. Really, the possibilities are endless.
Have a look at the Instructables Paracord Contest here.
As snowflakes begin to frequently drift down, my wife begins her odd seasonal transformation from warm, to cold-blooded being. I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with this process, but it is the true mark of seasonal change around my home. Appendages seem to have ice permanently on them, and thus have an odd habit of always finding their way to me, which is cause to no small amount of distress.
With that in mind, we have discussed what else we can do in my family to increase our ability to stay warm inside (because my wife sure doesn’t want to go out). Beyond just comfort in the dark months, my southern CA native wife is petrified of the idea of being without power/heat, and our ability to deal with that. Continue reading “Wrapping Up, With Blankets”
You all know why you need a wheat grinder. There’s only so much you can do with all the wheat in your long term storage if you can’t grind it into flour. So just in time for the holidays we’ve got a special buy on the Country Living Grain Mill. This is a hand crank grain mill that is built in the USA of industrial grade components and has a lifetime warranty. It is relatively easy to crank as far as hand grain mills go. My small kids can grind flour with it. You can check out my full review, and see videos of the mill in action on my blog post here. Continue reading “Country Living Mill Group Buy”
In a previous post we introduced the concept of burial or sinking to disguise or otherwise hide equipment, weapons or other preps. Today we will take a first look the MonoVault line of products by PolyFarm of Meridian Idaho.
Recently, some of the Utah Preppers authors met at the Crossroads of the West Gun Show in Salt Lake City. This is where we first met PolyFarm. After some discussions to learn about their production, they were kind enough to provide us with sample of one of their smaller MonoVaults to review and to beat up with some tests. I really like the idea of the product so I purchased a couple larger sizes so that we will be able to review several different sizes.
Continue reading “Product First Look – PolyFarm MonoVault”
I purchased the Berkey Light water filter a few months ago. When I made the purchase I also had the option of getting a free accessory. I decided that the portable sport bottle would go well in my 72-hour kit (Bug out Bag).
When starting a flint and steel or striker type of fire, char cloth makes all the difference in being able to actually get the fire started or just making a bunch of sparks that never catch anything on fire. Char cloth (sometimes also called charred cloth) is one of those amazing mountain man items that is still very useful today. Char cloth is pieces of blackened fabric that easily catch a spark and burn similarly to the way steel wool burns–no big flame, but a nice ember burn that doesn’t blow out once it’s lit. The spark lights the char cloth and the char cloth is used to light the other tinder. I’ve been wanting to add char cloth to my fire kits and having used all my char cloth made by others, I decided to make a batch of my own.
I had some basic directions to go off of, but had never made it myself, so here’s how the first round went. I got some 100% cotton fabric–I used jersey fabric (an old T shirt) and cut it into approximately 2″ squares. Mine was kind of a natural color, but you could probably use any color you have, just avoid screen-printed designs, etc. I cut the ribbing off from the neck and sleeve ends as well as the seams. You just want the fabric.
Next, I got a metal can–I used an old cookie tin. I punched a vent hole in the can lid with a hammer and nail. You can use whatever metal can you have–I’ve seen it done with smaller tins as well as cleaned out food cans with foil for a lid.
I put the cut up fabric squares in the tin, put the lid on, and put the can on my grill on low and let it cook. You definitely want to do this outside–burning fabric doesn’t smell all that good. My instructions said to cook it until it stopped smoking. I had the tin fairly full, and cooked it close to 3 hours before I decided to turn it off. It never smoked a lot. When it cooled, I opened the can and only the bottom 3-4 layers were black, the rest of the fabric was brown.
I turned the pile over and put it back on the grill on Medium this time and cooked it another close to 3 hours. This time it was all black when it was finished. However, it didn’t catch a spark very well. I could light it with a flame, or an occasional large spark, but it was very frustrating to work with. Nothing like the char cloth I’d had before that a friend of ours made from terry cloth (old towel).
So I put it back on the grill again, this time I only filled the can about 1/3 full and cooked it on high another 3 hours or so. Now it was a little more fragile and easy to tear (as char cloth generally is), but it still didn’t catch spark well. I had no more ideas to make it better, so I decided to start over.
The second and far better batch of char cloth I made started with 100% cotton monk’s cloth I got at Walmart. Notice the loose weave and air holes. Those made a huge difference. I cut it a little smaller this time–about 1 1/2 inch square as 2″ was a little larger than necessary. There is some shrinkage as it cooks, but not that much. I wanted to see if it would work straight from the store without washing the fabric first, so I only cut 5 squares of it.
I put it in a smaller tin which also got the hammer/nail air vent in the lid.
Feeling like I’d spent enough of my grill gas on this project, I opted to do this round real mountain man style and build a fire and toss the tin in the fire. I pretty well buried it–it’s in there somewhere.
It did not cook long in the fire–maybe 15 minutes (of course it was in a smaller tin than the first round, but I’m guessing even a large tin wouldn’t take 9 hours in the fire). I couldn’t tell when it stopped smoking since it was in a fire with all the rest of the smoke, so I just guessed at when to pull it out. It wouldn’t matter if it stayed in there until the fire burned out as long as no sparks got in the airhole and caught all the fabric on fire in the meantime.
I fished it out, let it cool, and opened it to nicely blackened monk’s cloth.
This second round of char cloth lights up with minimal spark from a firestarter or flint/steel. It is more fragile than the jersey char cloth, but works much better. I’ll have to post on flint/steel firestarting another time :)
So, to recap, to make better char cloth, start with a 100% cotton fabric with texture and a fairly loose weave. Use a fire pit if you can to save on gas. Cooking on higher heat and cooking a smaller batch help speed up cooking time. Happy firestarting!
I realized the other day that I hadn’t done an EDC post yet, so here it is! I do split EDC, meaning that some stuff I carry on my person but most of it I carry in my bag. There are two reasons for this, one I sit at a computer all day and do not like to have my pockets filled with stuff. I only wear cargo style pants so I always have plenty of pockets to drop things into as needed, but I don’t like to sit at my desk with anything in them. Secondly, as a geek I carry my computer EVERYWHERE I go and I carry it in my EDC bag. If you ever see the bag pictured on the right, it is probably following me like a monkey on my back.
First-Aid Kits are kind of a funny prepper item – there are SO many that you can just go buy that it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Yet, countless people I know barely have a box of band-aids in their home. Those who do go purchase a pre-made First-Aid Kit don’t typically pay much attention to it – it’s crossed of their ‘list’. But day to day use of the only medical supplies in the house means that after a year or so the First-Aid Kit is severely depleted and nobody notices until there’s a need for it.
We are coming to the time of the year that has become the second Xmas for many Americans. And I purposely chose to write xmas because it has nothing to do with the real Christmas we should have celebrated so recently. What I’m talking about is the look people get in their eyes as they get some portion of their taxes back from government. To many people this is the only surplus of cash they will see during the whole year, and our business world thrives on the swing in spending this influx of cash creates.
So, if you are one of those looking at receiving a check from Uncle Sam in the next month or two, why not put a little more thought in how it can be used for preparing your family for the year ahead? The following list of ideas might help stimulate your family in a way far better than buying some toy you’ve been looking at recently. Each of the following is a simple idea, that will later be posts of their own with all the details you’ll want. Continue reading “Tax Refund Preparedness”
Many know that Utah was originally settled by Mormon Pioneers, I’m a descendant of those pioneers from 8 different family lines on my Mother’s side. The Mormon Pioneers crossed the plains from Illinois to Utah in covered wagons, handcarts and many on foot. Many of them buried family and loved ones under a pile of rocks on their way here. It was a harrowing experience the like of which will hopefully never be repeated.
Out-N-Back in Orem will be having a huge 1 day clearance sale THIS Saturday!
Doors open at 9:00 AM.
Everything in the store will be a minimum 20% off with deals up to 90% off.
Snowboards 50% to 80% off
Winter Clothing 45% to 90% off
A flyer is available online here. (EDIT: removed as their site has been compromised)
I went to this sale last year and found some REAL DEALS! If you don’t know, Out-N-Back is an outdoor gear retailer.