Protecting Life: Basic Sanitation

            I watched a really good movie the other day where a man was helping a village fight a cholera epidemic, and I had to think that eventually in a TSHTF scenario, we will have to face diseases like this again. Immediately I began research about this bacteria, how to identify it, how it’s spread, how to treat its victims, and how to kill it. Cholera is a bacteria that is initially spread through the water supply. It kills its victims by creating multiple organ failure due to severe dehydration. About half of its victims will die, but full recovery can be accomplished with rapid and aggressive rehydration, which is not as easy as it sounds. There are ratios involved with fluid replacement so you do not accidently turn your blood into something as watery as kool-aid, but that goes WAY beyond the scope of this blog. The good news is that cholera is avoidable in most situations by ALWAYS FOLLOWING BASIC SANITATION RULES!

            Boiling water prior to ingesting it can kill many bacteria found in water; the CDC recommends maintaining a rolling boil for a minimum of 1 minute to kill cholera but that even seems too short an amount of time in my opinion. Chlorine bleach is also an option, but consult the CDC website for ratios of bleach to amount of water, and also waiting times if you choose to treat your water in this manner. Of course the first step in using either process is to have the ability to either boil or bleach your water. Since I have stated before that “two is one, and one is none,” how many different methods of water purification do you currently have? Is it time to update your gear, or add to what you currently have?

            I have not really touched on first aid in this blog since the legalities could be a real pain. I will state that anything I write is to simply suggest something, or to get you thinking about how you would handle a situation. I have a lot of first aid training personally, and could probably handle several small-scale emergencies and traumas without much of a panic. I do suggest taking an EMT class or other first aid training that’s available in your area since this knowledge is always useful even in regular life without being in survival mode.

If TSHTF, be prepared for conditions to become unsanitary very quickly. Proper hand-washing, being diligent with how your prepare food and drinking water will save your life. Also, learn the guidelines for protecting your ground water, and other water supplies. Rotting animals will taint water with nasty microbes which will make others deathly ill. Have a way to protect yourself and your family; this includes the ability to make a fire large enough to boil large pots of water. Finally, learn how to and teach your family to conserve as much water as possible. Using grey water has surged in popularity as a sustainable practice, and things like this could save your life.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Prepping!

Gamma Lids: Sealing Up Dry Goods

            I have not forgotten my blog, nor have I abandoned the task of writing. Real life took priority however, and I hope everyone understands. Classes are done for this term and the holidays are over. Happy Holidays everyone, I truly hope you had a great time with family and friends!

  
With the economy in turmoil, there is no better feeling than having well-stocked shelves.  This includes having dry goods as well as the extensive collection of canned things I have managed to squirrel away over the past couple of years.  Especially with this time of year, with people dropping by at random times, the pantry has saved me a countless number of panicked store trips I would have otherwise had to make.  Dry goods are part of the items I stock, and never fear if you’re intimidated by the idea of canning, this is easy to do.

Gamma lids are wonderfully useful things!

All of my dry goods: wheat berries, rice, beans, dry milk, salt, and sugar are kept in 5 gallon buckets with gamma lids and oxygen absorbers. I will admit that there is a ratio for oxygen absorbers that I have not yet mastered, but there is plenty of information about it online so you can determine how many of which size you’ll need to do the job.

I have also considered using mylar bags which can be sealed with a food saver, but have not had a problem without using them to this point. I do use my stock however, and do not intend to stock anything for years on end without replenishing what I have used, so I don’t see the need for the added layer of the mylar bag.  These bags seem to be a great idea if you are concerned about humidity, bugs, or rodents (since they don’t like the metallic layer), or simply want to have smaller quantities of dry goods open at a time than having the whole 5 gallon bucket available at one time. You could package sugar, for example, in mylar bags weighed out in 1 or 2 pound increments and packed into a single bucket with a gamma lid. When you needed sugar, you would simply open the gamma lid, and remove a single mylar bag for immediate use.

So what is a gamma lid? These are prepper necessities in my opinion. They are 2 piece lids, which include an outer ring that are pounded onto the rim of a 5 or 6 gallon bucket, and an inner lid portion which screws into the ring. Both portions have their own O-rings, and form very tight seals for the contents of the buckets. The buckets, once filled and labeled, are also stackable with the gamma lids on, so space saving is optimized. Please do not forget to label the contents of the bucket and adding the date the bucket is packed is also a good idea if the contents are not going to be used within a year or so. Imagine the frustration of having to check every stored bucket for the correct type of beans if you forgot to label! 

Preparing the food for storage also takes a little work. Yes, I am sorry to say that even storing food in a large bucket still has at least a little prep work involved. After you purchase your dry food for bucket storage (beans, rice, wheat, dry corn, etc..) place the entire bag it came packaged in from the store into the freezer. The freezing process will kill any bug larva that probably is on the food. During long-term storage, if you skip the freezing step, you can expect to open your stored food only to find the contents infested with bugs. I am sure some may argue that these pests are edible so it doesn’t really matter, but I would rather have protein from sources that are large enough to shoot with a .22 at a minimum! How long to keep the package in the freezer depends on how big the package is. A small bag of beans can probably be left for 3 or 4 days, whereas a 25 pound sack of wheat berries I usually leave frozen for a week.

When you remove the food from the freezer, leave it out until it reaches room temperature and is dry. The LAST thing you want is to waste good money on preps only to have it mold in the bucket because of condensation. If you only have room for a bowl full or wheat in your freezer at a time (and I have done this, so I can sympathize) then cover the bowl with plastic wrap before putting it into the freezer. When you remove it, just leave the plastic in place without disturbing your preps too much. I about a day the condensation will be gone and you will be ready to pack your food into a bucket.

Wash both parts of the gamma lid, and the bucket itself and be sure all of the parts are dry before adding ANYTHING to it! I usually wash my container parts when I put the food into the freezer since this allows plenty of time to air dry and get the gamma lid onto the bucket. I keep mentioning the buckets and have yet to explain what kind of plastic you need and where to find them. You want food grade plastic, I choose white to match my décor and also since the dyes in colored plastic are chemicals, so who knows if they will “off-gas” into my food – yuck! My buckets come from the local big-box hardware store and usually run $3.50 per bucket. Look for ones that are fairly clean and damage free, and that’s really all there is to it. Gamma lids take a bit more searching. Here in the US, Sams Club sells them online for $77 for 12 lids. Amazon and Ebay also have them, as well as any prepper store worth their salt.

Once all the parts are clean and dry, use a rubber mallet and bang the outer ring onto the edge of the bucket. This can be harder than is sounds, but be careful you don’t get frustrated and to violent with the mallet since you can crack the bucket or the outer ring. Once the ring is firmly on the bucket, it should be level on all of the edges. Pour your previously frozen, and now room temperature, and condensation free food into the bucket. Wipe the screw threads of the outer ring with your hand, or gently blow off any debris, and screw on the inner lid portion. Label the bucket, stack however you desire, and you’re done. Food should never be stored outside, and should be climate controlled if at all possible.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Prepping! Happy New Year as well!!!

What to do When You Blow Your Lid

I was moving around some quart size jars that have pressure canned chili in them which were sealed up a few weeks ago when I noticed that the lid on one of the jars was no longer sealed. This reminded me to write about the importance of checking your jars, and cans for that matter. Lids pop up when the seal has been broken, or when bacteria that did not die during processing have filled the space with their gaseous byproducts. Either way, this is bad news.

If a jar does not seal within an hour or so of removing it from the canner, you can sterilize everything again, use a new lid, reheat the food, and completely reprocess the jar. Or, as frequently happens at my house, I put the unsealed jar in the fridge and use it within a week. Since my chili was canned a few weeks ago, and all of the jars sealed at that time, I can only say that the specific jar in question got contaminated at some point during the process, or the lid got knocked pretty hard by something which broke the seal. Regardless, I emptied the jar into the garbage disposal and cleaned the jar with bleach water after inspecting it for cracks and chips. This will happen on occasion, and while it is annoying, it should not stop you from canning.

Jars and home-canned things are not the only things susceptible to this type of spoilage. As a prepper, I usually try the sniff test on cans (store-bought) which may be a little past the expiration date. But take a good look at the can as well. If the can itself is rusty or degraded in any way, or the seal is popped, throw it away!  Botulism is a nasty disease that you can get from eating improperly sealed food. When in doubt, throw it out is a good motto to live by. In a TSHTF scenario, having food poisoning from unsealed and tainted food can kill you.

Light, air, humidity and bugs can ruin dry goods, which I keep in 5 gallon buckets. I am working on a post with pictures about storing dry goods that I hope to have posted within the next few days.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Prepping!

Local Commerce: Trading Like Your Life Depends on it!

     In think of what to post next, I did a mental shake down of everything I have in my condo; it really is a LOT of stuff. The good thing is that it is all useable by someone, and when TSHTF, my excess stuff could make my life easier, if the price is right, thanks to the power of bartering.

     In the event that social civilization did go to hell in a hand-basket, bartering will become a way of life again. Having items laying around which will be in demand is the trick. But having all this stuff is only the first half of the game. Many people have forgotten the art of negotiation. I cannot count the number of times that I have seen people accept a given price at a yard sale or flea market when I know that the merchant would lower the price if asked. I have been that merchant and profited from that mistake!

So how do you get the goods without going broke?

     If you want an item, you offer the seller a nice low price and see if they bite at it, then you raise it up until you both reach an agreement. It sounds really easy, right? It is, but Americans have been stuck for decades in the sticker trap. We have been so conditioned by the big box stores to sheepishly accept the price on the sticker that we rarely ask for a better deal. The art of negotiation is a skill that preppers must master.

     Start small when learning any new skill – yard sales are great! I hate to admit that I cheat: I never fold my bills together when I go yard sailing, and each pocket has a different denomination of bill. When someone thinks that you only have $3 in your pocket, they will usually meet your $3 offer on a $5 item.

     Once you have this simple form of bargaining mastered, then you can try your skills at the big box stores. And yes, it does work. I recently got an item for $30 off the in-store price because they sent an email to me with the sale price and nowhere on the email did it say “online only.” I pressed my point and walked away with the deal simply because I asked for it.

     With bartering, you should be trading things you don’t really need for things that you can use (or trade again later). I have put together a list of things for consideration since most of this is really cheap and easy to find now. This is not exhaustive, but it will hopefully get you thinking. Keep space in mind as you stock, and buy things you may actually need “at some point” since your shelf space is limited.

Canned food – cheap stuff you stocked but would rather not eat: noodles, potted meat, the great deal you found on tomato soup, etc.

Bullets – all sizes. 22’s are cheap and most people have a .22 for popping squirrels.

Hygiene items – especially soap, toothpaste, and feminine items

Diapers and baby wipes – wipes are worth their weight in gold in a situation without water to bathe in!

Baby formula and bottles

Trauma supplies

OTC medications

Vitamins

Salt and Sugar

Livestock - breeding pairs of animals should be maintained at all costs

Sustainable food: eggs, milk, butter, bread, honey

Bread starters like sourdough

Socks, underwear

Hand tools – handsaws and drills will be in demand

Screws and nails in a variety of sizes. Think about the poor sheepole who try to make a chicken coop without this stuff!

Plastic sheeting

Duct tape

Rechargeable batteries – any batteries really, but get a solar recharger for yourself and then you can offer recharging capacity for a fee.

Used cast iron pots and pans – the plastic handled, thin wall pans we now use will not withstand the abuse of daily open fires. Old cast iron is easy to find and not too difficult to restore and season. And having the knowledge to do so will also be a skill you can market in the future.

Toilet paper – I’d have to be desperate to trade my TP, but I’ve got a bunch just in case.

Pencils and paper

Files and wet stones – dull knives are useless

Jar rings and lids for canning – the lids are single use only so the more the merrier.

Charcoal and small propane bottles – for those sheep that cannot make fire

Lighters / matches – I am the only non-smoker I know who carries a lighter. Easy fire is WAY better than having to use a mag. fire starter.

Magnesium fire starters – I have several, and I have used them on occasion just to see if I can. Yes, they work, but it is more complicated than I want to fool with if I’m cold or hungry.

Books - fiction and non-fiction

When should you barter?

     The best answer is: when you need something in return. 90 days after TSHIF events, once society has had a chance to toughen up, and everyone is on the same level of mercenary mind-set, is a good time to consider starting on a small level. Barter with people you know and expect to have to defend you self and your stuff if you start bartering bowls on a blanket. Although unfortunate, this is the way society will most likely head.

     Please feel free to add to my list, I’m sure I’ve forgotten or simply not thought about a lot. Thanks for reading, and Happy Prepping!

Oh, Honey: From Kitchen to Medicine Cabinet

Using honey to treat open wounds on the skin has been done for centuries, but read this before you dismiss this simple treatment as myth. This post is informational only, and I do not advise you to do anything one way or the other. I maintain that infected wounds need the care of a doctor, but knowledge in a TSHTF scenario is always a welcome thing.

Natural honey contains and enzyme that is converted to hydrogen peroxide, and both are great topical antibiotics. Because honey has hygroscopic properties, it actually attracts moisture, which could lead to a reduction in scaring and faster regeneration of skin cells at the wound site if covered with an appropriate bandage.  With the emergence of bacteria that are resistant to current antibiotics, studies are being conducted in ancient medical methods to determine the effectiveness. Thankfully, honey is included in those studies.

In a study posted on biomedcentral.com, honey was proven to inhibit the growth of bacteria such as: Staphylococcus aureus (Staph infection), Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli (E. coli). The healthcare community has been battling with MRSA or Methicillin-resistant S. aureus for a number of years, and honey has showing some very promising results especially in the cases of burn victims (Hern T Tan).  A number of protozoa, viruses, and fungi also cannot withstand the application of honey. People suffering from diabetic and other types of ulcers have also shown great improvement in killing off the microbes that are perpetuating their infection.

            Accelerated healing with the use of honey could also be do to the noted increase of B and T-cell Lymphocytes in the area when honey is applied versus when it is not. Since I do not intend this to be an anatomy and physiology posting, I’ll leave it to you to read about those lymphocytes if you are just that curious. If you chose to skip that, just know that those cells are the body’s way of fighting infection, the more the merrier.

            If you chose to use honey in your med-kit, there are directionson the web for applying honey to a wound (Molan). I am not including these directions here since I am not a doctor. There are concerns that the honey could cause problems in those people who are sensitive for pollen since all honey contains pollen due to the nature of the substance. The sources I located also mention a difference in local food honey versus medicinal honey, so I encourage you to do some additional research. My medicine cabinet will have Neosporin, but my kitchen always has honey!

            If you buy your honey at a major grocery store, make sure that you are buying REAL honey made in the USA. Other countries do not have the standards the USA does, and some have tried to sneak in a mix of corn syrup and water under the guise of honey.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Prepping!!!

 

Hern T Tan, Rosliza A Rahman, Siew H Gan, Ahmad S Halim, Siti A Hassan, Siti A Sulaiman, Kirnpal-Kaur. "The antibacterial properties of Malaysian tualang honey against wound and enteric microorganisms in comparison to manuka honey." 15 September 2009. biomedcentral.com. 24 November 2012 <http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/9/34>.

Molan, Peter Charles. "Honey as a topical antibacterial agent for treatment of infected wounds." 1 December 2001. World Wide Wounds. 24 November 2012 <http://www.worldwidewounds.com/2001/november/Molan/honey-as-topical-agent.html>.