The Orange Screw

 Saw a review of these in one of my survival mags and was intrigued.  There are other similar on the market, but can see why these are as expensive as they are, and as highly rated.  Ground pegs, tent stakes, earth staples, all just pull out with a little tug – or some high winds.  Doubt that these are going anywhere!  The top is big enough to really grab on to – and there is the tube they supply to help if necessary.  Number of different ways to attach what ever it is you are staking down. Just used three this morning to “tie down” my mesh pop up plant covers in the garden.  have already had them shift around, and even blow off, during some 40+ wind gusts with tent stakes.  Hopefully, this will solve that problem!

 

 

 

 

 

 

goal zero at Costco

Seems Costco has gotten Goal Zero to make them an exclusive Goal Zero power pack – the Yeti 1000.  Lithium battery, 42lbs, hook up to Solar panels or house current,  and only $1000.  If you check out their pricing, the cheapest cost per watt/hour is their Yeti 400 with the lead acid battery and that’s still over $1/ watt hour.

Now, if only the solar input connection worked!!  Know its not the panel of the wires as it works just fine with my Yeti 400 and the new unit is charging happily from the house current.

SIGH

Know, though, that Goal Zero has pretty decent customer service as I’ve had to use them in the past.  Lets hope they are as good with the Costco exclusive.  Or back to Costco it goes!

and yes, I know its made in China. . . .

lifestyle insurance

This also came up when reading the LDS manual.

For those who have a problem with the idea of PREPPER, Lifestyle insurance.

Storm, illness, failure of the retirement fund, old age, job loss for any reason.  Lifestyle Insurance is the food, water, clothing, and hopefully fuel, stored for a rainy day.

And if you can’t get your brain around the fact that any of it could happen to you, think how you will feel when you can help someone else who has had it happen to them . . . because we all know it happens only to other people!

Normalcy bias

This came up in reading my LDS preparedness manual last night.  Have read this before, but the term didn’t register as it has this time.  Guess because we are seeing so much of it going on now.

Basically, its just the psychological behavior of the brain not processing what’s going on; this terrible thing isn’t happening, or, it can’t happen, or, it won’t happen to me, or, that’s too dreadful a scenario for me to conceptualize.  The most common time we all experience it, is the death, or imminent death,  of a loved one.  The denial is the first stage and sometimes its where we get stuck.

Or the destruction of our home in a fire or tornado or hurricane or flood.  I’ll wake up tomorrow and it will all be a bad dream.

At some point, we have to cope and go through the stages of grief and come out the other side – and sometimes, people don’t.

So what has that to do with preparedness?  If you can’t bend your mind around the idea that something terrible could happen and it could happen to you, how can you ‘prepare’ for it?  To begin doing so, even on the smallest scale, is to admit that it could be true!  Keeping a few gallons of water and some canned food if you live in an area prone to power outages is one thing.  You’ve experienced them, you know they are temporary.  But to imagine that it won’t be temporary?  That someone won’t be around to fix it and make it better in a few days?  That’s like being faced with opening the door behind which might be the hungry tiger!

Its true, the likelihood that we will truly be faced with a for-ever situation is slight.  It is far more likely, we will be faced with something temporary. But temporary could be months or even years!  Why do you think the people of the U.S., the least effected country in the world, had to scramble with victory gardens and rationing during WWII?  If there had been stores in the basement to augment the shortages, and a lot of people did have them as it was a more rural society then, it wasn’t much more than an inconvenience.  But for some people, WWII rationing WAS a hardship!

Now, we are hooked on technology. at the same time we have solar and wind power turbines available for the common man.  We have portable battery storage. enough so that some people will notice little difference in terms of having lights on, refrigerators working, maybe even air conditioning.  If they have a well, they will still have running hot and cold water!  They can watch DVD’s, use their DVR’s, read stored books on their electronic devices.

For most of us, cutting the power will be true future shock.  Know my food stores are not up to even months of shortages and my water supplies are probably only good for a week.  Need more water filters so we can make use of creek, ponds, puddles, pools, or standing water from the bathtub.

Yes, I suffer from Normalcy Bias too, augmented by husband’s more severe form.  But current events are changing his way of thinking, and he has more faith in what I’ve been storing than I have – but then, I know the inventory!  And I’ve long known that to give in to REALLY storing up food and water, I’m admitting that the worst can probably happen – and like most people, don’t want to!

 

for the women

Saturday will once again be joining the Ladies that Shoot.

If you want to learn how to shoot, what to get to get together with women who like to shoot, check out The Well Armed Woman web page and look to see if they have a chapter near you.   Have been shopping with TWAW for several years, and a couple of years ago, Carrie set up this chapter arrangement and it has become HUGE!  Live in a small city myself so have to travel about an hour either north or south to get to a chapter (and the chapter north meets on weekday evenings – way past my bedtime!).

Meetings are usually held at a shooting range, with reasonable priced range time afterwards.  Chapter leaders are NRA instructors, all women.  Depending on the chapter they have “roadtrips”, contests, etc.

A great opportunity to learn about guns, and how to use them properly.

a couple of thoughts

Am I the only one to notice that it is getting hard to find good canned goods WITHOUT pull tab tops?  If you didn’t know, the are not recommended for long term storage because the cut that makes them pull tab tops effectively goes right through the lid.

LDS preparedness manual.  The Church of Latter Day Saints has a strong suggestion (just this side of being a commandment), that its members have at least one years worth of ‘stuff’ on hand at all times.  As a modern religion, they have faced a lot of hardship, although they do prosper in modern times, so they must be doing something right!

Anyway, if you are looking for a good guideline of what to store, they offer this manual as a free download at http://www.ldsavow.com/prepmanualgeneral.html

You can also buy it, and I do have a copy.  Yes, there is a lot of Mormon stuff in there, which you can cope with; and it is good background as to WHY this book exists!  There was an interesting quote in one of the opening stories, when asked about when the world would end, the answer was  ‘ I know it will end, but am planting Cherry Trees anyway.  In other words, prepare, but meanwhile, live your life.

With what we’re hearing on the news, am working on the first, while doing the second!

Faraday

Live too close to the West Coast for comfort.  Am not afraid of earthquakes, but of Mr. “I’ve got Nukes and I’m not afraid to use them”.   Cannot afford to put duplicates of everything we own into Faraday cages.  Nor can we use the things we need if they are in Faraday cages.  But guess I’ve got to put something together for the things not being used at any given moment.

Stupid way to have to live . . .

cash will remain king

Not long ago, saw someone on one of the prepper forums praising BitCoins as being the payment of the future.  Personally, don’t even know what a bitcoin is, but in the SHTF world, don’t think we’re going to be using it much.  Still, this person was going on about how much they had increased in value and were worth the investment.  Not long after that, saw bitcoin had been “devalued” by several billion dollars and that person did not post any comments

Once upon a time, before there was currency, there was barter.  and in our SHTF preps, we are encouraged to put away barter items like booze and ammo and . .

But back when there was barter, there were times when person A needed something and person B, who had that something, didn’t want anything that person A could offer.  Now what?  And so money was born.  Not as value of its own, but as a neutral item of barter.

A couple of years ago, saw we had a local barter group spring up (think I posted about this then, and wonder what happened to those folks?) who created their own script for that same purpose.  If you did this – like yard work for an elder – then you got so much in script.  and when you needed help painting your bedroom, you traded in that script for some one’s labor.  The idea being this was sort of “undeclared income”.  Unfortunately, the IRS does not accept that idea and you have to prove you gave equally for what you received.  Same for businesses.  Anyway . . .

It still ends up being money.  And cash money is something we already understand.

So when the SHTF, you will still be using money once the dust settles and people get back into the idea that you cannot be all things unto yourself and not everyone wants what you have to offer in trade.   And the guy who has decided he controls the lumber yard isn’t going to let you in to take some wood based on handing him a dozen eggs.

AND, if it is just a SHTF event, like a hurricane or tornado, you will need that cash when you no longer have a job, the bank is finding reasons to hold on to your money because they know you don’t have a job and there are mortgage payments due, and you need to buy food, etc.  And with interest rates so low, “saving” money in the bank isn’t really doing you anything but letting “them” know how much you have!

So as you go back to the idea of burying your money in sealed mason jars in the back yard, or stuffing your mattress, make sure you have plenty of small bills and change.  When you have to barter for that dozen eggs with cash, they aren’t going to have change of a $100!