Tag: Links

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Social Preppers

Interested in a little more discussion with the preppers here, and elsewhere?  In our association with the American Preppers Network, you now have several ways to interact with other people that like to talk preparedness.

Forum

For people interested in forum discussions, we have two available places to talk.  The APN forums will allow you communicate with the other utahpreppers, as well as other state prepper groups.  Also available is the new LDS Preppers, a similar concept but geared for the LDS readers.  By keeping with the rest of the groups, you can participate not only in the Utah discussions, but also any other regions, or specialty topics you wish.  It’s a great resource to communicate with other preppers, without having having to come out of your well-stocked mountain retreat (ok, a little humor there).  If you need to understand a little bit more about what a forum is, check out the wikipedia description.

Chat

If you like real time discussions, you can now join us in our chat rooms.  These chats are accessible to computer novice, as well as the geeks among us.  For the novice, you can easily go HERE and join the chat rooms in your browser (no software to install).  Just click the link, and you will be prompted for a nickname to use, then it’ll log you in and you will have a page to  There are several rooms available, the most important ones being the #preppers, and the #utahpreppers rooms.  Chat rooms are an ‘always-open’ type of room where you can go in and interact in real-time.  Just clicking that link will open a page with a small bar on the top that lists which rooms you can listen in (just click on one to see the activity in that room).  On the right hand side will be a list of people currently in the room, and at the bottom, you can type in a message, and just hit enter for everyone to get it.

For the Geeks, we’re all using the rizon IRC network, and you may use any IRC client (such as XChat, WeeChat, or others) to connect.

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Product First Look – PolyFarm MonoVault

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.

Three MonoVaults, 107, 212 and 152
Three MonoVaults, 107, 212 and 152

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”

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Solar Cooking Challenge and Special Price

A while back, I did a post detailing the unboxing of my Solar Oven Society Sportster solar oven. I’ve been meaning to do a post where I showed how easy it is to use, but haven’t been able to get around to it.

My wife and I have been using the oven pretty frequently and are very pleased with it. When we first got it, we did a side by side comparison of it and my neighbor’s Global Sun Oven which costs just a bit more. Without getting into too many details, I think that the build quality of the Global is better, which translates to faster heat up times. The Sportster oven on the other hand is a bit larger and can handle two small pots where the Global is restricted to just one. Since a meal often consists of more than one dish, cooked in a different pot, this can be a real concern.
Continue reading “Solar Cooking Challenge and Special Price”

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Shelf Reliance: Free On Friday

Our friends over at Shelf Reliance are having a giveaway that they would like people to know about.  Now I am slightly loathe to tell folks about it, since hey, I want to win.  But it’s only fair to share right?  So over on the Shelf Reliance blog they have a post with all the details, some of which I’ll copy here:

“Shelf Reliance is giving away a Harvest 72″ food rotation system! Visit the Shelf Reliance blog at http://www.shelfreliance.com/blog/ to enter. The Harvest 72″ is valued at $459.99 and can hold up to 600 cans, making it perfect for a healthy food storage supply. The winner will be announced on Friday, June 26th, so hurry to the blog for your chance to win!” Continue reading “Shelf Reliance: Free On Friday”

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Farmer’s Markets

Typical Farmer's Market Offerings
Typical Farmer's Market Offerings

Now that the weather has warmed up, I am revisiting a post I started back in the deep winter of January.

Farmer’s Markets are a great way to find locally produced fruits, vegetables, meats and other products. These markets are often the only way to find heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables that our forefathers took for granted. You will also generally find more variety if you are looking for Organic or hormone/pesticide free food.
Continue reading “Farmer’s Markets”

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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”

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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!)

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Prepping example on 18 Kids and Counting 4/7 on TLC

Tomorrow night, April 7th TLC will be showing a new episode of 18 Kids and Counting.

In case you aren’t familiar with the show, here is a brief description of this reality show. Michele and Jim Bob Duggar are the parents of a traditional Christian family. After 20 years of marriage, they have had 18 children with only one set of twins. They manage to afford this large family by being frugal, wisely investing the money they do have in money making properties and businesses and always paying cash for all their purchases. If they don’t have enough money to buy something, they save and buy it later or do without. All of their children are also home schooled.

What does this have to do with prepping? Continue reading “Prepping example on 18 Kids and Counting 4/7 on TLC”

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Gardening resources (local and mail-order)

Gardening in Utah can be a wonderfully enjoyable and productive experience. Knowing how to get started however can be a major deterrent for many people. Fortunately, there are a number of local resources we can rely upon in order to help us to get started on the path to productive, self-sufficient gardening.

After doing some research myself, here’s my garden fertilized and tilled, ready for the first planting next week:

2009_garden_ready
If you are interested in getting started, keep reading for some recommendations on local resources.
Continue reading “Gardening resources (local and mail-order)”

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The Surveillance Self-Defense Site

As an admitted geek, I have often tried to help people in understanding ssd-1the importance of information security, especially when it comes to data storage and transmission.  From what kind of software you run, to how you communicate with others your data can be vulnerable.  From employers to government agencies, neighbors to hackers, what you say and keep can be taken and used in ways that you don’t want.  But teaching everything people should know to keep themselves safe is often a long process, and something I often have to revisit to remind people. Continue reading “The Surveillance Self-Defense Site”