OR – shop till you drop!
Prepper Fest in Phoenix, AZ this weekend. Went down yesterday without a budget limit – good? bad? ready to buy many of things I’ve been looking at/for our possibilities bag!
This Goal Zero Yeti 150 was not on my list of MUST BUYs, but it is something I’ve been looking for. When I first heard about this company it was called Humless and the smallest batter/solar panel combination was over $500 and I just couldn’t afford it. By the time I could, they were gone and only the $2000 version was available. Now it is called Goal Zero and this little unit, with solar panel was $380. They still have the $2000 version – which will run appliances (maybe one day), but this will run a 12V light, charge a kindle, phone, laptop, dvd player, etc. It is probably enough to give a battery a boost.
There is another unit, a little bit more, that comes complete with solar cell, unit and a lamp. It was actually less, but held a little less than this one
http://www.goalzero.com/p/166/goal-zero-yeti-150-solar-generator-kit
This is the unit I’d originally been looking for http://www.goalzero.com/p/167/goal-zero-yeti-400-solar-generator-kit
This is the unit I’d ultimately like to get http://www.goalzero.com/p/138/goal-zero-yeti-1250-solar-generator-kit
Also got a Berkey water filter. Got the Royal http://www.bigberkeywaterfilters.com/royal-berkey.html
also got a little rocket stove for the bug out bag, and a pretty nice solar cooker http://mysolarcooker.com/ just got the parabolic reflector, not the other stuff that came with it.
plus this really neat solar dehydrator http://www.wheatgrasskits.com/foodpantrie.htm Not that I don’t have a perfectly good Excalibur, but its only a 5 shelf and sometimes not big enough AND this is all for the day when there might not be electric to count on!
Plus some books and videos.
Was surprised that there was no one there for water harvesting, although quite a bit for water purification and some storage. Also some interesting hydroponic systems. A lot of gloom and doom folks with pepper spray, camo, bullet proof plates, EMP protection for your computers (if we have an atomic bomb go off not sure if your computer working will be high on your priority list!). HAM radio folks were there and found out about the local HAM group. Quite a bit of Years Supply of Food, Gluten Free, only $1900 for one person!! and big emergency medical kits. Did pick up some extras for our first aid kit, including some suture sets. Someone even had some BIG distillation units. and there were a few people selling precious metals, and holsters. It was a No Gun event, but the usual Constitutional advocates were there, Tea party, Tenth Amendment, Second Amendment (though no NRA). People selling land for your Escape. One person selling gold claims (we have them in AZ, but am always leery of that!).
No canning, only food preservation was dehydrating. Understand a years supply of dehydrated food takes up much less space than canned goods, but when you live someplace that only gets a couple of good rainfalls a year, your 50 gallon water drum only goes so far!
thoughts and ramblings 