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Bug In or Bug Out?

For me my first choice is a bug in at home though I am not sold on it as a definite concept. For this reason I have one prime bug out location (BOL) at a cottage and two secondary ones at friends’ homes. This is really a personal choice. For all those that say you are 100% dead staying at home in SHTF there are more saying you will 100% die in the woods. The truth is between the two extremes but for me I need a roof and walls so I have them at home and at the cottage. If you bug in will it work long-term? If you bug out can you get there and can you be assured of survival on arrival?

The Bug Out at the Primary Residence or Your Primary Bug Out Location (BOL)

If you do not have a wood fire and close, dense forests then I’d not even consider this. Same is required for several local water sources. Having a great knowledge of the neighborhood helps even if the neighbors are literally a knife throw away! For me I keep them both equally stocked as I am still figuring out the pros and cons of each and likely will be doing so until, and if, the actual SHTF occurs. “Two is one, one is none” seems a good rule except for BOL where many people have one main choice. So rather than having one, either bug in it home or bug out then in at a BOL, I have two. Costs more of course but if you are really preparing for the end of civilization it seems a better idea to me than focusing on only one main alternative.

Food

You should have a year’s supply of food stored in the house and the same buried nearby that you can access even if you cannot use your house. That would be a minimum for a SHTF scenario. As you go beyond this (I’d aim for twenty years supply. I have two at present) keep a year’s worth in the home or BOL and the rest in ground cached nearby in multiple locations but accessible if you cannot safely enter the home.

If you are focusing on preparing for a Winter storm, train derailment, etc. then you are preparing for something other than the end of civilization. I always prepare for the worst possible case as it makes the more likely events very easy to navigate through. This should cost you about a thousand dollars. Buy Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. Buy strong food grade buckets and consider the gamma lids for all of them but at least four of them. Unscrew the middle, empty, add a plastic bag, and you have a toilet!

groceries

You should have a year’s supply of food stored in the house.

Buy oats, flour, pastas, sugar, extra virgin coconut oil, rice, beans, and grains (each bucket has most of these as you do not have only one or two types of food in a bucket. If you have to grab a couple and run at least you have a bit of variety) in bulk and freeze them for 72 hours to kill the critters and then decant into one gallon or smaller Mylar bags. Add in yeast and salt and spices to every bucket and you are good to go. Have a good mix of types rather than just white rice and pinto beans (these are a great staple but have a variety available).

On average each five gallon bucket is approximately one month’s food for one person but with decent foraging and careful use you can stretch this to two months. You will lose weight but so is everyone else. They stack well but are obvious so plan where you keep them carefully. Mine has asphalt added to their outside for the driveway sealing I’m never going to do. Consider the Mylar bags only in your attic placed so they cannot be seen if anyone looks into the space if the attic is not a room. Consider tins and cans stocked in under the bed containers placed under the stairs and well covered by the usual junk people have. I have a huge amount of tins and jars padded by blankets in the bottoms of boxes filled with old cassette and video tapes. If able put tins and bottles inside wall spaces which I have not as yet done.

I do rotate food but not the long-term stores. I have about ten cardboard buckets filled with a variety of everyday foods we normally eat and replace the filled pantry from these and then repurchase. This adds up quickly and we believe tins do not really expire if not used before their expiry dates.

Tools for Survival

product

BioLite Wood Burning Campstove – Powers most USB-chargeable devices including smartphones

A full range of gardening tools and prepping supplies is an absolute requirement as is seeds. Seeds go off so get the expensive Mylar sealed ones but spend only $10-20 on these a year. Buy a few every year and store carefully. You cannot have too many nor can you wait until SHTF to learn gardening. It is a lot of fun and not as hard as I figured it would be before I started out. Consider raised garden boxes and have lots of tarps and nails to cover these if the SHTF is radiological. Have poles and clear plastic to construct a greenhouse if, like me, you do not need one at present. Learn how to harvest seeds now and not in SHTF. I have mixed success with beans and amaranth and incredible success with most herbs. I am still learning but it is easy and fun once you get into it. I absolutely will not be gardening until after the first Winter post SHTF. This would be making myself a target.

Have three plans to cook food and make sure all three are not dependent on modern civilization. I have a wood house fire, a BioLite, and a solar cooker. I also have propane for those none long-term events when I don’t really want to cook in the living room. Have at least two good quality cast iron pans and the ability to boil water in 5-10 pint amounts on an open flame.

Have good quality foraging and wilderness skills books. Open these up frequently and look at them and try to use them. Have a large store of plastic bags and bottles. Learn how to boil can as a minimum and have a plan to dehydrate via solar large quantities of fruits and vegetables. Your pre-collapse buckets will eventually run out and your job is to use them as little as possible for as long as possible. Have some ability and knowledge to harvest tree sap for drinking and for boiling down into sugars if you live in a suitable area. Know how to harvest bark and cook it. It is tasty and full of sugars. Again do not wait until SHTF to find the axe is rubbish for this or you do not know how to peel it correctly from a living tree.

For me livestock is not possible for various reasons but if you can you should explore this and make sure you can feed them well in SHTF even if the stores never open again. Fishing rods, lines, hooks, and nets are set up at home and the cottage for us and we know how to smoke them (the fish I mean!).

If you do not sprout seeds already may I suggest you start to do so? It is easy, healthy, and tasty. Again they go off over time so buy yearly but keep all of them. Some is better than none. They also turn into plants and require very simple equipment you should have now rather than try to improvise in SHTF.

Water

berkeyfilter

Berkey Filters are excellent Prepper resources.

Have at least two sources of water within easy walking range. Have a wheel barrow and buckets to transport it to cut down on the time and effort this part of your new life will take. If this is not possible you need to store thousands of gallons of water not a few cases of bottled water.

Have the ability to clean and use the water using various means. Initially I am using stored water and then the Berkey Water Filter. This is expensive but I do feel a good Berkey with four black and four white filters at my home are well worth the investment. We used it in a previous home for all our water but here it is wrapped up in a plastic tote waiting for the day I need it again. Next year the BOL gets one as well as it is an essential and essentials should work very well, for years, and be ready to use at your destination not carried there. Tablets and portable filter systems are for traveling only in my opinion. I have a lot of them so I can use them for daily living if the need arises.

Good quality rain barrels, tarps, and food grade plastic pipes should be readily available to convert rain into water for drinking, bathing, and the garden. Again I have these but they are not set up as I am not keen on screaming “prepper” to anyone who walks by the house or cottage. You should also have a large supply of large clear soda pop bottles. I do not use the stuff myself but collect them from others who do for “starting my plants”. Prefilter, lie in the sun, and consume in a couple of days. SODIS water treatment is clearly explained on the web and is an easy back up plan to provide large quantities of water if the Berkley fails.

Heating

As I said I’d not consider staying anywhere without wood heating but I live near lots of woods and in a climate that gets a bit cold in the Winter. Cold enough to freeze your nose hairs! I have a decent tent system and on top of the mattress in front of the fire it will work great especially with the sleeping system we have. I have not duplicated this at the cottage as I’d rather travel with the ability to be warm but I see the need to spend the cash at some point in the near future.

men

Wood-stoves in Northern climates will save lives in a SHTF event.

I have lots of black bags to seal the windows (see Security) and lots of cheap survival blankets to put up for heat reflection and clear plastic for the doorways. It is my number one concern as death will come swiftly to the unheated up here. In the Summer (yes it does get hot in Canada) the basement of the home stays cool and the cottage stays cool as it is on a rock system by a river.

We have decent Winter clothing in both places and SHTF clothing ready to go in the basement. I went with merino wool for the base layers but have cheaper layers to wick if I feel the need to change clothes in the Winter. I plan on getting smelly in SHTF (see Security) initially and during the Winter a weekly spot wash is all I can see doing.

Power

I would love to put up solar panels at the home and the cottage but until more people do it is just a big, fat target on me. The one home in our neighborhood with solar is not defensible and I cannot see how they expect to stay there if armed and cold people show up. One day perhaps when 25% of the homes do this I will but until then it is simply not worth the risk.

I plan to have no lights at night. Up at dawn, work hard, sleep at night when not on watch from day one in SHTF. For millennia that was the human experience and I see clinging to our current lifestyle in any form in SHTF as being risky. I can use solar lights to generate light that is brighter than the current house lights but that is for emergencies only. I am not even sure if I’d risk it then but I have it and it works. I use a few small solar panels that easily get enough power for this when set up on the 300 square foot balcony and the Biolite stove produces a bit.

I am flirting with a gas generator but for SHTF I cannot see the use. We no longer have a sump pump in the basement so really it would be for the fridge and freezer in a temporary Summer blackout.

Transportation

Our car is the bugout vehicle of choice and we keep 40 liters of gas on hand all the time but if I cannot use it then we have decent bikes with small panniers. Walking would be our main transport method so the wheel barrow is an essential bit of kit as well as good quality back packs. Other than the local area I am not planning traveling much at all in SHTF. Kayaks at the cottage would be helpful in the warmer months if a distance travel was needed but I’d not risk it without a clear destination and honestly in SHTF my local area will be the extent of my concerns.

Security

Guns run out of ammo and using them might not be a good idea if people fire back. The noise would also likely attract a lot of unwanted attention. Plus in Canada it is not as easy to equip yourself like GI Joe as it is in our neighbor to the south. I also think it creates a false sense of security but that is just my opinion. If I find a gun in SHTF I’ll carry it and use it. I have some plans on how to do that but it is not really a legal thing.

The home is defended mainly by passive means. Heavy duty iron fencing and another six-foot wooden one going up in the Spring. Having dogs means this sort of fencing is actually above suspicion and welcomed by the neighbors. Barb wire and solar motion lights go up in SHTF as I am not that sociable at the best of times. Doors, windows, and frames have the fixes easily done and available on the web but the wood pile by the garage is basically entering the ground floor in early SHTF. Stacked high and deep on tarps it won’t allow anyone to get in. We can leave the house by the ladder on the balcony as and when we feel it is safe to do so. It does mean I can be burned out but the house is concrete and looks small and uninviting compared to the neighborhood which are wood and much larger. Passive alarms on any entry point and wooden hurricane boards are further things that go up in SHTF.

Operation

The cottage goes for not looking inhabited and the already ransacked method. As a nurse I have a collection of body bags and a few of these around the place with rotting meat inside would likely put off most people along with the danger contamination signs and tape.

Both places have food and supplies in ground away from them in case of loss of the building (fire or intruders) and I have plans to evacuate and retake both places. This is situational and has some legal issues so I am not discussing it here but stay and fight to me seems more risky than running from the determined and taking it back later on. I’d definitely allow any intruders who have driven me from the place to find a large amount of alcohol that is poorly hidden. As hard as it might be to not drink it myself in SHTF I want to make sure a large group of intruders can get well drunk in this circumstance.

Both places have lots of black heavy-duty garbage bags and duct tape. All doors and windows get blacked out but, again, I am not planning to use light sources at night. In the first few months of SHTF I am also not planning to have the fires going at all and later on only at night. If it hits in the Winter this will have to change but we can stay warm enough without a fire for a week or more. Making cooking smells or showing smoke is just not worth it in the early phase of SHTF and we have planned food, clothing, and sleeping accordingly. Use a wood fire at night if possible and have no daytime smoke.

Active methods of security are bows and lots of arrows. The home entry points are blocked so anyone determined enough to scale the 9-12 foot balcony might be asked politely to not do so. We also have a lot of throwing knives and attached to long sticks, they can be useful to spear fish or any other thing dumb enough to try to get into the home. Classic historical methods of deterring intruders from your ‘castle’ and they work silently. A well-aimed piece of fire wood is also off-putting. One thing I have determined that intruders are dealt with in ways that mean they cannot every return to try again.

In both areas we have good relations with our neighbors and plan to help them out a bit depending on the SHTF. We know them and their habits and have studied them carefully for a few years. We absolutely have not revealed ourselves as preppers nor would do so in SHTF. I am hoping for a Winter event so this aspect dies off rapidly but you need to have neighbors who are allies not enemies. In a bad SHTF they are all enemies so mainly we plan to hide out and defend as best we can.

Going outside will be carefully done. The radios are only for emergency use and we would only use planned routes and times of travel to avoid people. Having worked twelve-hour nights for years it will be no issue going outside at 3am and being back by 5am. Each outside trip will be in the same outer clothes each time and no these will never get laundered. Hair and beards will grow as if we cannot heat water to clean them. After a couple of weeks your hair does not really need washing anyhow (yes we tried that!). Food intake will be rationed so we will lose weight except the day before any planned heavy work or travel when we will have a decent 4000-5000 Calorie day. This will also be a Sunday thing for us but mainly 1500-2000 calories a day the rest of the time. Fat people will stand out very quickly in SHTF.

Have one in ground food cache and two in home ones that are okay but you would happily surrender to an intruder if over powered. Giving them something very reluctantly might save you or not but is worth a try. Getting a week’s worth by emptying your “only” stores should make them happy. In a slowly evolving SHTF we will ask for food and water. We will line up for it and use anything supplied locally. Not doing so is a big red flag that you do not need the help.
After the first year we plan to advertise our health care skills if the area is stable and generally join in with whatever community is there. As both towns are old ones with a long history of water trade and lumbering I cannot see someone not starting a community in them once the population has again dropped to a normal historical size for the terrain. Skills are more important than equipment and we both have great health care skills. We also have a lot of equipment and know how to replace it. People will need to give birth and have bones fixed and cuts sutured.

Obviously offering these services will only be done when our community has sorted itself out without our help. I have no desire to be the leader nor am I willing to risk our preps before stability has occurred. I also have no desire to join a prepping community as I cannot see myself being part of either a paramilitary or hippy organization. Maybe I’ll meet some eventually that seem more suitable and I would happily store food and supplies in their BOL but I’d rather be a lone wolf than submit to some else’s authority however benign.

Location

We carefully choose our home and cottage. Both are out of the obvious way especially the cottage and both have large garden areas and plentiful trees and water very nearby. Even this step seems not enough and we are floating the idea of relocating a lot more northwards when we retire in 5-6 years. The cottage can be easily sealed off from vehicle travel and should be the primary bug in location for us. What puts me off this is knowing that the locals will drive around on ATVs with guns for a while after SHTF has happened looting all the cottage places even those not on lakes and remote. The cottage supplies are mainly buried except for old and dirty tools that work great. I see it as a Summer place and the home as the Winter place. I’m actually planning to loot abandoned lake cottages myself by kayak or snow shoe in early SHTF if at the cottage.

Walk everywhere around your locations and make careful notes as to where all water sources are including swimming pools. Note all fruit trees and clusters of wild edibles. Over time note when these are ready for harvest and learn how to store and process them. For us in Canada it is vital we know our black walnuts and acorns. The protein and fats from them is utterly essential to have.

Know all the roads and trails and rail links. Where are the out-of-town food warehouses and how can you get to them easily? If you have local bus and train services where do they normal park when not in use? Diesel is always a useful addition and our local trains have lots of spades, axes, and other goodies stored in them. Police, Fire, and Ambulance buildings should be known and considered for entry. Even if ransacked already likely you can find useful things inside.

Future

I’d like to be able to install solar and wind power after an SHTF but the cost is too much for me at present so I am looking at ways to do so from scavenging materials. Overall prepping is a hobby for me and I am hoping it never becomes my life but if it does then I will do what I can in the now to help my loved ones survive and a new community arise.

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Bug In or Bug Out? For me my first choice is a bug in at home though I am not sold on it as a definite concept. For this reason I

Prepping in its most basic form to me is about proactively taking steps to ensure you and those around you are ready with skills, supplies and a plan to react to emergencies or disasters in a way that promotes your survival. The core of short-term survival I would argue is something that many of us take for granted and that is water.

Why do you need to store water for emergencies?

The simple answer to that question is one that you probably already know. We all need water to survive and if you go without it for a while your health deteriorates. You can get headaches, become lethargic and weak. Go with water for more than a couple of days and you die. Water or lack of sufficient, clean drinking water, more than almost anything else (I will go into the other things later) will kill you.

That much is pretty simple. Usually everyone can accept that premise without even blinking an eye. What they frequently have problems with is this idea that you could ever find yourself without clean drinking water. We in virtually all of the developed world have water treatment facilities, plumbing and systems that bring clean water inside the house or our offices and you would be hard pressed to walk anywhere in even the smallest cities without quickly finding nice clear, plastic bottles of water for sale. But what if the water in the tap was tainted? What if the tap no longer put forth clean, shiny water? What if the stores with all of those bags and bags of bottled water were empty? This is where prepping begins.

To prepare, you have to do something proactively.

It isn’t wise to sit back and say things like “that would never happen” or my own personal favorite, “the government will take care of us if that happened”. In any large emergency, you will be reliant upon yourself as evidenced in almost every case in recent history. Yes, disaster relief organizations and government assistance will usually mobilize, but do you want to wait for that to happen? Even the government tells you to prepare on its website, ready.gov. If they are saying not to wait for them, what does that tell you?

fema-sandy-closed

I don’t know why anyone would count on the government. Maybe they will do something right, but I wouldn’t bet my life on them saving me.

How much water do you need to survive?

So we agree that everyone needs to stockpile water, but the next obvious question is how much? The amount of water you need vary greatly depending on a few different factors. A general rule of thumb is that you need one gallon of water per person per day. This assumes hydration needs and hygiene. You won’t necessarily drink a gallon of water, but you might need it for reconstituting freeze-dried food, cleaning cooking implements or washing your body. On some days you might not even need a gallon of water. Other days you could end up needing much more than one gallon if you are exerting yourself physically or the temperatures are elevated and you are losing fluids to perspiration.

In my opinion, water is one of the easiest preps to cross off your list and since it is so vital, it made the cut as the first in this series. To calculate how much water you need, just multiply the number of people you are prepping for by the number of days you want to be stocked up for. In my family, I have those who live with me (4) as well as extended family who I plan will come to our location (another 4 potentially) as well as some friends (add 4 to that) so I am looking at potentially needing to supply water for 12 people. 12 people for one month is 12 X 30 = 360 gallons of water.

Where is the best place to store water?

That is only for one month. What if the emergency lasts longer than one month? What if the town’s water supply is still not safe for drinking at that point? 360 gallons takes up a lot of room no matter how you look at it. If you have 55 gallon barrels in your basement that is still 6 barrels and again that assumes everyone is staying at or under their one gallon a day limit.

I have a few different ways to store water. The first is stored in heavy-duty plastic containers that hold 7 gallons each. These are great because they are more portable, they stack and I can get some storage in smaller spaces, like the shelves of a pantry. I can also easily transport a few of these to my Bug Out Vehicle if necessary. This storage only lasts a week.

If you have the space, larger water storage containers work best.

After that I have rain barrels that hold 50 gallons a piece. The great thing about rain barrels is that they can be refilled by Mother Nature without you having to do anything except make sure the water is disinfected. But, this requires an outside location and not everyone has a home on land where they can back up a barrel under the gutter. People who live in apartments have different space limitations.

For apartment dwellers, I would recommend using the stack-able storage, but diversify that around your apartment so you don’t have weight all in one space. Usually any apartments are built on concrete substrates so even several hundred pounds of water in a closet wouldn’t risk compromising the floor. You can also try storage facilities if necessary.

What do you do when the water runs out?

But no matter how much water you have stored up, it could still run out in the worse emergencies so it is important to have an alternate plan to acquire good water afterward. Actually, I think it is more important to plan to procure water than it is to stockpile it in the long run.

Platypus GravityWorks Filter System, 4-Liters of water in minutes.

Water borne bacteria and viruses are not something you want to encounter in a disaster situation. Stomach bugs, even minor can put you down and give you diarrhea. Who wants to worry about getting sick when the world ends much less crapping yourself all the time when the toilet paper is in short supply anyway? A simple and reliable method of making your water safe to drink is also very important.

Boiling water is a sure-fire way to kill all bacteria and viruses. The drawback to this approach for me is that you have to start a fire and use a container. The fire could alert people to your location and that might not be what you want. Also, you have to wait for the water to cool before you can drink it and boiling isn’t going to get out any sediment, it will just make your water safer to drink.

I prefer gravity filters for their ease of use, compactness and filtration ability. With a filter like the Platypus Gravityworks, you can quickly filter 4 liters of water just by filling up a bag and it’s ready to drink in minutes. Literally, I filtered 2 liters in less than 2 minutes.

There is also using bleach to disinfect ,water purification tablets and even iodine, but these aren’t without their drawbacks too and do require you to wait for the chemicals to work. Your choice, but there are options.

Make sure you have plans to supply the water needs of your own survival group at the initial point of any emergencies and long after by crafting your water preparedness plan now.

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Prepping in its most basic form to me is about proactively taking steps to ensure you and those around you are ready with skills, supplies and a plan to react

There are lots of reasons to unplug from the grid. And I’m not talking about the electrical grid. I mean the “grid” as in the whole digital world. Maybe you’ve had it up to here (picture my hand at my forehead) with all the digital flotsam that inundates you every day from work e-mail to social network nattering. Perhaps you need to go on the lam. (We’re not here to judge.) Maybe you really need to get away from someone who makes you crazy or, quite seriously, from someone else’s abuse.

Your reasons are yours. However, we’re here to tell you that it isn’t going to be easy. Just do a search for your name on sites like  Whitepages,  Spokeo, Zabasearch, and Pipl. Odds are you’re easy to find. Just by virtue of reading this story, we can guess you’re probably at a computer that has an IP address that can be tracked, and that’s where the problems begin. Cell phones, credit card purchases, travel check-ins, and even just a drive through a toll booth are all ways that you can be traced not just by Big Brother, but individuals as well. Skiptracers and private eyes can find what they need online to get to you if you continue to live digitally even after you’ve left your old life behind.

So what do you do to disappear truly? I warn you in advance, it’s not pretty. Picture every movie or TV show you’ve seen about witness protection programs and add in the extra dash of paranoia that comes from not having U.S. Marshalls on your side. Then get ready to live like you’ve never lived before. Whether you need to go on the run or you just want to settle down into a less digital life, here’s how to get lost.

Digital Dos and Don’ts
Can you really get off the grid and still live digitally? Probably not. If you retain your digital life, you’re going to leave breadcrumbs. The only way to stay completely anonymous is to turn it all off. That means no cell phones, no credit cards, no Web surfing. You can’t even use a computer.

However, if you can’t handle that, here are some options that can keep you online and, perhaps, off the radar.

1. Lose the Cell Phone
It might be your digital lifeline, but when you’re trying to hide, your cell phone is a digital bull’s eye. Those with the access can easily triangulate your position based on your cell signal. You don’t even need to make a call, as phones are always talking to towers to get the best signal available. A built-in GPS only makes it easier.

If you can, take out the battery. You can always pop it back in for a true emergency. You can also leave the phone somewhere to misdirect tracers. The latter is best if you’ve got a phone with a battery you can’t access. (Apple iPhones are not for fugitives.)

You don’t have to go without phone access completely. Buy pre-paid phones on the cheap at a department store or gas station. Give one to your most trusted friend or loved one and keep the other. That way, only the two of you can talk or text.

For an extra layer of protection, don’t use the phone to make a direct phone call. Instead, use a pre-paid calling card.

In addition, get some portable, solar-powered chargers for your gadgets, so you don’t have to rely on the outlets. Powermonkey eXplorer has plugs for just about every kind of phone and doesn’t require much light to charge a device.

2. Make Purchases Using Gift Cards
It’s not impossible to make Web purchases while off the grid. Use your cash to purchase credit card gift cards, such as Visa or American Express. They’re available just about anywhere. You can use them for purchases online and off and then chuck them after they’re used up. (Try to rotate where you get deliveries.) The transaction with those cards is between the retailer and credit card company, your personal details are not required and nothing shows up on a statement.

3. Forget Being Social
It’s time to give up on Facebook and Twitter. Seriously. Just walk away. If you can’t go cold turkey, create anonymous accounts from remote locations. Friend a few bots to keep your number of friends/followers high for your psychological fitness, since you, by definition, don’t have any friends at this point. And for the love of all that’s holy, don’t friend or follow people you actually know.

4. Erase Info from Pictures
If you’re still in the habit of sending or posting digital pictures online, at the very least, strip out the EXIF data on the image file. This information includes the make of the camera, date and time the pic was taken, and, with some modern cameras, geographical location info. With enough pics and time, someone could easily figure out where you’ve been, if not where you’re going. The free EXIFstripper program for Windows will do it.

5. Encrypt Messages
You may still need to send some e-mails. Naturally, you’ll set up a brand new account. Even then, its best to make sure no one can read what you send. To start, use Gmail from Google since it defaults to using SSL encryption when you’re on the site. That’ll help when you’re using public Wi-Fi, if nothing else.

For super secrecy, you need to encrypt messages you send. For a double-whammy, access Gmail using Thunderbird, but utilize GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) to encrypt messages via the Enigmail plug-in.

A simpler tool is Encipher.it, an AES Ttext encryptor that works with Gmail or any other Web-based text. Click the Encipher It bookmarklet you install, give the text an encryption key, watch it get garbled, and send it. The person on the other end needs the key to decipher it.

6. Hide Your IP Address
A sure way to get noticed is to visit a website that collects IP addresses from its visitors; this can even happen with some Facebook applications. Once an IP is matched to you, it’s simple enough for law enforcement or clever skiptracers to call the ISP assigned that IP address and match it to a user. Even if it’s not direct to you, it could be too close for comfort. It gets worse if you’re surfing from a school or business. They can track you right to your dorm or cubicle.

A proxy server can help. Tor (aka The Onion Router) helps prevent people from seeing you, by routing your webpage requests through multiple routers on the Internet. The people at the other end will see an IP address for a router nowhere near your computer. Bundles exist for every major operating system and even some smartphones (Android, iOS, and Nokia), though some are more finished than others. There’s a browser bundle and an IM bundle, and both come in multiple languages. The bundles will run from a USB flash drive, so you don’t even need to use your own computer. There is a Firefox add-on called Torbutton that lets you enable Tor instantly with one click.

Several Chrome extensions promise the same features (search for “anonymous”). At the very least, use a website like Proxify, Web-based proxy server, to do searches and visit sites. The very popular Ghostery extension, available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and IE, shows you which sites are tracking you.

7. Don’t Sign In
When it comes to free Wi-Fi, often you’ll need to sign in, which means creating an account. Avoid these places, if you can. Starbucks and Barnes & Nobles are plentiful, and the AT&T Wi-Fi they use doesn’t require anything more than clicking to reaccess every couple of hours. Once you’re online, however, put a VPN to work for you to help prevent wireless snoopers from seeing what you’re doing. Hotspot Shield will do this and it’s free (or pay some money to avoid seeing their ads). Or, you could set up a router with VPN support at a remote location and link to it direct (providing another hop for people to contemplate).

8. Don’t Look for a Tail
Don’t go searching for a digital tail. It’s a classic way for the pursuer to get the pursuee, because anyone on the run wants to know how close they are to getting caught. If you start looking online to see what people know about you, your location, or your activities, chances are you could stumble into a honeypot meant just for you. Try not to Google yourself and stay away from posting misinformation anonymously.

9. Don’t Disappear: Deceive 
Former skiptracer Frank Ahearn wrote How to Disappear in 2010. But then, he decided a new tactic was more important. All of the info people can find about you online generally comes from one source—you. So, an easier tactic might be to hide in plain sight by filling the Internet with incorrect information. That means using things like social networks to put misinformation out there. Reducing your digital footprint is certainly important, but if you still want to stay online, deceiving people about where you live, your income, and members of your family, can make it hard for pursuers to find you.

Looking over your shoulder yet? Yeah, this may be overkill, but what it demonstrates is just how easy it is to be tracked. So, be careful, don’t overshare, use common sense when you’re online, and take precautions with the amount of personal information you put out there.

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There are lots of reasons to unplug from the grid. And I’m not talking about the electrical grid. I mean the “grid” as in the whole digital world. Maybe you’ve

Sometimes we may feel pigeonholed or daunted by the storage foods we can afford, or overwhelmed by how we’re going to use those storage foods without the endless repetition taking a toll. Here are some formulas and ideas for turning common storage foods into actual meals, increasing the variety of meals we can make with a few standard ingredients, and some substitutions that can lower our costs or improve the serving size, nutrition, and flavor of our cooking.

I’m not a big baker and I don’t thrill to the stove top – only the dinner table. Given the amount of work a lot of us are going to be doing just hauling water where it’s needed, plus the labor of gardens and any animals, rearing our children, cooking from scratch, cleaning without a dishwasher and washer-dryer, I’m planning to go simple with a lot of my cooking. So even if you’re not a big cook, there are ideas here that can help, ideas that can be made even with off-grid cooking methods.

Replacements

While I’ll get into some specifics in a minute or two, one thing to consider in our disaster cooking is simple substitutions.

Wheat is commonly pushed for home storage due to the price and condensed calories, and then people feel obligated to buy a grinder, and then they feel like slackers for not practicing their home-ground wheat flour bread options. I do think we should practice what we plan to use, but I don’t think everybody with buckets of wheat actually has to view it as only a future bread dough.

Wheat can be boiled and served with the same seasonings as every side dish, from herbed buttered noodles to fried rice.

Whole wheat berries & fruit in cream

Wheat berry & white bean soup

It can also be boiled to be part of or replace oatmeal and cream of wheat (soaking it overnight will make it boil faster in the morning).

If there’s a soup that calls for barley, couscous, or rice, wheat will work there, too, and cooks in about the same amount of time as barley, maybe a hair longer if it’s stored oxygen free and is older than 2-3 years (45-60 minutes usually, without a pre-soak).

Having an alternative use for the first 50-300# (or more) of wheat can buy us a little more time before we get pushed into buying not only a good grain mill, but then all the replacements for it.

Point in fact, most of our grains, from starchy dent corn to barley, wheat to quinoa, and amaranth to rice are fairly interchangeable. They take different times to cook in some cases, they definitely have their own flavors, but there’s little that can’t be made to work for any of them.

Likewise, spaghetti can be very easily used in place of an Oriental noodle, especially whole-grain spaghetti or angel hair pasta. That’s pretty handy, since even the good stuff is pretty cheap, and two pounds of spaghetti stores in about the same space than two packages of ramen.

Those substitutions exist all over.

And once we do get our grain mill, don’t neglect the other things in the pantry.

We can grind dry oats – even rolled oats – to replace part of our flour as well

Old dry beans that don’t want to soften can be turned into flour to replace a quarter or a third of a recipe, either bread or fry batter or even for gravies.

Until recent times, we used flours from barley and maize as often as we did wheat, and a lot of the world still uses them – just as often or as a partial replacement for flavoring. So can boiled or roasted acorns. We can grind dry oats – even rolled oats – to replace part of our flour as well. Doing so can sometimes to often improve the protein components of our foods, decrease the glycemic index, and help us use something that’s not really moving in our pantries.

That inexpensive oatmeal can also be turned into homemade granola bars, muffins, and griddle cakes, decreasing the amount of flour we need to use and providing a fork or finger-food in a world of spoons.

Recipes

When seeking out recipes specifically for preppers, a fair number use a lot of ingredients or require a fair bit of prep. Call me lazy, but I’m just not there, even in today’s world. Camping and backpacking recipes regularly seem to call for things we might not have on hand anymore, too, and a lot of perishable foods these days.

One, a lot of the no-fire, no-gas cooking methods really lend themselves to such. Two, the less ingredients and effort, the more time reading with kids, playing a game, or sitting with my eyes closed listening. I kind of like those options better.

Pioneer Soup

If you’ve heard of 3-5-7 can soups, you’re familiar with this. It’s basically just a rule of thumb to help check the boxes on the main “eating” components:

  • Filling/satiety
  • Fast-access energy
  • Slow-access energy
  • Proteins
  • Vitamins

The general concept is to pull 1-2 items from each category to make sure the body is getting all the nutrients it needs, which is increased by consuming a rainbow. That said, even I don’t make broth with just one seasoning. Still, the lists from the guidelines can help.

One that I ran across breaks it into “Five F’s”:

  • Fat: Oil, margarine, butter, lard, tallow, fatty meat (bacon, salt pork, hocks)
  • Flavor Root/Shoot: Garlic, onion, scallion, celery/celeriac, turmeric
  • Flavor Leaf: parsley, marjoram, thyme, oregano, basil, nasturtium
  • Filler (starches): Potato, pasta, grains & corn, pseudo-grains, cattail root
  • Fuel (protein): Legumes (beans, peas, lentils), jerky, meat sticks/sausage, ham, fish, game

The breakdowns are nice as more than a check-box guide to make sure nutritional needs are being met.

Sometimes soup get pigeonholed, which is a shame, because from a creamy red bean and rice soup to veggie to chicken-noodle to some of the Oriental soups and things like borsch and solyanka, we have a ton of options available to us. Even working off of simple, cheap, condensed-calorie prepper staples and garden veggies or wild edibles, we can present a huge variety.

Alternating what we combine and even how we serve it can help avoid appetite fatigue, which is another aspect where limiting ourselves to 1-2 items from each category can help.

How we present soups can make a big difference as well, creating significantly different feels to meals even with the exact same ingredients, or very minor twitches.

That applies whether we use the 5-F method, or one of the other guides.

One of those other common formulas for pioneer soup breaks it into three fuel categories – the primary fats, proteins, starches – and then three filler (belly filling, short on calories) and flavor components:

Veggies – tomatoes, tomato powder, green beans, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, radish and mustard sprouts, cooking/roasting radishes, autumn squash, bell peppers, salsify, turnip, parsnip, beets, etc.

Leafy Greens – spinach, beet tops, lettuce, swiss chard, mizuna, cabbage, endive, turnip tops, dandelion, plantain, nettles, borage, leeks, ramps, radish tops, water or upland cress, mustard greens, mache/corn salad, sweet pea leaves, dock, kale, sprouts

Herbs & Seasonings – tart/sour berries, garden herbs, cress, wild onions, hot radishes, horseradish, onion, garlic, ground or cracked mustard seed, modern-day seasoning blends & stock bones

Soup Alternates

Part of what makes soup an economy food is that the broth helps us feel full and increases the satisfaction from the meal.

That said, we can break apart our general standard for pioneer or 7-can soup and still get the benefits of economical belly filling balance and variety.

A pasta salad can easily be made from storage foods and fresh garden or foraged goodies, especially if we plan ahead for something like powdered Parmesan cheese that can be a pick-me-up. Three or four roasted autumn veggies on a pile of fresh or wilted leafy greens creates another fork-ready meal.

We can turn our protein component into a creamed soup or just serve a broth beside either of them to get some of the belly filling aspects back, or incorporate dried beans or cut-up dry sausage (or Slim Jims).

Shrimp Tacos

Likewise, we can turn simple ash cakes or thinned-down Bisquick into tortillas or crepes, mix up a cabbage slaw, and bust open a can of small shrimp to sear in fajita spices as a pick me up. Just a few shrimp and a couple of tacos can provide the mental boost of a non-spoon meal, even served with a pile of rice on the side and-or a cup of spicy black bean puree soup.

Instant Potatoes

Potato buds that say they’re ready to eat and just need water are telling bald-faced lies. That said, instant mashed potatoes are in a lot of kits and come pretty inexpensively on their own. Even without extra seasonings and evaporated milk for them, instant potatoes have a lot of value, especially in conjunction with our pioneer soups.

One, little says I love you like a wedge of shepherd’s pie. We can use those general basic flavorings to make a brothier version to make it stretch further, or increase the veggies beyond the usual ratios.

We can also indulge in things like a broth-heavy roasted marrow meal or just serve our Bear Creek or homemade beef or veggie soup with a happy mound of potatoes to the side or right in the middle. The seasonings from the soups will (hopefully) help mask the bland flavor, and it creates a different presentation – which is good for the mental aspects of eating, especially if a lot of our diet is rice and beans and boiled wheat.

Two, instant potatoes can be turned into goodies like potato pancakes. Or, we can mix them as directed (even in cold water; they’ll absorb it in a minute) and then bake them off to create a pseudo-dumpling or biscuit with little effort and little clean-up.

Instant potatoes can be turned into goodies like potato pancakes.

Instant potatoes also make a great thickener for our soups. We can use them to create a gravy-like broth or to imitate a creamed soup or chowder. They can also make a nice, easy flavor and calorie base for standard potato chowder without taking as much time as potatoes would to cook and mash.

Assortment of foodstuffs with a high fiber content, including various fruits and vegetables, wholemeal bread and baked beans.

Emergency Foods

While things like soup and the common basics for food storage focus around economy, it doesn’t mean we have to break the bank to jazz it up one way or another. We can avoid falling into ruts – now and later – by figuring out new ways to use the items we already have.

We can apply a little creativity and still get meals that offer variety by adding in a few things like a variety of pasta and some feel-good seasonings like powdered parm and fajita spices. Spices and sauces like soy, Dale’s, Old Bay (or the generic) and Adobo powder pack a lot of bang for the buck. We can make use of things like hot radishes, sprouts, microgreens, and wild edibles to season and bulk up our serving sizes.

We can also ease our workloads by harkening back to pottage with soups, casseroles, and one-pot meals.

In some cases, examining where we stand on our preparedness arc and how balanced our preparedness health wheels are invaluable, because it can help us decide if we need something expensive like a good grinder or a wood stove, or if our storage is at a point where a smaller set of fixes makes more sense – at least for now. Being able to buy inexpensive foods like grains, pasta and dry beans, and still create filling, varied, satisfying meals out of them, can help open up the budget for those items.

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Sometimes we may feel pigeonholed or daunted by the storage foods we can afford, or overwhelmed by how we’re going to use those storage foods without the endless repetition taking

Remember when we were kids, and our moms used to tell us to wash the carpets with water and vinegar? Yeah, the aroma alone was enough to send an elephant to the ICU but, surprisingly enough, everything smelled like brand-new afterward. And because I hated doing the carpets and upholstery as a kid, I did my best to stay as far away from that stuff as possible. Big mistake!

Anyway, vinegar does not only go well in salad dressing or to clean various household objects but has many other purposes. And since we simply cannot ignore the fact that vinegar’s just as useful around the house like baking soda and rock salt, I’ve decided to write this not-so-short and an awesome piece on how you can take full advantage of the ghost of wine past in an SHTF situation.

So, without further ado, here are 14 reasons why every prepper should stockpile as much vinegar as possible.

  1. No more bumper stickers and decals

The worst thing about buying a car from a second-hand dealer is that no matter how hard you look at it, you’ll still end up with a surprise or two. Mine was bumper stickers and decals. I don’t know who was the former owner of my car, but that person really had a thing for sticky logos and drawing.

I’m not kidding you when I say that those damned things were everywhere – windshield, side windows. There’s was even one on the left tail light. Anyway, the dealer offered a pretty good bargain, and apart from the stickers, the car was otherwise in great shape.

Now, if you somehow wound up in the same situation as me, forget about WD 40 or sprays for bumper sticker removal. Put two tablespoons of vinegar in a bucket of water and pour over the area covered in stickers.

Wait a couple of minutes and then use an ice scraper to remove the sticker. It works like a charm, and the sticker will come off without leaving any glue marks on the window. You can also try it on decals – same recipe, but repeat the process three times for good results.

Related – Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation

  1. Getting rid of acne

Acne’s now a welcoming sight, regardless if you’re 14 or 44 (yeah, it can happen during late adulthood too). The bad news is that apart from taking your prescription meds and ensuring that your face is al clean and oil-free as possible, there’s not much you can do about it; and, of course, there’s the scratching.

Now, in order to get rid of the itchiness, mix water and four teaspoons of apple cider vinegar in a glass. Use this mixture to wash your face and rinse with clean water. This also helps the tissue heal faster and prevents the icky stuff from spreading.

  1. Making your candle or propane lantern wicks last longer

Emergency candles and propane lanterns are great for those not-so-romantic moments when the power grid fails. However, neither is a long-term solution. If you have reasons to believe that you’ll need to brave the dark a while longer, try soaking the wicks of your emergency candles and propane lanterns in an all-vinegar solution. This will give you at least 3 to 4 hours of flame per candle\lantern.

Related – 4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis

  1. Removing Warts

Even the thought of having to endure another wart makes my skin crawl (had one right on my sole). You can go to your local drug store and spend tens of dollar on wart removal solutions which won’t help you with anything other than making a dent in your wallet or you can try this neat prepper remedy.

In a tall water glass, put four teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, and one teaspoon of vegetable glycerin. Shake and leave it be for a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, wash the wart and the surrounding area with soap and clean water and dry off with a towel. Dap both the wart and the area around it with betadine or another disinfectant.

Now, soak a gauze in the vinegar+water+glycerin mixture and clean the warty area. Do these two or three times a day. By the end of the second day, you’ll see that the wart begins to shrink. Continue the treatment until the bulge disappears. You’re welcome!

  1. Stop the tummy-rumbling.’

In case you forgot to buy antacid or any other kind of tummy pill, you can soothe your rumbling stomach by drinking a glass of water mixed with two teaspoons of vinegar. Also does wonders for heartburns, heartaches, and, possibly, broken hearts.

  1. No more dandruff

This may no quality as an SHTF situation, but then again, dandruff is neither healthy nor aesthetic. I found that regular anti-dandruff shampoos don’t do shit about that white stuff. However, if you add a splash of apple cider vinegar to your hair before using regular shampoo, dandruff will bother you no longer.

Here’s what you’ll need to do – get some moisture into your hair and add two squirts of vinegar. Massage your scalp and wait at least five minutes. Rinse with plenty of water. Finish up with regular shampoo or conditioner.

Bear in mind that depending on your type of hair and skin you may need to repeat this process. I myself had to wash my hair three times a week with vinegar and shampoo for two weeks before I got rid of dandruff.

  1. Best pest-repellant ever

I admit that I sometimes forget to drive my pets to the vet clinic for their regular checkups and, of course, delousing. But that doesn’t mean that I allow those awful fleas to do as they will.

Now, if you really haven’t the time nor the money for the vet, because shit happens, put one teaspoon of vinegar in a glass of water and use this mixt to wash your dog’s fur (haven’t tested it on my cats ‘cause, you know cats and waters really don’t mix). Wait for at least a couple of hours before rinsing with plenty of water.

Related –How to make the ultimate painkilling tincture

  1. Making veggies green again

You really don’t need to throw every wilted veggie in the fridge. All they need is a little love, tenderness, and a splash of apple cider vinegar. In a spraying bottle, mix one tablespoon of vinegar with cold water. Give your veggies good spraying, and they’ll regain that hunter-green color in no time.

  1. Keeping diabetes in check

You know that you really don’t need to use that insulin pen each time there’s a small variation in your blood sugar levels, right? In most diabetes cases, glucose levels can be kept at a normal value by eating the right stuff.

Now, in case you have issues controlling that blood sugar level, drink a glass of water mixed with two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar. Please keep in mind that this is only a short-term solution, which means that you will still need to take your prescription meds and use insulin if there are bigger variations.

  1. Removing rust from moving parts

In the past, vinegar has been successfully employed to remove rust from moving parts like cogwheels, springs, and levers. You can also use it to get rid of rust from just about any kind of metallic.

In order to free up a mechanism that simply refuses to budge on account of the rust, take out all the moving parts and soak them overnight in water and vinegar. Take out, allow them to dry, and reassemble the mechanism. If there’s still friction, take it apart again and repeat the procedure.

  1. Removing candle wax from wooden surfaces

Nothing beat a romantic candlelit dinner, especially after the light goes out. Dinner – good, removing candle wax from furniture and tablecloth – very, very bad. Well, it’s not that hard to get the excess wax out, but it tends to leave a nasty behind.

Here’s how to get rid of candle wax fast and easy – use a hair drier to heat up the wax. Mix water and vinegar in a small bowl. Use this concoction to scrub the area.

  1. Eating pesticide-free veggies

I love going to the farmer’s market to purchase my favorite veggies. Still, whatever I do doesn’t seem to make a difference when it comes to the pesticide part – sure, there, more or less, safe to eat, but they sure have a funky taste. Sometimes I even contemplate skipping dinner and grab some take-out because I lack the emergency to wash every lettuce or cabbage leaf.

In searching for ways to get rid of dirt and pesticides from veggies fast, I stumbled upon this little prepper’s trick which involves the use of apple cider vinegar and baking soda. I can state for the fact that it works – even the taste’s different.

Here’s how to do it – fill your sink with clean and cold water (don’t forget about the plug). Add one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and one tablespoon of baking soda. Now place your veggies inside and let them soak for at least 15 minutes. Drain the water, rinse with cold water, and enjoy a pesticide-free veggies dinner.

Related –The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us

  1. Crafting a fly trap

Word of caution before I tell you how to piece together the trap – this only works for gnats or fruit flies. I wouldn’t try out on other flying critters.

Anyway, grab the biggest mason jar you find around the house and use a nail or your survival knife to poke a couple of holes in the lid. Bear in mind that these holes must be big enough for the flies to pass through. Fill the jar halfway with apple cider vinegar and place on the kitchen counter. Attracted by the sweet smell, the flies will go inside and drown.

  1. Getting rid of callouses on your feet

Staying on your feet from dusk till dawn is probably one of the best health shots. Still, your feet might have a thing or two to say at the end of the day. Callouses are nasty, and there but the first step to other ‘wonderful’ things such as blisters and even warts.

There’s a way to get rid of those callouses and, of course, the not-so-great smell that goes along with them. Before hitting the sack, fill the bathtub with warm water. Add two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and soak your feet for at least 20 minutes. I personally prefer to add a little bit of Epsom salts – they’re very soothing for the skin and prevents crackling.

 

Did I manage to convince you to stockpile more apple cider vinegar? Hit the comments section and let me know your thoughts.

I thought you needed a break from our Weed Week. 

However, starting a pot stock-pile is also a very good idea.

I’m just saying.

God Bless.

Other Self-sufficiency and Preparedness solutions recommended for you:

The Lost Ways (The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us)
Survival MD (Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation)
Backyard Liberty (Liberal’s hidden agenda: more than just your guns…)
Alive After the Fall (Build yourself the only unlimited water source you’ll ever need)
The Lost ways II (4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis)
The Patriot Privacy Kit (Secure your privacy in just 10 simple steps)

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Ok, let's talk vinegar. Or what happens when wine goes bad. Or, as we preppers like to call it, the stuff that dreams are made of.

The key to survival is preparation, and the consummate prepper is well aware of Sta-Bil, the fuel additive that allows users to store gasoline for a year or more to prevent its highly-refined molecular structure from breaking down and losing octane. The same type of precautions need to be taken to extend the shelf life of food, whether they’re canned or dried.

No matter how much food you stockpile, it will ultimately run out. These three tips will help preserve what you have for as long as possible, and provide renewable sources of food regardless of living conditions.

Low Humidity, Low Temperatures

There are two things that can spoil any food: heat and moisture. Hot, humid environments are ideal for bacteria, yeast, and other microbes to thrive. Autolytic spoilage (i.e. browning of apples, bread mold, etc.) is also hastened by these conditions.

Those living in Midwestern and New England states should store their food stashes in the coolest, driest spot in the house. The basement is ideal, coupled with a dehumidifier. Those who live in states that typically don’t have basements in homes (such as Arizona or Nevada) should pick a room and block out all sunlight. Use roman shades to block out the sun completely, while still allowing the option to open them if needed.

Add oxygen-absorbing packets to dried foods in jars and bags, particularly jerky, cereals, and dehydrated fruits. These packets should also be placed in vitamin and medicine bottles.

Other Self-sufficiency and Preparedness solutions recommended for you:

The Lost Ways (The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us)
Survival MD (Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation)
Backyard Liberty (Liberal’s hidden agenda: more than just your guns…)
Alive After the Fall (Build yourself the only unlimited water source you’ll ever need)
The Lost ways II (4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis)
The Patriot Privacy Kit (Secure your privacy in just 10 simple steps)

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