More Prepping

Stockpiling foods and other essentials is now currently called “prepping” and with world events it is becoming necessary for more and more people to be prepared and now we have the adverts showing old people riding around on buses to keep warm or phoning people in desperation, and being evicted from their homes and this is a forerunner of what is to come. People such as Musky Rat and Billy Bob Gates are exploring other planets and Musk Rat has said he wants to own the moon and be the law, so they are looking to abandon earth and move elsewhere.

Stockpiling or prepping isn’t confined solely to foods as some solar panels and a battery will guarantee some electrical supply, kinetic items such as lanterns, torches, and radios will guarantee other necessities such as light, and radio contact and they can now supply power to mobile phones to charge them or power banks. Many other items will be needed and items such as a water filter and the knowledge of how to make them will ensure your water supplies for years from things you have lying around the home and your greatest asset; your brain as knowledge is power and the power to survive.

You can never gain too much knowledge and this knowledge dictates the order you buy things in and while the youngsters may say a new mobile phone; you are thinking with no electricity there will be no mobile networks and no active masts so this mobile phone is best thrown in the river as it cannot be used. This is the sort of information you require, the ability to sort the necessary from the fickle and vanity items you would never use in a grid down scenario and with this information you can formulate a plan of acquisition so you have a rough idea of what you will get and when and this should be fairly fluid as people on lower incomes cannot afford things they may see as luxuries.

You can buy an extra item of food every week and before you do it would be prudent to research its correct storage and ensure you can correctly store it for longevity which will limit your food choices as something with a short date of 3 months is not really worth buying and storing and with the variety of foods we currently have it should be fairly easy to find things you as a family like which can be stored for years. You may decide to stockpile wood for fuel for cooking and/or heating or you may decide to make a rocket stove for both heat and cooking or you may decide to get a basic electrical charging system such as a cheaper solar panel with battery controller and then a leisure battery when funds permit, followed by a second battery for more electricity storage and to power things such as PMR radios and rechargeable radios and rechargeable lanterns.
You may opt for a clip on cigarette lighter socket as you can get a plug in USB charger to fit it and have the option of having both 12 volts and 5 volts as many Ni cad or NiMh battery chargers are now USB powered as are many lithium battery chargers and charging chips and many rechargeable torches and lanterns; but don’t forget the charging cables as without them your set up will be worthless and get a spare of each cable.

You need to be fluid as something you intend stockpiling may be on offer and it would be silly to miss it so don’t and some people may find things they never realised they may need would save them time and effort and a pressure cooker is such an item as you can cook everything in it at one go so one burner and the minimum amount of fuel. It may sound silly but we always took our pressure cooker camping as a family when we went camping and later on when I went out with expedition vehicles the pressure cooker always went and a friend said my pressure cooker has more air miles than a pilot and he could be right. Dutch ovens are often overlooked as they are cast iron and can be put in the middle of a fire and hot coals loaded over the top of it to cook and if you have a log burner they can be sat on top or placed inside so the logs cook and Dutch ovens also require leather welding gauntlets as they are hot so always get several pairs. You can explore other cooking methods such as pit cooking where you dig a hole and load it with rocks and make a fire on the rocks to heat them up and as the fire burns down you wrap your food in tin foil and put it on top of the rocks and cover it with the remaining hot rocks and cover the lot with soil.

I would suggest creating groupings of things so you are fluid enough to get bargains but you get other things you may need and never forget things as your shorts and tee shirts may be fine during a hot summer but your shorts will be no good in winter but your tee shirts certainly will and this is because of the way you approach the cold. In cold weather you work to keep warm and you use multiple layers of clothing instead of one single layer and as sweating is nature’s way of cooling the body you avoid sweating and remove a few layers of clothing before you sweat so you don’t have this cooling occurring and you stay warm. Much the same applies to other clothing such as getting a beeny hat to stop heat escaping through your exposed head and gloves to keep your hands warm as extremities suffer first in cold weather and it’s always the simple things which do the best for you and having a set of good boots with a thin pair of socks covered by a thick pair of socks will keep your feet warm.

Many people forget things such as their vehicle and ideally it would be diesel as you can buy diesel little by little and add it to a large container and buy a diesel treatment and it will last for years and if the grids fail you will have a vehicle and fuel and you will also have 12 volts and with a plug in USB you will also have 5 volts. This means you may fit a split charging system and use this to charge a second battery and this ensures some electricity and charged batteries for appliances and communications equipment and if you intend running this way I would also suggest a diesel cleaning agent to add to your fuel as supplies may become contaminated or cut with other things. I would suggest keeping engine oil and filters in as well as fan belts and major service items and learn how to repair things. Little by little it will come together and your plan will come to fruition and remember like-minded individuals can work together and it you can get a large bag of rice from Costco or a warehouse and it is 20Kg and it is split between 4 people it is only 5Kg’s each and it all adds up.

Look for functional foods and by functional I mean it will serve more than one purpose and tinned corned beef lasts for years and can be eaten as a sandwich, or made into hash or a corned beef stew and cup a soups can be added to rice to cook it in and you get rice with a sauce so be creative and coconut milk comes in tins so keep some as it lasts for years and it is better than your dried milk. Jars of coffee which are unopened and have the foil seal intact will last over a decade and the tins of meat and fish with long dates are extraordinary as you can get almost any meat in tins and you can get things such as meatballs in gravy and burgers with onions in a rich gravy and many last for years and if you have flour you can almost certainly make bread so keep some yeast in sealed sachets or learn to make different types of bread as many flatbreads don’t rise and don’t need yeast and you can also buy many things in season and preserve them. Condensed soups are a great wet tinned soup and save space and weight as you open the tin and pour it into a pan and fill the tin up with water and add it to the soup and mix it in and if you don’t add water or only add ¼ or ½ a tin it is thicker and makes a good pasta sauce.

One thing I would suggest is going on a first aid course and ideally more than one needs to go and as these courses can become advanced you have more than one person with necessary skills to keep you alive and deal with most things medical especially accidents. If you get a medical dictionary and an off rid first aid manual it will tell you how to treat many more conditions, so read it regularly.

Many things can be gathered year round while others are better gathered in the summer or winter and wood is an example and I would always ask the landowners permission before taking any wood and if you like walking or have a dog you can walk in the woods and remember, be observant. During the winter we generally get high winds and branches and even full trees fall and if you leave them for several months they begin to season and as they dry you can use them as fuel and if you have one power tool I would suggest a reciprocating saw. These have a bewildering choice of blades and I will keep this to steel cutting and wood cutting blades and remember some do both, and I would suggest 6” (150mm) for steel and 9” (225mm) for wood and get the most aggressive type you can as these often work on green wood as well as dried wood and you can soon split a 4” (100mm) thick branch with one and include a second battery. Many rechargeable tools come as systems and many have 12 volt battery chargers which can plug into your cars cigarette lighter so plug it in when travelling and if you are at home your 12 volt battery will do and I would suggest a second tool which is the cordless drill as this drills and screws and with adapters it can undo and do up nuts and other things. Think and be creative, with a cordless drill you can drill or screw so be prepared for both by getting a bit holder or two and all the different sized bits as kits now contain wood, masonry, and steel bits and if you intend fitting a solar panel to your home you will need Rawplugs and screws so get a large pack of Rawplugs which come in the three popular sizes and are colour coded, and an assortment of different sized screws.

People often forget the simple things and while you are outside you should now be wearing multiple thin layers of clothing and when you go inside you take a lot of it off and you get cold so staying warm inside is necessary in a cold house and again many cheap or £ shops can come to the rescue. Many have the fluffy fleece blankets which are about 1.8M long and cover most people and keep them warm and they are cheap and the cold weather sleeping bags are another nicety for when it drops below freezing and while these are obvious there are less obvious things you can do. Simply removing wet clothing and drying out before replacing the clothing is a nice way to stay warm and another is to put your fleece down and lie on it before you lie on the settee or anything else as this often conducts heat away from your body and cools you down. Heating a room up is actually easier than many people think and if you own or rent an older property with an open fire you can uncap the chimney and use the open fire but a companion set and grate would be handy and I would recommend checking the chimney flue and smoke bombing it to test for leaks. Many houses with chimneys were fitted with stainless steel flue liners and again a fire would be connected to these and if you build a log burner to connect to the flue liner then you need exhaust paste to seal the joints.

Cleaning is vital for good health and the major things are cleaning your home, cleaning pots and pans and cleaning your clothes; if you go to warehouses or bulk purchase stores such as Costco you can get commercial sized products and for less than £5 (at the time of writing) you can get a 5 litre container of washing up liquid. If you get one of these and you have a smaller open washing up liquid bottle you keep filling it from your larger bottle and it lasts ages; similarly you can get the cheap washing powder for washing machines in large industrial size boxes and no brand items are very cheap so buy two or three over time. This often comes in cardboard boxes and cold homes have moist air and cardboard absorbs moisture and this causes the washing powder to deteriorate so put it into plastic bags and seal them with tape, no moisture, no deterioration.

If you have a laminator you can print off your ideas and laminate them so they will be safe and free from spills and you can pin them up and if you have a white board and whiteboard markers you can write lists as you need to and rub them off as needed. You can do the same with recipes with your chosen ingredients and possibly put them into a folder for future reference and they will be kept clean and can be wiped down.

I use the 'what if ' approach.
Just ask yourself, if they start rounding people up what would i do ?
If food becomes short ,what will i do
Power supplies fail ,what will i do ?
Desperate people breaking in for what i may have,what will i do ?

Apart from nuclear , major biological, or chemical attack i think i have
it all covered.

Water ,food & shelter are all you really need .
For those who still waste their time with the idiot box in the corner.
stop. spend the time learning what is edible in the wild.