Could Global Warming Release Smallpox

Could Global Warming Release Smallpox? A team of French and Russian researchers recently found a small amount of smallpox DNA in 300-year-old frozen mummies from Siberia. The small amount of smallpox DNA they found is said to be quite harmless. But it makes me wonder what nasty things may be hiding in the frozen arctic. Nasty things just waiting for the warmer climate to release on an unsuspecting world. Who can say? 

Silhouette Targets for Shooting

I just bought some great shooting targets today for target practice at our local gun club. I like the first one and my wife chose the second. If you need to get out and do some target shooting to hone your skills, you might want to try these for your practice


50 - Pk. Silhouette Targets 50 - Pk. Anatomy Targets

Frankenstorm - A Tip For Storing Water

I hope everyone came through Hurricane Sandy and Frankenstorm with no problems. I also hope you were all prepared with a minimum 72 hours of food and water and that your car was gassed and ready to go.

White Orange Juice Containers of Water

Here's a little tip for those who don't have much room to store food, water and other supplies. Fill some jugs HALF-FULL with water  (I use a 2 L pop bottle and 4 L empty orange juice containers) Put those jugs of water in your freezer, filling up all the empty space. Use 500 ml empty water bottles if you can't fit a big jug or bottle in.

When the water is frozen, put them in your refrigerator. Put MORE in the freezer and when those are frozen, leave them there.

If your power goes out the jugs and bottles of water will help keep your food cold and thus be available to eat. If you run out of water you can defrost the frozen jugs and bottles and bingo, there's fresh clean water for drinking.

And if you happen to have empty space in your freezer, keep some jugs or bottles of water in there all the time, don't wait for a storm warning. This will not only provide you with instant water and a method of keeping food cold, it also saves energy because a full freezer doesn't have to work as hard.

Brain-eating amoebas kill 10 in Pakistan

A waterborne, brain-destroying species of amoeba has killed 10 people in Karachi, Pakistan, this year, prompting local water officials to increase the amount of chlorine in the city’s water supply and advise residents to use sterilized water when performing a Muslim ritual which involves cleansing the nostrils.

This brain eating amoeba is typically found in warm bodies of fresh water, such as ponds, lakes, rivers, and hot springs. It is also found in soil, near warm-water discharges of industrial plants, and unchlorinated swimming pools. There is no evidence of this organism living in ocean water.
It can invade and attack the human nervous system. Although this occurs rarely^, such an infection nearly always results in the death of the victim. The case death rate is estimated at 98%

This is yet another reminder of the importance of having a clean supply of water in your survival pack.

You can read more at


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri

or

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/10/brain-eating-amoebas-kill-10-in-pakistan/

The flip of earth's magnetic field is overdue

It has happened before - the geological record suggests the magnetic field has reversed every 250,000 years, meaning that, with the last event 800,000 years ago, another would seem to be overdue.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Lost+migration+flip+earth+magnetic+field+overdue/7342153/story.html#ixzz28WXRXMVz

Zombie Bees Spreading to Various Parts of N. America

Zombie Bees in British Columbia Canada! And Washington State, California, Oregon and N. Dakota.....


“Zombie bees” are infected with a parasitic fly that causes them to fly erratically at night until they die.
They have recently been confirmed in Seattle, and earlier in Oregon and South Dakota. Browning may have made one of the first unconfirmed sightings in B.C.

The condition was first discovered by San Francisco State University biologist John Hafernik in 2008. The bees are infected when an adult female fly injects eggs into the bee’s body. When they hatch into maggots, the bee is eaten from the inside.


Continue reading about the spread of Zombie Bees in British Columbia

Read about Zombie Bees spreading in Washington State

And Zombie Bees Spread to California

Check out the website, zombeewatch.org. There are instructions for collecting the bees and watching for the signs of infection.

Where next? Do you agree that strange things are happening in the world? Time to prepare for the worst but hope for the best in my opinion.

How Much Water Do You Need & How Fast Can You Get It?

An adult needs between 3 to 5 litres of water (2 to 3 quarts) each day to survive. It's a good idea to plan on 1 gallon per person (2.3 Litres) daily. This allows for extreme heat or physical labour conditions when you need more water.

We save 1 gallon orange juice containers, wash them out well with hot soapy water, then fill with cold tap water. Since we live in a very cold climate in winter we can't store them outside so we can't keep as many as we'd like.

Right now we have 26 1-gal. jugs filled with water, and more empty clean ones hanging in the barn, ready for use. So that gives my wife and I 13 days of water.






Three Weeks of Water in Orange Juice Containers & 5-Gallon Jugs

On top of that my wife has filled 4 5-gal plastic water jugs (the kind you buy at Wal-Mart or when you are buying water at a water depot) and we store those in a closet. Those larger bottles give us 20 gallons, enough for another 10 days. So we have 23 days of water for each of us.

Why do we bother filling those big jugs? Well, they still take up room even empty. Yes we could put them in the barn or garage but they would likely have mice or squirrels running on top of them. That means we'd want to disinfect them before we filled them.

It Takes Four Minutes & One Person to Fill One Empty Jug

Also we tried a little experiment this morning. The jugs won't fit under our taps in any sink or bathtub. So one adult has to stand there and hold the bottle at an angle while it fills in the tub, or hold the spray nozzle at the kitchen sink to fill one.

And each bottle took us 4 minutes to fill. If we wanted to fill 4 empty 5-gal bottles it's going to take 16 minutes and tie up one adult! We might not have that much time or we might have other urgent tasks that need doing.

So we fill them ahead of time and store them in a closet. You can see that we actually have room for 4 big jugs and about 5 or 6 smaller orange juice containers in this one closet. It's not a big deal to give up that little bit of space to be prepared.

If you're wondering where the rest of our filled orange juice containers are, my wife puts them on shelves in a basement room which is cool and dark. We have a closet in the basement that we could use too if we want to have more handy.

It Can Happen Anywhere - Are YOU Prepared?

A telecommunications failure in the Yukon has pushed many communications services in the territory right off the grid. It started with a power outage in Whitehorse on Wednesday night.

When the lights came back on about four hours later, telecommunication circuits began to crumble, cutting off phone, cellular phone, Internet and other services within Whitehorse and as far away as Yellowknife, NWT, and Fort Nelson, B.C.

Because 911 service is unavailable in Whitehorse, additional officers have been put on the streets so citizens can flag them down to report problems.

Yes it's the Yukon but don't think for a moment this can't happen to you. Are you prepared?

Do you have food and water stored? Medicines? Do you have a plan - either bug-out or bug-in? Does everyone in your family know what to do in an emergency situation? Take a look at the blog topics on the right and start reading if you want to be prepared for any crisis situation

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/20/yukon-power-outage-forces-territory-off-the-grid/

Is a volcano a threat to you

Many people on earth worry about volcanos. However they tend to be people who live near a known active volcano. In reality we all need to be concerned with the possibility of our lives being disrupted by a volcanic event even if we live in places that have no volcanoes. Last year's eruption in Iceland was a tiny event in the middle of nowhere yet it shut down air traffic in Europe for days.

Read more at

http://www.greenprophet.com/2012/09/atlantis-volcano/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49037141/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Make sure you're prepared!

Ever Wanted to Zombify Yourself?

Zombies by Byron Rempel. Image used here with his permission

Don't miss out on this great opportunity. Byron Rempel of IDrawZombies.com can turn a photograph of you (or anyone else) into a zombie portrait.

Rempel was featured last week in Undead and Loving It in The National Post for his project 1000 Zombies.

For every minimum donation of $10.00 he will create a zombie of your choice. You get a high resolution scan of your zombie to keep, and you can pretty much do anything with it except make money from it. So you can put the image on a t-shirt for yourself or as a gift, but you can't sell t-shirts with the image.

You can fund a zombie by making a paypal payment to idrawzombies@hotmail.com  Check his  1000 Zombies page for full instructions and details. I just ordered some zombified paintings of family members earlier today and am looking forward to seeing what Byron does with the photos I sent.

Just think of the possibilities - frame your image and hang it on your wall, put it on a t-shirt, have a zombie mug made for your significant other, get a book bag printed with the image and more.  And what a great opportunity to be one of the horde without actually being undead.

So check out Byron and his zombies on his website.  Join the horde! You can also  find Byron on his Google+ page.

Growing Food: Gardening in Small Spaces

Ya gotta think outside the box! If you live in an apartment or in a small house in a big city with very little lawn or garden space, you can still grow food to dehydrate or preserve for emergencies.

Just check out this photo on the left. My wife grows all her herbs on our back deck but we've never branched out into growing tomatoes or zucchini or other plants there. We have an unused front porch too where no one ever sits! This photo has me thinking more creatively too. Guess what I'm going to be trying next spring?

For those with too much direct sun on the patio I've been advised that 4 bamboo stake/poles and a few yards of muslin will make a nice sunshade - lets light through, doesn't let the hot sun scorch the plants.

Easy Ways to Save & Store Water for Emergency Survival

This is a 3.78L (almost 4 quarts) jug that used to contain orange juice. Every time I finish one, I wash it well and fill it with tap water. Then I add it to my water storage for emergencies.

An adult needs between 3 to 5 L of water daily to survive. This jug has enough water to keep me alive for one day.

This is one of the best ways to make sure you have enough water in an emergency.

Below you can see enough water to keep one adult alive for 5 days (5 jugs).

Yes they take up room, but they can go on shelves in a closet, on the floor of a closet, in a basement room, or if you don't have snow and freezing temperatures, you can store them in a garage or barn or even on your porch.

I'm experimenting this winter with filling some 3/4 full (to allow for expansion) and putting them in my barn.

Last winter I tried using the disposable containers you can buy for water coolers but they cracked. I think I might try the tougher non-disposable ones this year.

We have other stores of water too. My wife keeps 4 of the water cooler jugs filled and in a closet. We also have several trays of bottle water and try to never let them get below two extras in the house at all times.

But the orange juice containers are so handy we have about 35 filled and stored now, plus about 2 dozen empty ones strung on a bungie cord in the barn. We can quickly fill those if we have warning of a disaster possibility. And we're adding more every week each time we finish a jug of juice.

Are You Prepared for Isaac or Other Emergencies?

As Tropical Storm Isaac approaches Louisiana, I spotted this in the newspapers

Gulf residents started stocking up on supplies and securing their homes. In New Orleans, which sits below sea level, long lines formed at some gas stations and in Gulfport, Mississippi, people crowded supermarkets to buy bottled water and canned food.

Long lines at gas stations.
People rushing to stores to buy food and water.

Will this be you? Or do you have at least 3 months of food and water stockpiled? Do you have an emergency bug-in plan in place? Do you have a bug-out plan and bug-out bag ready to go?

I hope you are prepared. Don't get caught up in the panic that can take place when disaster strikes.

Dehydrate Your Foods!

My wife dehydrates leftover vegetables and fruits. So here she is to tell you all about it.

Dehydrating Apples

Hi. I'm a huge fan of dehydrating food. You know how you buy celery but only use a little bit and the rest wilts and you end up throwing it out? Well I cut off what I'm going to use and then I immediately dehydrate the rest! I save the leaves for making soup - just wash and dry them and toss them in a freezer bag into the freezer.

Sometimes I buy bruised fruit, like bananas, on sale, then I dehydrate them. I have two dehydrators and have also used my oven in a pinch (but you have to buy the mesh mats or the food falls through the oven racks)

I've dehydrated bananas, apples, lemons, rhubarb, carrots, celery, potatoes, brussel sprouts, cabbage, yams (sweet potatoes), zucchini, cherries, mushroooms, bell peppers, and all kinds of herbs including parsley.

Dehydrated Rhubarb

Dehydrated Brussel Sprouts

I store my dehydrated foods in sterilized glass jars. I use leftover jars from other foods - salsa jars, herb bottles, spaghetti sauce jars, etc. When I say sterilized I mean put 'em in the dishwasher on sani-wash.

Then I keep the dehydrated food in a dark cupboard. I'm running out of room so have to find another dark spot. A closet works fine.

There's two great things about dehydrating food for emergency food supplies - they last a long time and they take up very little room. You can see how much room 24 brussel sprouts took up once I dehydrated them! To cook 'em just rehydrate overnight or toss directly into your pot.

Always Carry Some Cash for Emergency Power Outages

I was reminded again today of the importance of having some cash on hand at all times. I was in the grocery store getting a few things when all of a sudden the lights went out.

Now the lights being out was not really a big deal but the problem was no one could pay for anything.

We have all fallen into the no cash trap. We have wallets full of plastic that has no value as soon as the electricity stops flowing.

So always carry some cash. You may need it.

Be Ready To Cross The Border as Your Bug-Out Plan

If you live within a few hundred miles of another country you may want to consider the idea of crossing the border.

Now crossing a border in a disaster is generally not a good idea as it involves all kinds of potential problems but one must consider the possibility that a situation could arise that would necessitate such a move.

So with that in mind it's always a good idea to keep your travel documents in good order and keep some foreign cash on hand.
If you live in Canada you will want some US dollars. Living in USA you'll want Mexican and Canadian money. I'm sure you get what I'm talking about

Another good idea if you live close to the border is to investigate locations for crossing without documents. I am not suggesting you break the law but if your life depends on it you would be wise to have a plan.

Defending Your Home, Food & Family With a Handgun

As promised in my blog post on defending your home, food and family, here's the last of my suggestions for your must-have weapons.

  A hand gun. A hand gun is a great addition to your home defense plan. When your shot gun or rifle is out of ammo or craps out on you it's great to have a handgun of some kind to fall back on. I say fall back on as a handgun is not the best choice for home defense. A hand gun is a last ditch weapon for when you have nothing better. Handguns are much harder to use effectively and have really limited range.


Choice of Manufacturer & Ammo is Important
Now as to what kind you get that's up to you. Just stick to a well known manufacture. Ruger, Colt, Smith and Wesson or one of the others. And stick to a common caliber like 9mm. .40cal. 38special. 45auto or the like. I love my old .455 Webly but it would be really hard to find ammo for it in an emergency.

My gun of choice is my CZ75. It's a great gun and it fits my hand like a glove. I have mentioned how important it is to pick a firearm that ammunition is readily available for. It should be said that this is of course much more important in a long term survival situation than it is in the short term. If you are only planing for the short term than you may feel that a few boxes of ammo are fine and you are probably right.

Any gunfight you find yourself in will probably be over quickly with only a few rounds fired. Long gunfights are rare. Most only last a few seconds before someone runs away or is shot. For proof of this look at how much ammo your average police officer carries. It's not much.

 One other firearm I like
 In a long term situation you would be wise to have a .22. I myself like the Ruger 10/22. I think it's the best on the market. The .22 my not be the best self defense firearm in the world but it does have a few good points for self defense that are worth mentioning.

#1 the gun itself is cheap.

#2 the ammo is cheap. And as the ammo is cheap you can practice shooting it a lot and you can stock pile so much of it you can afford to waste it. Wasting ammo can be a useful defensive tactic. Large volumes of fire can deter potential aggressors. Some people call this spray and pray. I call it spray to make them go away.

#3 low noise and recoil. Because of the low noise a .22 will attract less attention. The low/no recoil makes accurate shooting easy. It's easy with a .22 to put all your rounds into the target really fast. And it's better to hit the bad guy 2 or 3 times in the chest with a .22 than it is to miss him with your M14. And of course the .22 is great for hunting small game to put some meat on the table.

Free Storage Containers for Emergency Survival Food Stores

One of the things every Prepper needs is good airtight storage containers for storing food.

Now you can go purchase containers but that gets expensive. So to save some money I have found a good source. Restaurants.

Many restaurants order food in bulk. Thing like pickles and fetta cheese. Often this stuff comes in nice air tight food grade pails that are just tossed out after use. I have one restaurant that gives me one large pickle pail each week for free and another that gives me all the pails I want for $1 each.

Caveat: the pails are not clean. I do have to spend a few minutes washing each one out but I figure the savings more than make up for my time.

So ask around at your local restaurants. You might be surprised at what you can get.

Oh one more thing - make sure the pails are completely dry before you put food in them!

I have no money so I can't prepare for emergency survival - wrong!!

I can not tell you how many times I have had people say I want to prepare but I can't afford to. Well you can. And you don't need to spend a lot. In fact depending on your lifestyle you would be amazed at how much you can do for FREE. All it takes is a little thought a little effort and a little time.

So over the next little while I am going to give you a few little ideas that can help you put together a little stockpile of goods to give you a fighting chance.

So today's tip. Restaurant and fast food extras. In today's society most of us frequent Coffee shops or fast food places on a weekly or even daily schedule. I myself go to the coffee shop almost every day. So one simple thing that I do is grab an extra sugar or some other little thing that goes with my order.

Now before you freak out and call me a thief let me explain that I am not suggesting you go in and fill your pockets. I do not take anything that I am not entitled to use. For example when you purchase a coffee you are entitled to use a few packets of sugar. I always had three in every coffee. So in the interest of my health ( to much sugar is not good for you) I have cut back to 2. But the third one comes home with me.

After a year of doing this I now have over 300 packets of sugar. Thats about 1/2 a years worth of your daly need of sugar for an adult.

Of course sugar is only one small part of it. I save everything I can get my hands on. Extra packets of mustard and catsup (ketchup) that come from fast food places. The little packs of stuff like soy sauce, hot mustard, fortune cookies etc that come from the Chinese food place. It's incredible how it piles up over time.

Now if you are willing and don't mind the jokes and funny comments you may have to put up with I have discovered an additional little trick. Enlist your non-Prepper family and friends. I now have several people who are not preppers and think the entire thing is quite silly saving me all their extras. Yes they poke fun at me. But I don't care. Take a look at the photo of what I have gathered myself and from friends in just 2 weeks.

As you can see it's a lot of the basic things one needs to sustain life. I have salt, sugar, fat, carbohydrate and protein. This little pile would keep me alive for several days at least.

I made a list of what I save and what it's good for.

Packets of salt. An adult needs 4 of these little packets per day. That's assuming it's your only source of salt. If you are getting some in your other foods then you need less. Salt is essential for life. Without it we die.

Packets of sugar. Collecting a packet a day will give you 2 kilograms in about 10 months.

Restaurant candies. They have sugar. And they're great little morale boosters in an extreme survival situation

Catsup (Ketchup). It has salt, sugar and carbohydrates. It is also a good source of Vitamin C.

Peanut Butter. It has fat, salt, iron, vitamin E, protein and some other good stuff.

Honey. Has sugar. Lasts forever if it's pure honey. A nice way to add variety to your daily diet.

Mustard. Has salt and a tiny bit of protein.

Black Pepper.  This spice is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Vitamin C, Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin K, Iron, Copper and Manganese.

Strawberry Jam. It has less good stuff in it than one would think but it's high in sugar and it sure tastes good.

Plum Sauce. Good for Vitamin A, C, Calcium and Iron. This food is high in Sodium which normally is a bad thing but in an emergency survival situation, guess what? We need salt to live!

Soy Sauce. Will last forever as it's mostly vinegar. A great little extra to change the boring daily rice you'll be eating!

Hot Chili Sauce. Same as Soy sauce but it may not last as long

Vinegar. Lasts forever, excellent disinfectant, good for bartering, good as a cleanser and a medical necessity. It's an all-round powerhouse. For more info on it's miracle properties, see

Vinegar, The Magic Food, Medicine and Cleanser for Survival

Fortune Cookies - will never go bad unless they get wet. They're sweet and they're carbs, sort of  a pasta wannabee. And - in an extreme survival situation it might be a morale boost to have a sweet cookie that has a fortune inside. You can also play the old game of everyone reads their fortune out loud and you add the phrase "in your pants" Believe it nor, this is quite funny in normal times, imagine how funny it would be in a tough situation.

This is my favorite site for nutrional information on pretty much everything, including spices!

So start saving up the extras we all toss out. You may be glad you did.

West Coast Earthquake Hazard - Are You Prepared?

Are you prepared? Do you have your emergency food and water supplies for at least 3 months? Get your plan for a disaster ready now! Don't wait until disaster strikes. 

Two separate geological studies suggest the earthquake hazard in the transboundary region of the Pacific Coast of North America — including southern British Columbia — is significantly greater than previously believed, with both teams of U.S. scientists urging heightened readiness for a future offshore “megathrust” event that could compare with the one that triggered Japan’s catastrophe last year.

In one study, a 13-year, comprehensive analysis of the Cascadia earthquake-prone zone between Vancouver Island and Northern California, a team of researchers led by Oregon State University earth scientist Chris Goldfinger concluded that the “clock is ticking” ahead of a potentially devastating earthquake in the region within the next 50 years.

Read more

Ebola outbreak in Uganda said to be under control

World Health Organization officials says that authorities are halting the spread of the deadly Ebola disease. At least 16 people have died so far in this latest outbreak.

Ebola was confirmed in Uganda on July 28, several days after villagers started dying in a remote village. Ugandan officials were at first slow to investigate possible Ebola because the victims did not show the usual symptoms, such as coughing blood.

This is the fourth known outbreak of Ebola in Uganda since 2000, when the disease killed at least 224 people. Ebola is extremely infectious and kills its victims quickly.

Cheese Preserveration FAIL!

On August 1st my wife started an experiment to preserve cheese in a trial run for a survival situation. You can read about it here

It was looking good until Day 6, when she notice some white spots forming on the cheese in the preserver. Day 7 - well, see for yourself!

The block of cheese in the preserver with the correct preservers, is mouldy! Epic fail. But most surprising to us was that the block of cheese she left out on the counter, is fine!

There is no mould on it anywhere.

Next step is for her to order cheese wax and wax some blocks of cheese to see how long that will keep the cheese fresh.

Global warming is a concern for preppers

With all the freaky weather the World has been experiencing the last few years it has become apparent that any one who is concerned about preparing for the future must add the effects of possible climate change into their plans.

How each person prepares for climate change depends on many factors. The most important of course being where you live.

We must each look at our location and think about what effects global warming is likely to have in our area. For example Florida is likely to experience more Hurricanes, flooding, extreme heat etc. The Midwest may get dryer and hotter and become more desert like.

We must also look at and prepare for the effects that climate change could have on the population and what the results could be.

One of the biggest problems with climate change is the devastating effect it may have on agriculture. Farmers all over the world rely on predictable weather. The farmer must know what the weather in his area will be like so he knows when and what to plant. But it seems that one of the affects of climate change is weird and unpredictable weather leading to crop failure. Now it is true the crops fail in one country or another almost every year. However in the modern world we are able to move food around all over the world with ease, so a crop failure in one country is not that much of a problem in the big picture.

However climate change opens up the possibility of world wide crop failure. If crops were to fail all over the world it would lead to mass starvation in poorer countries and possibly even starvation in some of the more wealthy countries. If crops were to fail 2 years in a row then you would have mass starvation every where.

We must also remember that starvation on a mass scale brings with it a host of other problems. Crime goes up. Populations start to move as they look for food. Governments can fall. You get an increase in all kinds of disease. And hungry countries may even go to war over limited resources. The list of bad things goes on and on.

So if you are prepping I would advise you take climate change into consideration. You may be glad you did.

Preserving Cheese in an Emergency Survival Situation

This is an experiment my wife is trying. She bought an antique Cheese Preserver and is giving it a try.

 I'm not sure what the point is but she says if there's an emergency survival situation and we have cheese (or we make our own from our goats) she wants to know ahead of time what she should do to make the cheese last the longest time possible.

 So she put the vinegar, salt and water as directed on the lid in the container. Then she took a block of cheese and added that.

 Lastly she put the lid on and has been removing the lid for a few minutes each morning (again, as directed on the preserver. She also put a similar block of cheese on a plate, open to the air and is using that as her comparison.
Which cheese will last longest before it goes mouldy and how long will the cheese in the preserver last?

We're on Day 4 and the only change is a kind of split in the cheese and it looks like it's leaking. She's also going to try waxing cheese and has ordered red wax from an online company. We'll try that as an experiment too although we're both pretty sure the waxed cheese will have a much longer shelf life.

Watch the news. It's important.

Watch the news, people. You can stockpile food. You can store extra water. You can buy guns and ammo. You can turn your house into a fortress. But the cheapest and easiest thing you can do is simply be aware of what is going on in the world.

Now it's true that some disasters (like earthquakes) come out of nowhere and you just have to deal with it. However many times we have at least some degree of warning ahead of time. The people who were caught off guard in Huricane Katrina had plenty of warning that the storm was coming.

And even in situations that give no warning of the initial event, being informed can keep you from getting caught up in the aftermath. I have read many stories over the years of people who are not involved in the disaster who actually stumble into it simply because they were unaware any thing was going on.

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is make a cup of tea and read the online news. When I am in the car I have the radio on. If I see clouds in the sky I listen to the weather. The last thing I do at night as I am climbing into bed is to take one last look at the online news.

Stay informed. It may save your life.

15 Reasons You Should Stockpile Honey

Honey is another great staple to store for survival and emergency planning. There are 15 uses for honey:

1. Skin moisturizer
2. Antiseptic
3. Acne Removal
4. Energy Booster
5. Immune System Booster
6. Enhances Vitamin A
7. Improves Blood Flow
8. Helps Sore Throats
9. Colon Damage Prevention
10. Parasite Remover
11. Burn Remedy
12. Antibacterial Solution
13. Relaxant
14. Helps prevent Cancer and Heart Disease
15. Treat Diabetic Ulcers

Read more details on 15 Uses for Honey and find out how to use it for each of the 15 suggestions above. Mix it with other ingredients, drink it, lather it on your skin -- find out how to use it in this article.

Weapons: Defending your Home, Food & Family with Light Carbine or Rifle

As promised in my last blog post on defending your home, food and family, here's #2 of my suggestions for your must-have weapons.

A light carbine or rifle

SKS

There are hundreds of firearms in this category and many of them are excellent. So I will simply tell you what I like and you can make up your own mind.

The SKS. If money is hard to come by and for a lot of us it is then you can't beat the SKS. It's not the best rifle in the world but you can get one for around $100 bucks. That's an incredible price for a good solid rifle. And it has the added benefit of the availability of cheap ammo. You can get crates of the stuff for a few hundred bucks.

VZ58

The VZ58. I am a big fan of the VZ58. It's a great rifle and you can get one at a great price. There are a few different models and I won't go into that here but you should be able to pick up one for $500 to $800. It's a much better rifle than the SKS but as it fires the same ammo so you can afford lots of it. 

One other thing to point out about the VZ and the SKS is how tough they are. They are old school weapons made from steel and wood. They can take a lot of abuse and keep on going.

Beretta CX4 Storm

Beretta CX4 Storm. 

Now this little gun is totally different from the SKS and VZ. It's a modern design made with a lot of plastic parts and it fires pistol ammo. But I really like mine. It's light and handy with no recoil to speak of and it would be a fantastic weapon for defending your apartment or suburban house. The pistol caliber ammo is also suitable for hunting small game like rabbits and you could drop a dear or other large animal if you had to. Not that I would recommend it for large animals. 

One drawback is that it is an expensive little gun. At around $1000 to $1200 it's not something everyone can afford. But it's a great little gun.  Another nice feature worth mentioning is that if you are a fan of Beretta pistols you can get one that takes the same mags as the Storm. That can be really handy.

AR 15

The AR 15 family of firearms. A person could write an entire book on the AR 15.  All I will say is that it is an excellent firearm. It has lower recoil and is more accurate than the SKS and VZ58. On the down side it's a little more prone to breaking and it's requires a bit more maintenance. The ammunition is more expensive but it's available just about everywhere. It is also more expensive at around $1000 to $1200.

As I said before there are lots of great carbines and rifles. The AK 47 family. The FN FAL family. The Ruger Mini 14. The M14 family of rifles. The list goes on forever. I am actually a big fan of my M1 carbine and would have listed it but for the fact that the .30 carbine ammo is getting a little harder to find.

Next up will be #3 - the handgun

Weapons for Defence: 12 Gauge Pump Action Shotgun

As promised in my last blog post on defending your home, food and family, here's the start of my suggestions for your must-have weapons.

The 12 gauge pump action shotgun

Probably the most versatile and effective weapon ever invented. The 12 gauge pump can do more jobs than any other firearm. With a simple switch of the shells you load into it the shotgun can go from a bird or rabbit hunting gun to a devastating buck shot or slug gun. In fact the only thing a shotgun can't do is long-range shooting. 100 yards is about the most any of us can get out of a smooth bore shotgun. However In 99% of situations 100 yards is more than adequate to get the job done.

Another advantage of the 12 gauge shotgun is the availability of the ammunition. You can get it everywhere. Almost every farmer has a 12 gauge and a box or two of shells and if the store sells ammo you can bet they have shells. The 12 gauge can be a little bit hard on the shoulder if you are not experienced with it so you will have to practice with it. You can't just purchase one and stick it in your closet and expect to be proficient with it. But with a few hours practice you will be amazed at how good you can get.

Stay tuned for #2 - the light carbine or rifle

Defending Your Family, Food and Property in an Emergency Situation

Weapons. It's a sad fact of life that we sometimes need to resort to violence to protect ourselves and our property. With this fact in mind you need to think about having weapons to defend your perimeter from intruders. The most effective weapons are of course firearms but for those of you who can't get or don't want a firearm think about what else you can have on hand to defend yourself with. Things like.....

A baseball bat. A sword. A bow and arrow or crossbow. A flare gun. An axe. A big knife. A simple flame thrower ( I can show you how to make a simple one in just a few minutes ) Use your brains and imagination.

Firearms are the best weapons of course and I recommend that every one who is serious about survival should have at least one. What kind of firearm you choose to get is up to you. Everyone will tell you something different when it comes to what gun is best.

For now let me share with you the three most important types of firearms you should have in your arsenal:

1. The 12 gauge pump action shotgun
2. A light carbine or rifle
3. A handgun

I will explain each of these weapon choices in detail (pros and cons) in my next blog post, and I'll post photos so you can see what I'm talking about

Defending What You Have in an Emergency Situation

Defending what you have

So you are going to a lot of work to make sure you have all the supplies you need to weather the coming storm. Now it's time to start thinking about how you will defend what you have.

No one can tell you how to defend your place as only you know your unique circumstances. But there are a few general things that everyone needs to think about.

A Strong Defensive Perimeter

You need a strong perimeter. No matter how big or how small your perimeter is you must make it as secure as possible. Now perhaps your perimeter is only the walls of your apartment. Maybe it's the walls or yard of your home in suburbia. Or it's the fence around your 100 acres in the country.
The principle is still the same. You want to make it as secure as you possibly can to keep the bad guys out and you and your stuff safe.

Secure Doors & Windows

With that in mind start thinking about what you can do to strengthen your perimeter now and what you can do when the Zombies hit the fan. Look at your doors. Look at your windows. Look at your fence. What can you do to secure them. Extra locks? Bars on the windows? Some barbwire on your fence.

What can you have on hand to make them even more secure in an emergency? Big chains and padlocks? Heavy furniture pushed up against the doors and windows? Plywood to nail over the windows? Boards with nails in them to slow down attackers? There are hundreds of things you can do.

Do What You Can NOW, Not After the Crisis Hits

But you must start to plan it now. You won't be able to run to the store and get what you need in the middle of a disaster. And you may be too stressed out to think as clearly about what you need to do during a disaster.

And don't forget, you are planning what you can quickly do to strengthen your perimeter until you can fortify your dwelling even more or better. This is your Quick Plan for Defense.

Make Your Emergency Defense Plan

So make your plan and discuss it with others who will be there with you. Make sure everyone knows exactly what their job is to secure your shelter and your food stores.

We'll talk about weapons in my next blog post.

Making a Manual Pump for a Drilled Well for Water

 Do you know what this is? It's an essential part of our essential survival preparation.

We have a drilled well, so in any non-power emergency, we won't have running water. It would take a very long time to try to lower a tiny container and draw water up so I'll be building a manual pump.

I'll also have what I need on hand to build more than one in case one breaks.

We plan on 3 months at our home but if a crisis lasts longer or looks like it's long term from Day One, we have a GOOD plan (GOOD=Get Out of Dodge) and won't need a manual pump for a well.

Since you need to Prepare for the Worst and have multiple backup plans, that's exactly what we have.

This is part of our short-term (3 months or less) Survival Plan.

Planning Meals During an Emergency Survival Situation

So you've started stockpiling food - grains, beans, water, salt and other items. But have you planned meals? It doesn't do much good to simply store foods when you don't have a plan for cooking and eating.

What if I store lots of flour but then realized that i haven't thought much about what to do with that flour. I've got beans but nothing to put with them. Or I've got a food item that I could cook with electricity but it never occurred to me to figure out how or if I could cook it during a crisis when power may be out. What if I want to make tortillas and suddenly realize I haven't got an ingredient I need.

That's why we have a meal plan. My wife has planned meals for every day of the aftermath of any catastrophic incident (flood, earthquake, viral outbreak, EMP, tornado, ice storms, economic collapse, etc)

Planning what we will eat every day for breakfast, lunch, supper and snacks allows us to buy exactly what we need to prepare those meals. Here is my wife's plan, but the quantities will vary depending how many of our community make it to our agreed-on safety place, and how much food we have managed to store there ahead of time.

The list below has quantities for one adult assuming we are rationing food, and that most of our canned goods are gone. It is our basic meal plan which we hope to supplement either with larger quantities or other nutritious foods:

Our Basic Weekly Meals

Breakfast: 1 c. oatmeal, 1/2 tsp. honey, 1 slice irish soda bread, 1 cup of tea or coffee
Snack: 1 c. corn mush, 1/2 tsp. honey
Lunch: 1 cup soup broth with pasta and some dehydrated vegetables or fresh vegetables if available, 1 cornmeal dumpling
Snack: 1 c. corn mush, 1/2 tsp honey, 1 cup pine needle tea
Supper: 1 c. beans, 1 c. rice, 3 tortillas

This provides approximately 2300 calories per person per day. My wife is in charge of making sure we all purchase enough of each ingredient to make these foods.

Pine Needle tea will be available throughout each day in unlimited quantities as it prevents scurvy and is an excellent source of Vitamin C.

We also have planned special meals and treats. This will provide some variety in tastes and also be a small morale booster. It is important to plan and store such food items.

Our Special Meals:
1 night each week will be Kraft Dinner. We buy it on sale when it's 33cents per box.
1 night each month will be tuna with pasta for a tuna casserole (while our cans of tuna last)
1 night each month will be rice cooked in broth (a flavoured bouillon cube) with some of the dried vegetables my wife has been making with her dehydrator
1 night each week there will be a dessert of some kind

Friday night special: this will be a shot of liquor for each adult and chocolate milk for the children (using powdered milk)

Sunday afternoon will incorporate a short break time with one candy per person and some games or reading time.

Depending on the time of year we hope to be able to add apples from trees, rhubarb, fruit from wild bushes and vegetables from the gardens to supplement our diet.

We will also add foods found in the wild and any animals we can hunt or fish we can catch. And of course we have to have a method of cooking these foods for a large group. I'll talk more about that in another blog post.

Record Heat Wave Affects Millions Without Power

It's been a week of record high temperatures in much of N. America. Millions are without power after storms knocked out power from Georgia to Missouri to New York.

Imagine yourself in this situation. Power is out and doesn't look like it's going to be restored for a week or more. Are you prepared? Can you manage and be self-sufficient during this time? Or will you be one of those who has to go to a community shelter and depend on handouts?

If you're new to thinking about being prepared, or if you've been a prepper for awhile but want more tips and suggestions for food storage, defense, bug-out plans, bug-out bags,  food preparation during a survival situation, please read our articles on Zombie Apocalypse Survivor Blog.  Topics are on the right.

Don't be someone who has to sleep in a crowded shelter because you haven't got a survival plan or any food stored.

Epsom Salts - Amazing Emergency Supply item.

Epsom Salts are an amazing Emergency Supply item. Did you know that Epsom salts can be used for medicinal purposes, gardening and extending the life of a battery? Epsom salt has numerous health benefits as well as many beauty, household and gardening-related uses.

We stock Epsom Salts to extend battery life. With a solar panel like HQRP 50W Mono-crystalline Solar Panel 50 Watt 12 Volt in Anodized Aluminum Frame 10 Years Limited Power Warranty we can charge a car battery and then use it for lighting or other purposes. Epsom salts will extend that battery from 2 or 3 years to 4 or 5.

And we can use it in our First Aid Kit too.  Epsom Salts/Magnesium Sulfate 10lbs are available at Amazon.com

Bath Salts Drug Turns People into Zombies

Are bath salts turning people into zombies? A new powerful street drug called Bath Salts is causing unpredictable and violent behaviour in users.

Bath salts, a lab-brewed drug that unpredictably mimics a powerful combination of coke, meth, and Ecstasy, are suspected behind the naked face-eating attack in Miami that left a homeless man nearly dead.


They are suspected in the case of the New Jersey man who stabbed himself and threw his own intestines at officers.

Some reports:

Man skins himself alive while on bath salts

‘Bath salts’ drug believed to be behind violent assault on Toronto cops, arrests in Calgary

Bath Salts man due in Court in California shovel attack

Are these the zombies we should be worried about? Is this the start of the Zombie Apocalypse? You decide. 

Texas Man in Zombie Like Attack Eats Dog

There has been another bizarre “zombie-like” attack in the United States. The latest involves a Texas man who attacked several people, before brutally killing a dog and eating it, according to police.

These are the zombies we need to worry about if there's an emergency situation or crisis! If the economy collapses, if there's a horrific flood or earthquake or super volcano eruption. If there's any kind of collapse of society or a viral outbreak and people are starving because they didn't prepare... this is what we will have to defend our homes and families from.

Make sure your prepper plans include a defense plan. I'll talk about that in a later post and share my plans and ideas. Would like to hear yours!

You're Hunkered Down, But What's your Bug-IN Plan?

We've talked about bug-out plans and bug-out bags. But what if your plan is to stay put. Perhaps you are already in a safe place, a place that can be protected and has a stockpile of food. You still need a plan to maintain and protect your family and food stores.

Think about what you need in a worse case scenario.

                       PLAN FOR THE WORST AND HOPE FOR THE BEST.

Store a minimum of one year's supply of food.

Have a way of getting fresh water.

Have a way of heating your safe place. Cut firewood now and store it for an emergency situation.

Develop a method of hunting for game. Do you know how to hunt? Do you have the necessary tools? Can you skin and butcher game?

Develop a protection and security strategy. Figure out how you are going to defend your home. What kinds of barriers or protection can you quickly set up in a worst-case scenario? Do you have sandbags? Or some other method of bullet proofing your home?

Decide on a method of cooking meals. Make sure that you have items you need for whatever plan you decide is best.

Bring more trusted people into your community. If the worst happens you will not be able to protect and defend yourself, your family, your property and your food stores unless you have several people involved as support.

Hide food supplies in other locations that you can access if necessary. For example what if the government is still functioning and stockpiling or hoarding of food is illegal. Do you want all your food stores confiscated? Make sure you have other food storage locations just in case. If you need to hide water too, do it. If you live in an area where water sources are plentiful, be sure you have contamination tablets hidden with your food.

Also you should have a fall-back location in case your safe place cannot be maintained. Not only do you need food stored at your secondary location, you need to hide (bury) food and water along your escape route from your primary safe place to your secondary location.

Make sure that every member of your family or community knows what their roles are and what tasks they are to complete in order to secure your safety location.

Do you have ideas to contribute? Use the comment area of this blog to post them. If you like this post feel free to tweet it or send it to Facebook or Google+  Share the link with other preppers if you find this helpful.

Zombie Bullets - Real or Not?

Yep there really is such a thing.- Zombie Max™ from Hornady®

Straight from the Hornady website "Be PREPARED -- supply yourself for the Zombie Apocalypse with Zombie Max™ ammunition from Hornady®! Loaded with PROVEN Z-Max™ bullets...yes PROVEN Z-Max™ bullets (have you seen a Zombie?). Make sure your "bug out bag" is ready with nothing but the best!"


So what do you think? A gimmick? Real? Or do you believe this is nothing more than a very clever marketing campaign by Hornady?

What do we believe? Well let's just say that if you believe these are special bullets that will kill zombies, we've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn we'd like to sell you.

Preparing For an EMP with a Homemade Faraday Cage

An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse. If one occurs, it could knock out power grids for as long as one year.

That means your vehicle won't work. Your walkie talkies won't work. You get the picture.

To protect your electronic devices you need a Faraday cage.  But you can also make one. Here are some suggestions for a homemade Faraday cage

1. Buy a metal garbage can and store the devices in it. It should protect from the EMP surge.

2. Line a shopping bag or backpack with multiple layers of aluminum foil.

What's Your Bug Out Plan and What's in Your Bug-Out Bag?

Do you have a bug-out plan? If you are going to survive a disaster you need a plan - either stay put or leave. A GOOD plan, as in Get Out Of Dodge.

Your Bug-Out Plan
Today I'm going to talk about a bug-out plan. First, where is your safe place? Have you got one in mind? Do you have your primary route planned? What about backup routes in case roads are blocked or impassable due to weather or other problems. You might not be able to count on GPS or your iPhone so be sure you've got old-fashioned paper maps in your bug-out bag.

Make sure every family member knows your family's emergency signal - that is, what you are going to do if it's time to hustle and get out. Is it a code word? Is it a blast on a whistle or fog horn? Define each family member's task - and practice the drill. You should aim for 10 minutes or less for grabbing what you need and getting to your car.

Even little children can have a task. In my family, my son has trained his children in their tasks. The 7 year old's job is to help his younger brother grab warm outdoor clothing and boots even if it's summer, then get them to the front door. Their older sister knows she helps with the youngest.  Why warm clothing? Because he's prepared for a year or longer and they may need winter clothes later even if it's summer when the crisis happens.

Each child knows to grab their own bug-out bag (they call it a go-bag), one toy and get to the front door. There they wait for mom or dad to escort them to the vehicle.

You need a different plan for summer then you do for winter. Do you have a wagon for summer in case your car breaks down or is stuck somewhere? A wagon will allow you to pull younger children or bottles of water and bags of food. What about bicycles? And for winter you need a sled or toboggan in case you have to walk to your safe place. You could also pack snowshoes and make this a fun family activity ahead of time - learning to walk on snowshoes is exhausting and takes a bit of practice so why not plan some family snowshoeing outings?

Think about the weather and the geography of where you live. If you live in a big city you will want to plan a route that doesn't use the roads and highways that everyone else will be using. If you live in a deserted desert area, your choice of clothing and water will be very different from someone who lives in a rural snowy area.

Your Bug-Out Bag
You do have a bug-out bag for each family member don't you? A bug-out bag is a small backpack filled with essential gear and food to last you 72 hours or as long as it takes to get to your safe place.

What you put in your bug-out bag is up to you but experts recommend 3 to 4 litres of water per person per day. You will also need water contamination tablets in case you have to purify water from streams or lakes.

Non-perishable food is necessary - granola bars, trail mix, or MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) if you have them. Look for lightweight foods and be sure every family member has some in their personal bug-out bag in case you get separated. It's a personal choice as to how much food you need to pack.

Take sleeping bags if possible. Duct tape, ropes, a tarp and a good knife may come in handy if you have to abandon the vehicle and sleep outside. I like to have a small knife for things like removing a splinter, cutting string or rope, and a larger knife for defense, chopping small branches off of trees, opening cans etc.

Rain gear is essential. Be sure everyone has something they can wear in case you're walking - ponchos, even garbage bags with a hole cut for the head are better than nothing

Have some extra clothing already packed - socks, undies, pants, sweaters, shorts etc. Be prepared for all types of weather. Lots of extra socks are important as your feet may get wet if you have to walk.

Take any medication you need. Throw in some basic medical supplies - bandages, antibacterial ointment, pain meds, anti-diarhea meds etc.

If a weapon is on your list as a necessity, make sure you have ammo for it ready to go. Ensure that every family member who is old enough has training in gun safety if you are taking a weapon with you. Being safe is important!

Everyone should have a signalling device such as a whistle in their go bag, and once you are on the road, it should be on each person's body. That way if the group gets separated you can hopefully find each other. Teach your children what to do if they get separated from you. Pack a signal mirror and a foghorn or a flaregun too.

What else might come in handy? A compass, flashlight, matches, something for collecting and boiling water.... the list is endless. If it's winter, take some tea candles and a clean tuna or salmon can to put the candle in, so you can have heat in your vehicle if you end up sleeping there.

And don't forget cash. We suggest you have some cash hidden and handy in case of an emergency situation. Remember electronics may be down so that ATM machine isn't going to work. Stores and banks might be closed.

         BE PREPARED! BE SELF-SUFFICIENT! BE SAFE

Preppers Special Report: In-depth look at the prevalence of 'prepping' in the Ozarks

One in seven. According to a Reuters study, that's how many people worldwide who believe the world will end during their lifetime. Those numbers are backed up by a recent proliferation of doomsday websites and TV shows like National Geographic's Doomsday Preppers. They're devoted to those who believe the Mayan calendar supposedly ending this year means the world will end on December 21, 2012.


Oother preppers, like Springfield resident Vincent Finelli, laugh at the Mayan apocalypse predictions. But he, and fellow preppers that meet every week at a local Ziggie's, are very serious about being prepared for real life worst case scenarios.


Read More

Don't Make Excuses to Not Prepare for Emergency Situations

People often tell me they can't stockpile food for emergencies because a) they can't afford to or b) they have no room in their house/apartment.

Well I'm here to tell you how wrong you are!

Money and Budgets

Let's talk about money and budgeting for emergency survival preparedness:

Even if you can't budget $50.00 a month, maybe you can set aside $25.00 to purchase basic survival foods such as a bag of rice

Try buying one extra item each time you grocery shop. Buy one can of tuna (on sale of course) one week. Buy a box of cereal another. These are your Zombie Apocalpyse Supplies! Set them aside. Label them "ZA" or "Survival" or whatever you want to call them. Do whatever you need to do to start stockpiling food supplies for emergencies

Buy bruised fruit on sale (my wife got 20 bananas for $1.00 a few weeks ago) and then dehydrate it and store it.

I'm pretty sure that you can give up one or two cups of coffee each week to buy some food for survival and emergency crisis situations.

Lack of Space

My wife's amazing at finding spaces where she can store our emergency survival foods. Here's some of her ideas:

* Under the bed. Guess what - you can store a lot of bottles of water or cans of food under a bed

* In closets. Use the floor for boxes of food, then put your shoes on top. Move your purses off the shelf and put food there

* Inside empty containers. My wife collects antique tins. One day she realized that all the tins she had on display are empty. They're already taking up space so all she did was start storing candies, soap and other little items in them. You will need to have a sheet in your Survival Emergency Plans binder that outlines where every food item is stored

* Re-organize the Spare bedroom. You should consider turning your spare guest room into a ZA room. Why waste the space on a few guests a few times a year? Turn it into a storage room for emergency supplies. We started by stacking wine pails full of pasta, rice, corn, wheat etc between the guest bed and the wall. We quickly ran out of room so we added cheap plastic shelving in the same room. These hold small items like canned goods, sugar, honey, oil and so on.

We were still too limited space-wise so we got rid of the guest bed. Now we have a choice. We can eliminate the guest bed completely and visitors will have to get a motel/hotel room OR we can have pails of food/water with a mattress on top.

We could also go with empty rain barrels full of food or water instead of wine pails, then put a mattress on top. We'd fix it up so it looks good and put a long bed skirt over the pails so it doesn't look junky.

* Under the sink(s) You don't need all the junk that we all keep under the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Clean it out and store small food items that will not be harmed by moisture. We store soap, extra toilet paper, shampoos, dental supplies such as floss and toothpaste, as well as canned goods under our sinks. You can also store water there.

Dehydrating Foods for Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse

Ronco  5-Tray Electric Food Dehydrator

Dehydrating Rhubarb

Dehydrating fruits and vegetables is a great way to store nutritious foods for a Zombie Apocalypse. It's cheap and it's easy. You can buy a dehydrator for anywhere from $30.00 to $300.00. Yes the more expensive ones are faster and more efficient. But the cheaper ones work fine. We have both.

You can also use your oven as long as you can set it to 125'. Some ovens won't set that low. Ours has a special dehydrator setting. We bought mesh to cover the oven racks so the fruit and vegetable pieces don't fall through.

We use ours to dehydrate rhubarb, lemons, celery, potatoes, yams, mushrooms, cabbage, bananas, apples, zucchini and more. We pick fresh from the garden. We buy bruised fruit on sale. We dehydrate leftovers that were sure to be tossed or fed to our pigs.

Cut the Rhubarb

To dehydrate you need a sharp knife. There's other things you can use such as a shredder for cabbage, or a saline solution to stop apples turing brown but you don't have to have them! Just thinly slice your fruit or vegetable, put it on the trays, turn the dehydrator on to the correct temperature (usually 125-135' for fruit or vegetables) and let it go for 8 to 12 hours.

Check on the food after about 8 hours to be sure it's not over-drying. When it's hard or leathery, let it sit for a few minutes to cool then store in a clean glass jar. You don't have to buy fancy mason jars, just save and wash your jam jars, salsa jars, spaghetti sauce jars - whatever you have on hand.

Dehydrating foods to store for emergency situations is a space saver. Recently my wife took 10 cups of fresh rhubarb and dehydrated it. She ended up with 2 cups of dried rhubarb.

Label your jar with the name of what's inside, the date (we use month and year) and if you remember, the amount of fresh you started with. When you're ready to use the dried food, you will need to find out whether you leave overnight in water to rehydrate or toss it in as is and cook as dried or eat right from the jar.

Dried rhubarb for example rehydrates well if put in pan of water (you don't need much, just barely cover the dried fruit) and leave overnight.  When we do apples we sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on some so we can eat them as a treat. Experiment. Remember to try things out now so that when the Zombie Apocalypse hits you aren't left wondering what the heck you do with the stuff you prepped and stored beforehand.

Excalibur 3900 Deluxe Series 9 Tray Food Dehydrator - Black Here's the big 9-tray food dehydrator we use. It works great. It gives efficient all-round drying as there is a fan inside that circulates the hot air.

You don't get even drying in the cheaper dehydrators but we have one of those too. All my wife does is rotate the trays every few hours.


Caveat: I use the words Zombie Apocalypse tongue-in-cheek. It's a way of making us all sit up and take notice of what's going on in the world. Hopefully it will encourage you to get started on your Emergency Food Preparation and Survival Plan