May 9, 2024

Posts Comments

Fifteen Must Have Downloads

May 13, 2013 by

Here are 15 documents that I think are well worth downloading, some you may want to print sections of to have a hard copy.  Oh yeah and they’re all free!

 

FM 3-05.70 Army Survival Manual

This manual explains how to provide the five basic needs for survival, food, water, shelter, energy and security in multiple climates. 

 

SH 21-76 Army Ranger Handbook

This manual has a lot of information relating to battle drills, building clearing techniques.  I added it because if things really get bad, this information can be useful to share with our neighbors to protect the neighborhood.

 

FM4-25.11 Army First Aid Manual

I believe everyone should have basic first aid training, but this is a good book to use as a reference.

 

Where there is no Doctor And Where there is no Dentist

Both of these books are worth downloading, lots of great medical and dental information, would be great to have if 911 isn’t coming.  Hesperian the company that gives away free PDF copies has asked no one post the books on their own site.  You can still get these two plus many more free ebooks be clicking one of the links above.  I actually like these books so much I bought hard copies of several.

 

Survival and Austere Medicine

This is another good resource for medical information.

 

1881 Household Cyclopedia

This book list a huge amount of information that has been lost in current society.  This would be great info if the grid did fail, so printing off sections might be a good idea.

 

Introduction to Permaculture

This is a great resource that can help you begin to create your own food forest.

 

Vegetable Gardening in Containers

I picked this book because not everyone has land available to plant a garden, but even if you live in an apartment you should be able to grow something in a container.  If you do have land to plant a garden, much of the information will still apply.

 

Everything you always wanted to know about composting

Learn how to create your own compost, one of the best things for a garden.

 

USDA Principles of Home Canning

Knowing how to preserve food is a must, this pdf is full of practical information.

 

Home Canning Meat Poultry, Red Meats, Game and Seafood

Knowing how to preserve meats is also great info to have, that not many of us know.

 

Preserving Food: Drying Fruits and Vegetables

There are other ways to preserve fruits and vegetables besides canning.

 

Are You Ready? An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness

FEMA document that is comprehensive, covering multiple types of disasters that will help the individual, family and community prepare.

 

Abundaculture; Pathways to God’s Abundance

Christian Homesteader that created a document on living off grid. He covers solar, composting, composting toilet among other things 170+ pages.

 

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: General Preparedness

Starting Seeds With a Soil Cubes and Building Rain Catchment

May 10, 2013 by

Here are a couple garden projects we’ve been working on this week. I know some of you are gardeners so I thought I would share them with you.

Soil Cubes

I know its past time to start seeds for many of you but we got a late start on it this year. Over the years I have used many things to start seeds, some worked better than others and some just plain didn’t work. This year I used something called a Soil Cube. While the seeds haven’t sprouted yet, I am pretty impressed. The soil cube is $19.99 +shipping, which gets you the soil cube maker and a tong to move the cubes with.

The problem I have had and seen with several seed starters is that the roots coil around the inside of a container, and are shocked when you transplant the seedling. The idea behind the Soil Cube is that your potting mix is the container. When the time is right you just put the cube in your garden. There is no root shock. Because the soil cube is the container, the roots stop at the edge of the soil, so there is no root coiling. We made fifty cubes in (maybe) thirty minutes and will transplant them to containers later this spring.

You can learn much more by visiting the Soil Cube Site I’ve also posted the intro video below.

 

Rain Catchment

Rain water is better for a garden than city water, so building a rain catchment system has been something on my to-do list for a while. I finally got to it this week. For every inch of rain that falls on a 1000 square foot roof, you can catch approximately 600 gallons of water. Believe it or not catching rain is actually illegal in some states, so check your local laws before building a rain catchment system.

We have two barrels that have holes on the left and right and screened tops. We also purchased a product called a Rain Reserve that you attach to a downspout. It diverts some of the rain water to your barrel. The Rain Reserves are pretty pricey now at $89. But you buy one and get one free. We paid half that at a farmers market a year or two ago.

As you can see from the pictures, we set one barrel up higher than the other. When that one is full, it will then transfer over to the second barrel through the hose. We put them on blocks to add some pressure if we decide to add drip irrigation later.

We’ll use the water for the garden but, if we needed to in a pinch, we could use it to flush the toilet, bathe or even drink. We would need to purify it first if we were going to drink it.

BeforeAfter

Rain Reserve

The top right picture shows that the Rain Reserve is pretty low. This is because that is where it was already cut, and I didn’t want to make another one if I could help it. It rained and it turns out I will need to make another cut and raise the rain reserve above the barrel.

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: Preparedness Tips Tagged With: , ,

Getting to Know LPC Survival, aka; The Berkey Guy

May 8, 2013 by

I try to support local businesses whenever possible. I like that I can get to know them and their history in the area. I also like that they are a part of the community and often support it in various ways. As an extension of this kind of thinking, I like to find out about the sites on the Internet that I do business with as well. Because the Internet can make things feel more impersonal, I often research potential companies before I spend my money there.

I do the same for companies that would like me to advertise their site or give a discount to the Preparedness Club. I’m not saying I have to know them well, but I try to find out if they’re shady and how they treat their customers. Because of this, I have decided that I would give companies who advertise on the site or support the Preparedness Club the chance to let you get to know them a little better. To do this, I will make a post from time to time, giving them the chance to do a little question and answer session with me.

Before I get to the Q/A session, I wanted to just say that I did research LPC Survival and purchased my Berkey from him as well as a Berkey sport bottle for each BOB. I want to thank Jeff for his support of Prepared Christian and of the Preparedness Club.
 

LPC Survival 

1. How did your company get started and what was its main goal?
We started over 7 1/2 years ago, and started offering Berkey Water Purification Systems & our main goal is to help people prepare while time is on their side.

2. What major changes have you seen since then?
People are more interested in prepping and survival then when we first started.

3. What would you like people to know about your company?
We have helped thousands of people get better prepared, and look forward to helping people for years to come.

4. How can your company help people to be better prepared?
We offer Berkey Water purification Systems, which help people have purified water using gravity only. We also offer many other products that help people prepare for whatever may happen.

Preparedness Club members save 7% on all purchases at LPC Survival. On a Big Berkey, that could be almost $20!

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: General Preparedness

21 Blogs with Advice on How to Create an Emergency Plan for Your Family

May 6, 2013 by

Today’s post is a guest post by Hannah Anderson; the original can be found at Full-Time Nanny.com

You never know when an emergency situation may arise; however, you can take certain steps to ensure that you are as prepared as possible for if and when one occurs. Start by preparing an emergency plan for a fire.  You will need to determine at least two ways to get out of every room and pick a safe meeting spot that is away from the house. Practicing your evacuation route with your family will help everyone remain calm in the event of an emergency. Stocking up on nonperishable foods and emergency supplies will help you ride out a storm if severe weather strikes. Preparing an emergency preparedness kit and locating a safe place to ride out the storm are essential steps in getting your family ready for any severe weather – expected or unexpected. Take a look at these 21 blog posts for details on how you can be better prepared for the next emergency your family encounters.

 

Fire

In the event of a fire, you want to make sure that each family member knows exactly how to respond and what to do.  How are you going to get out of the house and where are you going to meet up with the rest of the family? Is there somewhere you can go to use the telephone to call the fire department?  Do the kids know what to do if a fire breaks out while you are not home?  Make sure that everyone knows how to use the fire extinguisher and that you have enough of them in the house.  Keep fresh batteries in your smoke detectors.  You can read these tips and more in these seven blog entries.

 

Storm

Severe weather can mean anything from a tornado to a hurricane to flooding. Having a plan in place can make these types of disasters a little less scary. It’s important to have a safe place to go in your home when severe weather strikes. Check out these seven blogs for more tips on preparing an emergency plan for severe weather.

 

Emergency Preparedness Kit

After you create an emergency plan, you should create an emergency preparedness kit.  Make sure that you have food for at least three days, plenty of bottled water and a way to stay warm and safe.  Flashlights and batteries are necessities in your emergency preparedness kit.  To create your own kit, look at these seven blogs.

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: General Preparedness Tagged With:

Tidbits Three, Giveaways and Some Important News Stories

May 3, 2013 by

Today I want to cover several small topics that I think might interest you but are too short for their own blog post; from giveaways to important news stories.
 

Threat Journal Giveaway

AlertsUSA Threat Journal is giving away a 6 month emergency food supply from Wise Food Storage. No purchase is necessary. Just subscribe to their newsletter using the signup form on their Facebook page. The drawing will be held this summer.

 

The Preparedness Review

The second edition of the Preparedness Review is now available as a free download. It is packed full of great information throughout its seventeen articles and over 76 pages! To download, you can either directly here, or you can visit the Preparedness Review to view the full release notes. Below are the names of the authors featured in this edition.

•Chris Ray
•James W. Rawles
•Ray Gano
•Creek Stewart
•Dr. Bones & Nurse Amy
•Tess Pennington
•David Safewater
•Joe Nobody
•Gaye Levy
•Daisy Luther
•Erich
•Gary Griffin
•John Beck
•Jeff “The Berkey Guy” Gleason
•Brandon
•Michael Bunker
•Chris Newman

Green Houses.pro

Green Houses.pro has kindly offered members of the Preparedness Club a 10% discount. Here is a little info about them:
“Proud builder of the World’s strongest residential greenhouses. Made from 2-1/2″ square galvanized steel beams. Able to withstand 100 MPH winds and built to last for generations. Each greenhouse is custom fabricated to every customer’s specific needs and desires yet still priced affordably enough for anyone to enjoy. We install greenhouses in the lower 48 states and can ship kits as well for those do-it-yourselfers who want to save a few bucks.””
 

News Events

North Korea
The news about the tensions between the US and North Korea seems to have cooled off since the Boston Marathon terrorist attack but I don’t believe the actual tensions have. Here is an article from Forbes.com called The Ultimate North Korean Missile Threat To America: A Nuke Power Grid Attack.. I won’t go into detail on the article, but it does a very good job at explaining what the threat is and what the White House and the DOD are doing about it. While there are some saying North Korea is just saber rattling, the article quotes an expert on North Korea:

“Victor Cha, a specialist on North Korea at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sees the matter quite differently. “North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear threat is very much a near-term threat. For people to say it’s just bluster, well, the bluster may be harmless, but the steady progression in their program is not harmless.”

Finance

There are two articles that I think are very important. If you have any money in banks, I recommend you read them.

The first is called No Bank Deposits Will Be Spared from Confiscation. It does a great job explaining why money in a bank is not safe from confiscation. The article explains it far better than I can even summarize. The second article called,explains why the Cyprus style confiscations will happen again.

Why does this matter? China. China holds an incredible amount of American debt. Keep in mind that it was not Cyprus that wanted to confiscate money from bank accounts. It was the EU who had been bailing them out and owned their debt.

While true that the FDIC does insure deposits, banks hold very little cash on hand, usually less than $5,000-$10,000. If people wanted to rush to the bank to get their money out before a confiscation, they would run out of money quickly. If this happened at multiple banks, the FDIC couldn’t afford to pay it all out.

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: Tidbits Tagged With: ,

Getting to know Best Price Storable Foods

May 2, 2013 by

I try to support local businesses whenever possible. I like that I can get to know them and their history in the area. I also like that they are a part of the community and often support it in various ways. As an extension of this kind of thinking, I like to find out about the sites on the Internet that I do business with as well. Because the Internet can make things feel more impersonal, I often research potential companies before I spend my money there.

I do the same for companies that would like me to advertise their site or give a discount to the Preparedness Club. I’m not saying I have to know them well, but I try to find out if they’re shady and how they treat their customers. Because of this, I have decided that I would give companies who advertise on the site or support the Preparedness Club the chance to let you get to know them a little better. To do this, I will make a post from time to time, giving them the chance to do a little question and answer session with me.
 
 
The first company I will highlight is Best Prices Storable Foods
 
BPSF Group LLC

 
 
 
 

1. How did your company get started and what was its main goal?

The only real goal at first was to get prepared considering Clinton was in office. We were a couple of presidents too early. Friends of Bruce’s all agreed about Clinton so Bruce decided to become a distributor and help everyone out. They all changed their minds and he was the last man standing. He went to a show in Mesquite and sold quite a bit so he decided it would be a nice side income and he could help others too.

2. What major changes have you seen since then?

That was all in 1994. At first it was done all mail order through catalogs but in 1996 he went online with a website and has been at it ever since. The possibility of problems with computer dates in 98 and 99 brought an onslaught of orders from people who were concerned. The fact that it seemed to be a non-issue is not true. We had computer programmers order several years’ worth of food because they weren’t convinced everyone would be ready. We have been fairly steady until the last year and a half. Considering what is happening the whole industry is confused about why we aren’t experiencing another Y2K in business. There are pockets of spending but even the biggies are not seeing business where it should be. It is like everyone is holding their breath. Very Strange.

3. What would you like people to know about your company?

We have been around since 1994 as I said so we have a lot of experience in what works and what doesn’t. We brought the canned meat, cheese and butter to this market first. We have been in this for a long time and were the original designers of the 1yr for 4 unit which we split for a 1yr for 2. It was created with a dietitian, not just us throwing stuff together. It was designed for ease of use. No grain mills or extra equipment to buy. Ours was designed with a little over 2000 calories and has had a few changes due to product availability. We made sure the calorie content was the same or higher in the products we now have. Others have jumped on the 1yr for 2-4 unit band wagon and not necessarily with the same consideration for the people who will use the food as we have. Cheap doesn’t always mean good.

Bruce was a pastor at one time and he truly believes we are here to help others, not just make money. We are a family owned and run company

4. How can your company help people to be better prepared?

We take the time to answer questions. There is a lot of info on the net and not all of it is correct. Most companies have order takers on the phone and no one who knows anything about their products. Our units are a start but some would rather do their own thing and we have helped countless people with that. We are as honest as we can possibly be. If you read what our customers are saying Bruce even puts up the negative comments. There aren’t many but there will always be someone who gets angry whether justified or not. Our customer service will stand above almost anyone. A customer called because she had gotten a bunch of super pails that were bursting in her garage. We discovered we hadn’t sold them to her and would never have told her to store anything in a hot garage. We would have suggested she buy in cans because opening pails of some things unless you are feeding an army will end up being wasted by having to throw them out. We tried to help her out until she figured out who she had bought them from. We give out the benefit of our experience and quite often make no money at all. God blesses us and we hope our business is a blessing to others.
 
If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: Preparedness Club

Presenting the Preparedness Club Giveaway

May 1, 2013 by

One of the added benefits of joining the Preparedness Club is that each month, every member is automatically entered into a contest for a giveaway. To keep things fair, members will only be eligible for one prize per year. I will send the winner an email each month to get their mailing address.

Some of the prizes have been donated by some generous companies. I will be buying other prizes myself. Here are some of the prizes that have already been donated:

  • Midland Weather Alert Radio
  • Multiple copies of Total Home Prep Now DVD
  • Multiple books from Paladin Press
  • Multiple 100ft hanks of paracord from Paracord City
  • A copy of Making the Best of Basics
  • An exclusive (banned) pressure canner (haha) and a canning kit
  • A Bucket of Wise Food from Best Price Storable Food
  • And more

This Month, Midland Radio has been kind enough to donate a WR120
Desktop Weather Alert Radio


Radio Features are listed below.

  • SAME Localized Reception
  • Continuous Backlighting Option- Keeps the LCD on
  • 25 Programmable Counties
  • Color Coded Alert Indicators
  • Alert Override automatically switches over to warn you of impending danger
  • Alarm Clock with Snooze
  • Silent programming
  • Single, Multiple, or Any S.A.M.E program settings
  • User Selectable Warning System -Voice, Display, or Tone alert types
  • 10 Reviewable Alerts
  • 7 Preset Weather Channels
  • Public Alert Certified
  • Receives over 60 Alerts
  • Uses 3AA Alkaline batteries for emergency power back-up
  • All Hazards Alert – In addition to important weather announcements your radio will also receive other emergency announcements such as:
    • Child Abduction Emergency (Amber Alert)
    • Nuclear Power Plant Warning
    • Biological Hazard Warning
    • Civil Emergency Message
    • Fire Warning
    • Landslide Warning

Here is a video that walks you through programming the radio.

 

My Take:

I like the features on this weather radio. It’s easy to distinguish between watches and warnings, simply by the tones and colors of the alert indicators. I also like that you can program different alert types. The combination of the monthly siren tests and our weather radio monthly test gets the dogs howling. While funny, it isn’t always welcomed.

The Preparedness Club costs $40 a year and this radio from Midway is a $50 value!

If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: Preparedness Club Tagged With: , ,

five security tips you may not have thought of

May 1, 2013 by

I have covered situational awareness and the Cooper Color Code in the past.  Here are five security tips that you may not have thought of. 

 

Advertising on Your Vehicle

Bumper stickers advertise our opinions on various issues to the world around us.  They also tell Joe Dirtbag about us as well.  Do you have an NRA sticker? If so, Joe Dirtbag now has a pretty good idea you have guns at home.  He might not break in when you’re there, but now he knows what your car looks like and can wait for you to go to work.

The white decals that people put on their back window showing off mom, dad and the kids as well as what each loves also tell Joe Dirtbag about you.  He might now know that you have expensive sporting equipment at home or whether or not you have any pets.

 

Firing Range Safety

 

You may be aware of how Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and one of his friends and coworkers was murdered at a gun range by someone suffering from PTSD.  People committing suicide, committing murder or both is more common at gun ranges than you may think. 

I recommend keeping one firearm loaded and on your person.  If you go with a partner, one can be practicing situational awareness for you both while the other is shooting.

 

Public Restrooms

A few years back, I read that there was a survey of sorts done, asking convicted criminals the locations they preferred to commit their crimes.  One of the most popular was men’s restrooms.  One criminal said it was the easiest, by far, as men are less likely to put up any kind of fight when they are exposed at a urinal.

There was a man going into men’s restrooms in Minneapolis, blitz attacking men.  He would walk behind a man at the urinal and then slam their head into the wall in front of them, hard enough to knock them out; he then emptied their pockets.  Women might be onto something with the group trips to the rest rooms!  Men, another option is to always use the stall.

 

Smart Phones

A recent crime wave includes Joe Dirtbag ripping a smart phone out of people’s hands as they absentmindedly use them in public.  Situational awareness can aid with this in large part, but it might also be a good idea to leave it secure in a pocket or purse while in public.

 

Communion

There have been many reports of criminals waiting for church members to go forward for Communion.  They then go through their purses and jacket pockets looking for cash.

A sad fact is that many places that were once sacred, no longer are.

 
If you liked this article please think about sharing it on the social media listed below, thanks!

PreparednessClubOne

Filed Under: Security Tagged With:
«Previous Page