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

An Emergency Preparedness To-Do List

If you don't have an Emergency Survival To-Do List, maybe it's time to think about writing one up. Figure out what you've done and what you still need to do to prepare for an emergency situation. 


What food have you stockpiled? What do you still need in the way of food for one year?


What about water? 


What about weapons?


What about gathering and storing firewood ahead of time? 


These are all things you need to think about as a Prepper.


This is not the same thing as your Emergency Survival Plan.  Your Emergency Preparedness Plan is what you create first. It's your overall plan of how you and your family and friends plan to survive a catastrophe. 


The To-Do list is what you're going to focus on in the next few months or during this year. For example our To-Do list includes the following:


* Buy more oats. We plan on breakfasts of Oatmeal each day and for a year's worth of such breakfasts we need a specific amount of oats. This year's focus is to reach our goal for enough oats for one year for 6 people. 
* Buy more corn - need to reach our goal of enough for one year for 6 people
* Buy more dried beans - need to reach our goal of enough for one year for 6 people
* Make a manual pump for our drilled well. The time to build this is now, not after a disaster. We need more than one.
* Cut and store firewood. Firewood takes time to cure and it takes time, effort and gas to power a chain saw to cut trees. The time to do this is now
* Make a root cellar. We have a work weekend coming up in July. Both my step-sons are coming up to help me dig out under the mudroom to make a small root cellar. We need it now so that not only is it done and ready but my wife and I can experiment with how best to use it to keep our vegetables and fruits for prolonged periods of time
* Buy more baking powder - this is something my wife has worked out that she needs to bake one Irish Soda Bread loaf for 365 days for 6 adults. 
* Extend the herb garden and rhubarb patch
* Plant squash and pumpkin this year in addition to last year's vegetables (zucchini, onions, peppers)
* Organize our available storage areas and figure out what items need to be kept in each. We have some climate controlled areas but we also have some with extreme fluctuations in temperature and humidity so we are starting to create a  list of what items can go where.  I'll go into detail on this in another blog post.


What's on your To-Do list? 

Naked Man Killed Eating Another Man's Face in Miami

Here's a timeline of the bizarre events that took place a few days ago in Miami when Police shot and killed a man eating the face off another man at the side of a major highway.


http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/30/2824430/timeline-here-are-the-key-moments.html


You've probably been reading the news stories about this. The headlines range from Miami 'zombie' face-eating attack video spawns dark humor, jokes on social media to Naked man killed after refusing to stop eating person's face to Zombie Attack in Miami, Man Killed While Eating Victim's Face 


It's pretty gruesome and police aren't saying much about the cause. The victim is still alive and in hospital. Conspiracy theorists are flooding forums with their ideas and it all makes for interesting reading. 

Doomsday Preppers - An Interesting Show

Are any of you watching Doomsday Preppers on TV? There are some good ideas and tips on Emergency Preparedness from some of the preppers. I have to say that some of them come across as total nutcases but that's just my opinion. Others are just regular folks, like you and me, who want to be prepared for any emergency survival situations.

I've been thinking about how the one guy made his own bows out of wood from the forest, and another made his own tomahawks. Both items can be used for hunting food or as weapons for defending your home and emergency food supplies.

One thing I hadn't thought about was cutting and preparing my firewood ahead of time. I've been pretty busy in other areas of emergency preparedness but need to get working on this. I'd like to have something that saws my cut and downed trees into logs a lot faster than me with a chainsaw though!

We've got other items on our To-Do list and my wife has a list in her Food Storage Inventory book of foods she needs to stockpile this year.

A To-Do list is a really helpful tool in preparing for emergency survival. I'll share ours in another post.

My step-son came up and took a one day Trauma Course which he shared with us as best he could afterwards. My other step-son is in the military and he's going to come up this July and teach us some radical first aid techniques that he's learned.  It's important to have a good First Aid kit on hand and to know how to use it. I don't just mean some peroxide and bandaids, I'm talking about being able to treat more serious medical problems. But that's another blog post!