Model 629 44 magnum and Glock 19 9mm

   A few days ago I was talking about my latest interest in firearms being that of the more practical variety. I thought I’d go flesh out that subject just a little more for today’s post. As we break into one of the hotly contested areas of prepping and before I tweak any one’s nose unnecessarily… I own firearms of both configuration and probably always will. It isn’t so much a case of one is good and the other bad or undesirable.

   As a serious prepper for many years, I’ve had the opportunity to stock up when the price was right and more importantly in the FAT years as aposed to the relative lean years many of us are experiencing now. These stockpiles can reach great proportions over a course of time and that’s what happened to me. Don’t lose heart you younger or newer preppers your pile’s will grow too over time! So, this is where I found myself as of late, big piles of stuff and much smaller piles of bank account. What to do? Like I said before I concluded that a degree of soul searching was in order as to what my current priorities were going to be?

Marlin Guide Gun 45-70

   I really didn’t know how my decision was going to come out… It would have been much easier to have just left everything as is, stored away for a rainy day sure to come along soon enough! I also was deliberating on a direction to take with my firearms collection, I’d been feeling that I may have the ratio of practical tool guns out of kilter with the more tactical in design? As you already know, I decided that I would focus a bit more attention and money on the practical preps that were lacking in my plans…

  

   The good thing was a significant profit could be made if I indeed decided to sell off surplus stores of guns and or ammo. Well, like I said, I already told you the other day I did eventually decide to sell off a number of duplicates from my collection as well as a huge amount of ammo. It took me nearly 2 years of contemplation before I began to make the phone calls and visits to the gun shows to move all of this inventory. It wasn’t exactly easy to see these items go as I know in my heart of hearts that I will probably never again be in a position to purchase this quantity of these particular items again…

 

   I decided that my focus would move more into the practical direction and I would use the profits to complete projects at the BOL and also add a few firearms to the battery. Obviously, practical is a relative term and means completely different things to each individual! My version of PRACTICOOL is a more broad approach, practical preps like woodstoves and practical guns like the Marlin pictured above. The woodstove speaks for itself but the Marlin may not. I’m looking at practical firearms as those that will fill their intended purpose on a more regular basis… Yes, I know that we all have our favorite AR or AK for the practical purpose of home defense against the MZB’s that WILL BE coming on one gloomy afternoon not to far in the future. Let’s agree that we’re on the same page about having a high capacity, round spewing rifle close at hand, everyone should! However, how much Zombie death have any of us brought in the recent years? Remember, it could happen but has it yet? For most of us, at least the preppers that I have been privileged enough to gain their confidence, have an unrealistic skew in our preps leaning toward the Tacticool! Let’s face it, AR’s are cool and lately there have been a gazillion (sounds like a number soon to be used to describe our national debt) companies popping up to sell us there version of awesome upgrades to an already great firearm… I venture to say that we all enjoy taking that favorite gun out of the safe and just holding it while we watch a favorite action movie. Come on, don’t try to blow smoke at me, you all know you do that!

 

   These Tacticool guns are great and I will probably always have more than my fair share of them around somewhere but lets get serious… Is that AR going to go out into the woods and bring back a rabbit? AR haters will always refer to it as a “mouse gun” but is it really? Of course not and it isn’t a rabbit gun either! How about using an AK for bear protection? Yes, I’d use any gun I happen to be carrying to protect myself from whatever threat came along but some threats and or uses are going to be more common than others… While at my residence in the suburbs, the 9mm will probably be perfect for the most likely threats I could encounter but out in the sticks at the BOL…?

 

   With the exception of the lapse of judgement the other day when discovering our BOL break in, I would be more likely to cross paths with a black bear or cougar than a hostile 2 legged threat. While my 44 magnum will certainly make short work of a man sized threat, my 9mm would be anemic against that same threat in the form of a hungry bear! Can you see where I’m going with this?

Bushmaster CAR15 .223

 

   The same logic could be used while looking at the the to do list… Yes, a 10,000 round stockpile of ammo is AWESOME or at least more than adequate in most people’s minds but will it keep me warm when the power goes out? What if the power goes out and stays out? Can I eat it or would I be better off having a large woodpile to feed the stove while I dig through my bursting pantry deciding what the “Prepper” family will have for dinner to go with the rabbit I shot while doing my afternoon perimeter inspection? I say of the most likely scenarios I see on the horizon, I’d be better off with the wood and pantry… Am I wrong?

 

   Something else that has me concerned is the “Preppers” that have only prepped the Tacticool way? Often, we preppers don’t know alot of others like ourselves from anywhere other than the internet. If those guys on the internet forums and even other supposed DOOMER blogs are any indication of what a prepper is suppose to look like… All guns and no food will make Prepper Pete a very hungry boy… I also believe that with a more balanced approach we serve our own survival needs much better. When we have adequate food and or the proper equipment to grow or gather more, we have a far greater chance of survival than if we are limited to attempting to take it from others…

 

   Alright, you say that this doesn’t apply to you as you wouldn’t ever try to take from someone else… Besides if all you have is an AK, it will take down a deer for you, right? It might under ideal circumstances… I don’t expect that we will be able to count on ideal circumstances and when you’re hungry I believe you will no longer have the moral fortitude to starve before you attempt armed robbery!

 

   As usual this post is nothing more than one preppers opinion and attempted justification of my own actions… I do think that my final decision to liquidate some overstocked items in favor of a more balanced survival approach will turn out to have been a wise decision, only time will tell! I’m willing to bet that there are others out there in our community that have been or maybe should be having these same conversations with themselves. If this post is nagging at you or causing you to think about something from a new perspective, don’t ignore it – act on it! You may find that you’re all set and no corrections need to be made but from my research there are far to many Tacticool survivalists and far to few of the Practicool variety!

 

Prepper

 

  

   I know that I’ve mentioned this popular concept on this blog before but do we all practice this exercise? “Store What We Eat and Eat What We Store”… Sounds simple enough, right? Alright then, let’s go look in our pantry’s right now and see what’s available? What’s going to be on the menu tomorrow and the day after that? I bet a lot of us will be getting hungry within the week!

   Many preppers just don’t get the food storage thing? I can’t understand it? This seems like the most obvious first step on the journey… Well, maybe second step, behind water… I’m actually guilty of being short on water storage myself… However, I do live in the rain capital of the United States or so it would seem according to our reputation. Seattle, Washington – sounds wet doesn’t it?

   Back to the food issue. I’ve received several emails from readers asking me what I think is the right amount of food to have stored? There’s no way that I could begin to accurately answer such a broad question for someone else. This is dependant on so many variables that it’s even a tough question for me to answer for my own families supplies… All I can say with authority is – “More Is Better”! I can’t think of a downside to having extra food available.

   Even if you wanted to have 5 years worth of food on hand at any given time, I personally don’t but say you did, I still wouldn’t have an issue with it. As long as you practice the store what you eat and eat what you store principle, you really can’t go wrong! Careful planning and rotation will need to be a priority though! Of course there are some foods that will need to have additional processing done to help them make it that long without spoilage.

   5 years of everyday food is a pretty good stretch. Although this is certainly possible, probably not practical…  I thought that I would share a bit about what we’re doing and or attempting to get done… A 1 year supply!

   Wait, don’t tar and feather me yet – I said if you wanted to have more, I would agree with you! I would even agree with you if you tell me that you don’t need more than a months supply! The only thing I’ll tell you and I don’t care if this offends anyone – HAVE FOOD STORED! Stored food is the same thing as money in the bank! Who doesn’t think it’s prudent to have more cash on hand than you are planning to use in any given month? Anybody? Well, storage food and most all of our preps are the same exact thing. Stored items in addition to those things we already know we’ll  be needing to make it through, on a regular basis.

   I wish I could say that we have the full 1 year supply stocked up now! We’re working on it and do have a substantial amount set a side. The approach we’ve taken is kind of a mixed bag. Lots of everyday stuff. You know, wet packed canned goods, pasta, rice and beans, etc. We do have some real long term storage stuff that I’m including in our totals, for the time being… I would like to get to the 1 year mark with just items that fit nicely in the – “Store what you eat” plan but for now I will settle for a years supply, even if it’s a variety.

MRE's

   When I first started seriously thinking about food storage, I went the MRE route. That’s Meals Ready to Eat, military rations… These weren’t the current offerings but the one’s available in the 1990’s. They were alright and as they became close to their pull dates, I ate them. Well, I should say, I ate a lot of them. I didn’t find them all that great but they certainly would fill the bill if anything had happened while they were the bulk of my food supplies. High in calories and edible…

   After having purchased this initial supply of MRE’s, I think I had a 2 week supply for myself and the family. I began working on some long term storage  foods. This was about the same time the Y2K hysteria began in earnest. Many small companies popped up to sell dehydrated foods in long term storage buckets complete with mylar liners. We purchased a healthy supply of these storables and extended the supply out many months… In addition, we always maintained a decent pantry of everyday stuff but that wasn’t something I looked at as food storage, at least not at that time.

   After the Y2K nonstarter blew over, I didn’t continue with any type of a regular food storage regiment. These Y2K era foods are still stashed away, I’m not counting on them heavily or even in my new 1 year supply goal. They’re roughly at the 10 year mark in age and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they are just fine but I’m not going to bet the farm on them. They came with an advertised estimated shelf life of 15-20 years, we’ll see… I plan to pop a few of the cans open and do a little show and tell with all of you in the near future… Any guinea pigs want to volunteer for a taste test?

   I felt fairly good about the food storage I had and didn’t make any big changes or much in the way of additions for a period of 5 years or so… By this time the original MRE’s had been mostly eaten and then I replaced a lot of them with the newest issue stuff I could find at the gun shows and out of the local penny saver type paper. I think we have a 8-10 day supply again and these have a few good years left on them before I think they will need to be rotated.

   Somewhere around 2006-07, we started to feel the prepper bug creeping in again… I’m sure you all know what I mean, you just get the feeling that some thing’s off? If you haven’t gotten that feeling for yourself and you’re curious what it feels like… Sit down for an hour or so in front of CNN and then see if you can find the TV program called “GANGLAND”. If this doesn’t help you get the picture, you’re probably reading the wrong blog? Anyway, we decided to do some additional stocking up. This was roughly the time frame of our renewed efforts on our BOL project as well!

Mountain House Freeze Dried Meals

   We, meaning mostly me – Mrs. Prepper is very supportive of the steps we’ve taken but leaves the details to me for the most part, began pricing some freeze dried Mountain House products… These are expensive but I was attracted to their advertised 25-30 year shelf life, something about making a purchase and not having to worry about them again for 3 decades. That sounded great, until we saw the amount of money required to make a significant dent in our years supply? To shorten the story a bit, we ended up purchasing a small supply to add to the pile but not as much as we may have if the price wasn’t an issue. We had tried these meals previously, having purchased them in the hiking section at the sporting goods store. We all liked the taste well enough and I feel pretty good about having this added variety in our supplies…

   This brings us to the bulk of our growing pile of food… The basics – rice, beans, pasta, oats and other dry goods. Rounding this all out is our supplies of canned food. A lot of these products are available through Costco and we’ve managed to keep a larger variety of the dry goods by shopping at the local restaurant supply houses. These places have a wide selection of the different beans and other legumes. These supplies are the real – “Store what you eat and eat what you store” items. We have made a change in mindset and began doing a lot more cooking at home with these basics. This is where I have to clarify, Mrs. Prepper has begun cooking a lot more with the basics, I do very little in the kitchen… I’m very spoiled and well fed too!

Dry goods - the basics

   Let me offer you also the “Silver Lining” to this food storage issue. With the exception of the long life freeze dried meals. Food storage is really not expensive. You are buying the food anyway, buying extra is a GREAT investment. Unless you’re careless and store your food where it could get wet or eaten buy mice, you can’t lose! You buy at today’s prices and have the security of knowing your family will eat. I don’t know about you but that is truly peace of mind. I look at the current state of affairs both Nationally and Globally and don’t feel any better today than I did back in 2006-07 when I started to really ramp up the preps. I actually feel far more pessimistic now than I did then… If I’m off base, somebody please let me know! Otherwise, I think that it’s only prudent to get our pantry’s in order – I think a storms a brewing and will be here eventually. Even if it’s only the inflation that is certainly coming, food bought at today’s prices will look like a bargain in tomorrows reality! 

   Don’t misunderstand me, this is a long road and will take most folks quite a while to achieve. I’ve said before I’ve been at this for quite some time and I haven’t made it all the way to my own goals. The last thing I want is to see anyone get discouraged, especially if you’re just starting! Slow and steady wins the race!

   It has to start somewhere… Add a couple of days supply each time you’re at the grocery store. Simply toss in an extra couple of this or that, you know the same stuff your buying to eat anyway! When you get home, mark the cans in black permanent marker with the date of purchase. Setup some shelves in the basement or even allocate a special shelf in the existing pantry and start filling it up. When that first one’s filled, transfer the contents to a Rubbermaid tub and start all over again. Just make sure you keep a good accounting of what you have and be sure those cans are dated so you can keep on a rotation schedule!

I guess this is really a FOOD FOR THOUGHT post if I’ve ever seen one…

Prepper

72 Hour Emergency Food

    Welcome back, Friday again? I swear I was just saying this to you yesterday? The time flies by these days and just won’t slow down, no matter what I do… I refuse to embrace this fact but will continue to work around the reality of it!

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   Alright, I have another product to talk to you about this week. This is the 72-Hour emergency meal kit from Mountain House. I think most of us are familiar with the Mountain House brand. They produce top of the line freeze dried meals for the backpacker crowd as well as us more Doomish preppers.

   Mountain House is known in our circles for their extremely long shelf life products. The bulk packed product in #10 cans, this is the size of a old school metal coffee can, has a 30 year shelf life. I don’t know about you but thats impressive to me. I don’t recommend that we put all our eggs in one basket by purchasing only these VERY long term products. To get that shelf life you pay the price – Top of the line and probably the most expensive product available.

(12) Meal envelopes per case

   Their product that is more main stream is used by hikers and back packers for the more important weight issues. These packages are almost weightless. They do take up space but save on weight, I believe the bigger of the concerns. These envelope style packages can be found at most any sporting goods store and generally in a wide variety of meals. Last I heard even Walmart was carrying these in most of their stores. The shelf life on these is rated at 7 years… It’s not the 30 you get from the cans but still more than adequate!

 

   The contents of this particular product, the 72-Hour emergency meal kit, are compossed of 12 of these lightweight pouches. (6) main dish entree’s, (3) Breakfast entree’s and (3) vegetable side dishes. They have a good variety of items represented, so at least you have a choice and shouldn’t have to eat the same thing each day. Not that you would get appetite fatique in the first 3 days but still I would suppose that having a choice in an emergency setting would be a plus…

 

   These meals are contained in their own cooking pot, dish. Meaning that you just add boiling water and allow to sit.  They only take a few minutes and then you can eat them right out of their packaging. This makes preparation and clean up a snap. I do think that this would be a huge bonus if it came down to using these someplace other than safety of your own kitchen. I see why these are a popular backpack meal. Ease of use and quick clean up would be handy on the trail.

 

   Now the down side or reality check… With all good things usually comes a trade off. These aren’t the cheapest products as I’ve already mentioned. Now for what you get in a fairly small buy it and forget it package they aren’t BAD but it can be done a lot cheaper for those of us on a tight budget. You do pay for the convenience factor! I will put a link to where these are products are available. Priced today at about $45.00, that comes out to $15.00 a day or $5.00 per meal. When I say meal, I am going off of the manufactures definition of meal.

 

    Moving right along to this “Meal” definition… This case of food would easily keep you alive in a 72 hour emergency but it is quite limited. If you are preparing for much more than a short term power outage or grab and go senario, you had better think again. These cases do have something to eat 3 times per day but the total calories only come to 3051. That only slightly more than 1000 per day. Yes, you can survive without ill effects but you had better plan to be doing a lot of nothing for those 3 days. If you think you will have to be doing anything strenuous or even walking for that matter, plan on adding additional calories!

 

 

 

Complete Nutrition Information on each case

    As you know we’re a family of three and have purchased several of these cases. I’ve seen them over the years but hadn’t added them to the stockpile until a year or so ago. I found a sporting goods store having a parking lot sale and decided to buy the last of the cases they had out. They were marked down, not sure why but everything in the tent was, so I got them for a good deal. These fill the role of extended short term storage foods in our plans. We have a good pantry stocked with everyday items as well for our first line food storage. If we found ourselves in a stop everything and grab the bug out bags situation, we could also quickly take these along to extend the bags range.

 

   I do have to give these a thumbs up! I’ll only do that though with the caveat of, don’t make these into anything more than they really are! If you have a hole in your preps these could fill it. Sometimes we find ourselves in unique circumstances and need something compact that you just don’t have to worry about for years, these will also fit that role. I think that at $45.00 per case, the expense is justifiable… If you haven’t tried these foods yet for yourself, this might be a way to sample a variety fairly cheaply, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed…

 

 

I found these available through Amazon.com at the following –

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-House-72-Hour-Emergency-Meal/dp/B000G2TOMM

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    I hope you all have a great weekend! I’m off to the BOL as soon as I close the office. I might even just take it easy and enjoy the scenery this weekend? Try to catch a few episodes of “Gang Land” and dream up something interesting to talk about next week! See ya!

 

Prepper

 

 

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Bean, Beans and more Beans

So, I was going to show all of you pictures of my pantry… See how huge it is. Almost looks like I have a warehouse full of goods, doesn’t it? It looks like that because it is a warehouse. These photos are from a local restaurant supply chain, “Cash and Carry”.

 

   This supply house is just one of I’m sure a dozen in our area. I just happen to be a shopper here from time to time and snapped a few shots to illustrate some points in today’s post. These restaurant supply stores are often over looked by our prepper masses. We all know about Costco and Sams but I haven’t seen much coverage of these other outlets.

 

   Like probably 90% of you, I shop at Costco for our monthly grocery supply run. I am very happy with the prices and convenience I get at Costco. They usually can beat the prices of these smaller stores as well! The prices of the smaller outfits are only slightly higher than the big chains, not enough to drive very much further to buy something at a Costco!

 

    The single best reason to shop at these places for your preps or even your day to day groceries is the selection! Where Costco only has 25lb bags of Pinto beans, these guys have 15 different types of dry beans, also in 25lb bags. My families preps have gotten much more diverse since I found this source. I have taken advantage of their large variety of rice, beans, grains and spices. We even find the supplies of paper goods in the giant packages are far superior to what you can find when shopping at Costco. Don’t get me wrong I shop at Costco and will continue to! I’m hoping to bring to your attention an asset we can all take advantage of at least for our dry goods.  

   We have all heard the bulk wheat and rice for long term food storage ideas. I’d wager many of us even have these very items put away. I wouldn’t be without them myself. What I do think is that this is a fairly narrow view of food storage. We have a layered approach to food storage at our house. I’m a believer in the “Store what you eat and eat what you store” philosophy. With this in mind we have a large amount of our pantry filled with the day to day things. Unfortunately, these have to include many canned items rather than fresh or even home canned. We would prefer to have healthier options but we do the best we can until our lifestyle will allow us the time to achieve more of what we want.

 

Restaurant supply

I had driven past these stores for years before I ever went inside. Their signs say that they are open to all businesses, I happen to be a business owner but I’ve never been asked for any information to substantiate this fact. I presume that they are happy to have business from any and everyone, so don’t be scared off by the fact they are a wholesaler.

In addition to the canned goods, we store rice, beans, pasta and even popcorn that has been purchased in quantity. We can often break these packages down to more reasonable sizes for handling. Nobody wants to be hoisting a 5olb bag of rice into the kitchen to prepare every meal. It doesn’t take much additional planning to have a couple 50lb sacks of rice on hand for day to day use than it does to have the smaller bags. Obviously the small bags work just fine but why not have a months worth on hand instead of a weeks.

 

   Another item I buy both at Costco and at “Cash and Carry” as well are Spices. Prior to finding this additional source of goods, I would put back extras of many of the common spices that Costco offered, I’m guilty of not doing enough prepping in this particular area. After finding the restaurant supply house I have been able to provide a better supply for our day to day use but also the long term storage shelves as well. They offer a much larger selection as well as larger volume sizes. We all know that the more you buy the less the per unit price is, it works with spices as well. 

Spices Galore

   About our layered storage approach. We have the items we will definitely be using in the next few months as layer one storage. Followed by items that will be held in reserve for longer periods. These are often similar items but handled differently. These would be something that I might store in a less convenient location or if it is dry goods, go ahead and package in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. I like to have several months supply of this layer put away at any given time.

Rice supply anyone

 

   These Meals, Ready to Eat have a fair length shelf life if stored appropriately. Roughly 5-7 years… I know this will set off an age old argument in this statements accuracy. The published shelf life is alleged to be on the conservative side, however as a conservative individual I keep these dates in mind. This said I still have some old style MRE’s from back in the 90’s. Now I am not counting on these still be viable but I have the space to store them so I have held onto them. I may do a taste test review of these old units, if I can find a guinea pig to try them out. I personally don’t plan to try them short of a disaster situation.

 

   The other long term food is the freeze dried Mountain House Meals. We elected to purchase a small stock of these as they have such a long storage life, 25-30 years. These meals are packed in the #10 cans to get the long storage life.  As with everything else, I take care to try to keep these cool and dry. We have sampled the Mountain House products in small quantities that we purchased from the sporting goods store. We all found them fairly good tasting, certainly won’t be a hardship to eat these if we were to need to or 25 years from now at ”use em or lose em” time! Also, the fact that only boiling water is required for cooking these, they would be very convenient in a time of stress. Both to prepare them as well as eat something along the lines of comfort food…

 

   Well, that’s what I have for you today. My system isn’t as elaborate as I’m sure many of yours are but as usual the point is to be DOING it not just talking about it. So any of you that have been putting off getting the food stocks taken care of get out and DO IT! At least start, it takes time to get to an amount you might “Hope to Have” but it won’t take long to get to a point where you’ll know you can feed your family for that extra month.

 

   Be forewarned that if you haven’t already gotten bitten by the “Stocking Up Bug”, you will and it can turn into an serious addiction! I won’t let my wife do the Costco trip with out me… I look forward to this trip all month, I actually would prefer to go by myself, it’s my Prep Trip and I take it a little to serious! Hey, a guys gotta have his fun too!

 

See ya tomorrow!

 

 

Prepper