2010 Preps in Review and 2011 Goals

I can't believe how quickly 2010 went by. I thought it would be interesting to evaluate my prepping progress over five areas.

INFORMATION:

• I probably made the most progress in this area. I had zero knowledge of or interest in preparedness at the start of the year. Now I have read on the subject extensively and I feel comfortable with many of the most important preparedness areas. I feel confident in my knowledge of food storage, but not so much in areas like defense and alternative energy.
• I made efforts to preserve my newly gained information. I have an enormous preparedness binder with lots of information printed off and organized. I collected numerous food storage and garden vegetable recipes and have another binder for that.  
• Hubby Dear backed up our computer on SOS Online Backup. We also have several flashdrives with important items copied onto them.
• I made an emergency binder with essential documents for our bug out bags (BOBs).

Speaking of bugging out...

SURVIVAL ESSENTIALS:

• Because of our location, it would take something extraordinary for us to bug-out, but now we are prepared to do so. We have BOBs packed and ready to go.
• Our vehicles are always equipped with emergency supplies.
• We have a couple of ways to start fires and a large stash of dryer lint (tinder!).
• We have emergency lighting ready to go.
• If we had to, we could shelter-in-place during a chemical or biological threat. We have potassium iodide tablets in case of a nuclear incident. (Even the federal government thinks you should shelter-in-place during a nuke event.)

WATER AND FOOD:

• I came up with three months' worth of menus of shelf-stable, normal meals and a plan to get 1 year's worth of food.
• I have between 2 and 4 weeks worth of water stored at home. 
• According to Emergency Essentials' Food Storage Analyzer, we have about 151 days of food currently stored.
• To help us rotate our storage, I invested in smaller food storage containers and some can organizers.
• I bought a hand-crank grain mill and learned how to use whole wheat berries to make bread.
• I learned how to use a pressure canner in addition to my water bath canner. I've canned a variety of items from pickles to ground beef to applesauce.

FIRST AID/HEALTH AND HYGIENE:

• We have first aid kits in several different places, from my purse to our BOBs.
• We stocked up on items useful in a pandemic, such as N-95 masks and nitrile gloves. I've already been very glad to have the gloves on hand (no pun intended) during our family's bout with stomach flu over Christmas.
• We've begun to stockpile toilet paper and OTC medications.

That's quite a bit accomplished in seven short months.

My Goals for 2011:

1. Get a full year's worth of food storage.
2. Buy an electric grain mill (finally).
3. Continue to develop our gardening skills. We're converting our vegetable garden to a square foot garden. Hopefully we'll get enough cherries, raspberries, and blackberries to can and freeze this year.
4. Can a wide variety of garden produce.
5. Further develop our water storage and purification abilities. This could include: getting a Berkey filter, storing pool shock, mapping out nearby natural water sources, and installing rain barrels.
6. Deepen our store of first aid/medical supplies.
7. Lose weight and get in shape - both Hubby Dear and I.

And finally...

    8.    Start saving towards our home renovation that will include the installation of a woodstove.

Whew! That sounds like a lot. Hopefully we can accomplish all of these.

How have your preps come along in 2010? Do you have any big plans for 2011?  

Month Five Preps

This is what I've lined up for October:

1. Squirrel away more cash for BOBs and vehicle kits.
2. Buy a couple of cases of toilet paper. I estimate we need about 8 cases or so to have a year's supply, so this will get us a little closer to my goal.
3. Add some more matches to my supply.
4. Buy some air-tight containers for my pantry to hold what I take from my bulk food storage (ie. flour, sugar, dry beans).
5. Continue to build our three month and long-term supplies of food. 
6. Exercise at least three times per week.

I continue to go back and forth on exactly what I should be buying each month. This month I gave in to my urge to focus mainly on food storage. Buying food is more fun for me than many of the other survival categories. What can I say? I like to cook and eat. :) We'll get around to all areas eventually.

Month Four Preps: Butane in my veins

I like to write posts named after lyrics from songs from my youth. I probably should have called it "Come on Baby, Light My Fire", but that would be from my parents' youth. We'll stick with the 90s today.  

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Without electricity, how am I going to cook any of this food I am so frantically storing?

Around here it is de rigueur to have at least a 500 gallon propane tank on your property. Ours runs our furnace and gas cooktop. Depending on the season and the weather conditions, a full tank will last us between 2 and 6 months. We are members of a fuel co-op and have regular deliveries to keep our tank topped off. We also buy our winter fuel ahead of time, locking the price of propane in place and paying for everything in advance. If Hubby Dear should lose his job, that's one bill we wouldn't have to worry about for a few months.

The only problem with this set up is that the starter-spark thingy that lights the gas in both appliances is electric. The furnace also uses electricity to run its fans. I can't do much about that until we get a generator, but we can easily use our stove even in an emergency with aid of a handy-dandy butane lighter.

I love this Zippo MPL. It is very easy to use and is refillable. And did I mention it is pink? :)

I bought four extra cans of butane this month. I'll get more butane as well as additional MPLs later on. 

Of course there's always matches. You can never have too many of those. I have some in our kitchen and others in our BOBs. I'm going to stock up on more as part of Month Five of my Prepping Plan.

The third item I'm planning on buying for potential fire starting needs is a firesteel. I first saw one of these demonstrated on The Discovery Channel's "Dual Survival" (Here's a link that describes all the methods they used to start a fire on that show). You rub small metal striker perpendicularly down the steel. It produces a very hot spark that will light the gas on my stove or the tinder I gather for a fire outdoors.

Speaking of tinder, I've started collecting dryer lint. Finally, a use for dryer lint! I'm filling small ziplock bags with it and putting it in our BOBs. If we do have to bug out and make a fire, having dry tinder at the ready will be vital. 

If the electricity goes off, my electric oven won't work. There are a few options for baking food without electricity:

• A solar oven, either homemade or store-bought. That method will only work if it is sunny.
• A homemade box oven.
• Baking on the dashboard of my van on a hot day. For real.  

At some point, we're going to have to consider getting a wood stove and/or a generator for backup power. For now, though, we can be sure of a hot, home cooked meal whether or not the power is on.

Month Four Preps

I keep going back and forth on what I want to buy in the next month. All the economic indicators point to a very long road before we get to real recovery. I'm worried about inflation, which means that I want to buy as much food as I can. It's almost feeling like a Sophie's Choice deciding which items to buy! (Yes, I can be overly dramatic. Why do you ask?)

These are the preps I have lined up for month four of my prepping plan:

1. More $ for BOBs. Add $ to our vehicle kits.
2. The items I postponed buying from Month Three: butane refills for my Zippo lighter, the remainder of the items for my van's vehicle kit.
3. Buckets, mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, etc. so that I can package bulk amounts of flour, beans and rice.

And something a bit different:

   4.   Exercise at least 3 times per week.

This last one may be the toughest one of all. Ack!