Category Archives: SHELTER

Shelter would include location, building materials, style,

spring storms

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spring storms

Here it is Mother’s Day [2014-05-11]  and we have a spring storm. The storm started the day bad enough that all church services and meetings were cancel today for safety reasons. The ‘winter’ storm warning will last at least until 0900 Monday [so less than 9 hours from right now].

At 1700 hours Sunday we were getting reports from around town about the depth of the snow. A few of the reports were poultry 10 inches of snow – NOT drifted. Other reports were for 18 inches of snow on the flats.

Looking at the webcams on the interstate show very poor driving conditions. Portions of the interstate both east – west AND north south are closed. Hopefully the truckers and other drivers got hunkered down before the storm hit. I have not heard any reports of accidents of any size nor of any injuries.

One conversation that I had this afternoon we discussed how “Spring storms typically kill more people than winter storms because they are unexpected.” This is great truth in this. All the more reason that we should all stay prepared for the storms of life.

Some of the ‘normal’ preps that most of us carry in our vehicles ALL the time include;

Sleeping bags and or blankets enough for everyone normally in the vehicle

CB radios to get road reports and to call for help should you need it

Weather alert radio [which is sometimes also on the CB] for current weather reports and road closures.

Car charger for your cell phone and other electronic gadgets.

A power inverter can come in handy too. These typically plug into the lighter socket of the car. Regardless of what the unit is rated at it can only handle about 150 watts safely, unless they are hard wired to the vehicle battery.

A strobe light would be of use should you slide off the road.

Candles in a can are of use to keep you warmer.

Jumper cables of at least 20 feet length.

Kitty liter often helps provide traction for your tires.

Toilet paper, #10 can and properly sized garbage bags to use a toilet. This is safer than going outside during a blizzard.

50 feet of light rope such as 550 parachute line. IF you HAVE to get out of the vehicle, tie one end of the rope to the steering wheel of the vehicle and the other end to you so that you can find your way back into the car. Do this even if you are only heading to the trunk  to get stuff. Yes, you can get lost in that short of trip. If you get lost from your vehicle in a storm you most likely WILL die.

Winter [spring] storms can be true life or death survival situations, but you prepare such storms can be just a small inconvenience.

What other ‘stuff’ do you carry in your vehicle for survival?

The apple trees had already blossomed – hopefully they will not be too damaged

Ready? or not

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a bit taken from the book

Ready-Not-Things-WILL-Happen Quick start survival guide.

http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Not-Things-WILL-Happen/dp/1496022947/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395604161&sr=1-1&keywords=Richard+Calton

FIRST AID KIT TO INCLUDE:

  • Olive Oil,
  • First Aid Manual, or NOLS First Aid Handbook,
  • Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia,
  • Water Purification Tablets,
  • Table Salt,
  • Baking Soda,
  • K+ (Potassium),
  • Aspirin or ibuprofen (for both children and adults),
  • Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline),
  • Diarrhea medication,
  • Laxative (mom or colace),
  • 30 days of Prescriptions,
  • Safety Pins,
  • Adhesive and/or paper tape,
  • betadine,
  • Bandages,
  • Gauze Roll,
  • Coban elastic bandage (or Ace Bandage),
  • Heavy String,
  • And you may need Tetanus immunization every five years.

see also www.preparesurvivethrive.us

http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/a-time-for-travel-the-christmas-project/

What to Store for Sewing?

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Do you sew? Even if you don’t there are a few things you need to store to keep the  clothing that you have in good order.  Hand sewing needles, a threader, thread, straight pins in a container, thimble, a tape measurer and a pair of scissors are the basic supplies.  Some patches, various buttons, Velcro, replacement zippers, elastic and material would be helpful to have on hand, too.  There are sewing kits that you can get at the Dollar Tree that are in a plastic container for $1. The items are all pretty good except the scissors.  But you can purchase a decent pair of scissors for just a dollar. You can also get these items from garage sales and second hand stores. As far as thread goes if you keep your colors down to just a few then you won’t have to make sure that you match each and every color of clothing that you own, or you can purchase clear thread which you can use for any color. Do get more thread than is just in one of the sewing kits. That is a beginning but you will not know how long it may be before you can get to a store and purchase more.  Also you can use thread, hand sewing needles and any other sewing items as trade goods.  So, since needles and thread are cheap get a good number of these items.

 

As far as material is concerned denim and other heavy weight material will be at a premium. If you can obtain 100% cotton, that would be the best, or as close to that as possible. It wicks the sweat off of you and will not shrink as bad as other fabric types. Also if you are not allergic to wool, it is a good material in colder weather to have. Wool blankets from garage sales or GI supply houses are a good bet, cheaper than wool by the yard. If you can not be in physical contact to wool you can put a cotton fabric on both sides and should be able to use it then. Also for other fabrics sheets are better priced than material by the yard and you can get used sheets at garage sales or second hand stores for really cheap.  Even if you get fitted sheets and cut the elastic part off it is still cheaper than purchasing by the yard material.  As far as storing material or clothing I find it best to put into a plastic bag, squeeze out the air and close, and then put it in a Rubbermaid container. Mice love to get into material, they will make their nest there and chew up the material.

 

If you have a chance to obtain some patterns, do so. Simple ones are the best, because you probably will be sewing clothes by hand. If you can go ahead and cut them out and trace them to heaver paper like freezer paper. The pattern paper tears extremely easily. If you will be making numerous amount of clothes out of the same pattern you can also place the pattern in between 2 sheets of clear contact paper, which will keep it usable for much longer. In the Middle Ages when the people conquered other groups they would grab any clothing and if it did not fit they would either take it up or add other material to it to make it larger. You can store patterns the same way that you store material, in a plastic sack and then in a Rubbermaid container. I have never seen a mouse chew through a Rubbermaid Container as of yet.

 

Last thing to talk about is you need to learn how to sew if you don’t already know how. This, along with mending will be skills that you can earn money [or save yourself money] doing if there is an evacuation that lasts for a considerable length of time.

What to store for crocheting or knitting?

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What to store for crocheting or knitting?

 

If you crochet or knit you know the mental/physical therapy it can be. If you are in a stressful situation, or long hours with nothing to be able to do, wouldn’t it be great to be able to use that mental/physical therapy, which ever you need? Also while you are reaping the benefits of the therapy you can also be providing socks, hats, mittens and even bandages for your family. Even if you do not crochet or knit at this time, maybe if you have nothing else to do, you can finally sit down and learn. So if you have all of the ingredients such as hooks and needles, yarn, scissors, tape measurer and instruction books it could save your sanity when times are hard.

 

If you already crochet or knit you know that you need to have such items as crochet hooks, knitting needles, yarn and instruction books and of course a pair of scissors and a tape measure.  There are a few other accessories if you knit that are nice to have such as line markers and stitch holders.  If you don’t already crochet you will need a few different sizes of crochet hooks. You use one hook at a time to crochet; however, there are several different sizes of hooks. If you choose one from the smaller sizes, one from the medium sizes and one from the larger sizes that should cover most of what you will be crocheting. In knitting you use two knitting needles at a time. The same would apply as far as sizes to have.   In my opinion, the best type of thread to have would be 100% cotton. To me cotton is best for cold and hot weather because it wicks away sweat from your body.  As far as the colors go, I tend to keep more to dark solid colors so as not to stand out in a crowd. Also if you tend to keep to 1 or 2 colors then you can have more thread to use than if you need 3 skeins of one color to made a project and have some left over then what do you do with it?  Now when you make bandages it would be better for the yarn to be white, so that you can bleach it to keep them as clean as you can.  And on the instruction books a basic crochet book that shows all the different types of stitches and how to determine gauge and one that had a basic hat, mittens and sweaters would be best. And that may take a few instruction books to get that information, also if you have young babies you may need one for their size too.  With knitting instruction books a basic stitches and how to determine gauge and basic hat, mittens, sweaters and socks would be the best to have. You can get instructions, gauges and patterns for free on the computer and if you go to You Tube you can watch someone teaching the how to.  Knitting also uses some accessories such as line markers and stitch holders. Those would be nice to have, however, they are not mostly necessary.

 

If you can store these items in your storage you can use them yourself or use them as trade goods, which are things that you can trade for something that you really need such as food, tools or whatever. And if you go to garage sales and second hand stores you can pick up these items for a lot less than if you go to the specialty store and purchase these new. There are lots of things to gather to be totally prepared, if you have to purchase everything new it may be the difference from having what you need and not having it.

 

 

cold weather at home

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cold weather at home being prepared is a matter of survival.

As I write this it is minus 5 degrees F and the wind chill is minus 20 degrees F.

That was about 2200 hours [10PM] by 0700 the next day it was minus 22 degrees F actual temperature. That was morning of Feb 4th

Most of us consider that to be a bit on the ‘airish’ side.

We do have an inch or so of snow on the ground right now which is not near enough. Some of the concerns are that water pipes may freeze and break. The easiest way to deal with preventing that is to turn your sink faucet on to a drip. The theory on this is that running water does not freeze as fast. Water lines are typically buried below the frost line so the water is above 32 degrees F and as it comes up into your house it warms the pipes slightly. Once the pipes come out of the ground it is a good idea to have ‘heat tape’ around the pipes and cover that with insulation. This will keep the pipes from freezing and should have been put on already. IF you are fortunate enough to not have your water pipes freeze yet plan on getting the heat tape and insulation and putting all that on when it is nicer weather. You of course have to measure the pipes for length to do the job. The way that we have it set up is with a power switch so that we only have to use electricity when it is cold. If you are lucky enough to have the pipe come up into your basement you will not have to worry about all of that.

Many of us in the colder areas of the world put storm windows on which create a ‘dead’ air space which keeps you warmer in the winter AND cooler in the summer too. Most houses also have storm doors which do the same thing. Doors are harder to deal with as they still have to open and air tends to flow through the cracks at the door frame.  On doors which you seldom if ever use – like the back door – you can stuff the cracks with plastic which will retard air flow and you still will be able to open the door to escape if there is a fire. It is helpful to have some sort of wind break to keep the wind from hitting the doorway directly. You can and most likely should have heavy insulated drapes on the windows to help hold the heat in especially at night. During the day you should have the drapes open so that sun light comes in and you benefit from the solar heat gain. There are plans available to make capturing the sun light easier for heating your home we will not be covering that any deeper as we don’t have enough room to write it here now.

Other points in your house that leak heat are electrical plugs and switches. You can retro fit them with sheet foam to seal the heat in. most of us have vents in the kitchen that are hard to seal. Of course on the other hand you may not want to seal that point as you will want to vent smoke and odors if you burn your dinner. In most bathrooms there is an exhaust vent to get rid of the humidity from showering. I think that the vent should be sealed to hold in the heat. The extra humidity in our area is nice to have as we live in an arid area. During a wet YEAR we might get 15 inches of water. Part of the definition of desert is that you get 10 inches of water annually or less. With a properly insulated and sealed house MOST of your heat can come from ‘waste’ heat of the appliances, lights and occupants. As an example we have the heater turned OFF right now. We had ran the heater about 9 hours ago and it is still 65.7 degrees F in our home.

It is way easier and more economical to warm the person instead of the whole house. Of course dress warmer and even wear a sweeter around home like President Jimmy Carter did in the white house during the 1970s. If you are still chilled after putting on the sweeter, you can use an electric blanket or throw or use a heating pad in your chair and sitting on it. If your hands are cold and you are doing something with your hands like typing a blog post, you can make use of a heat lamp. Right now I am not using the extra heating options as I am sitting here typing with a tee shirt on. As an aside, a few years ago my daughter and I went shopping one evening and she commented that it must be cold out as we both had our winter coats on. I had a windbreaker on and she had her sweet shirt with hood on…… it was minus 30 degrees F outside. ;]

Sleeping warm is easy enough to do. They make electric mattress pads which works better than an electric blanket as heat rises. Of course you can use a few blankets over you to help too.

There was a musical group back when I was much younger called ‘Three Dog Night’, I really liked their music. Historically a way of expressing how cold it got at night was to say how many dogs you had up on the bed with you. Back when we were working in the mother / baby department we would encourage new moms to hold their babies and to have skin to skin contact, aka Kangaroo care, to keep the baby warm. Kangaroo care is the best way to warm up a baby or anyone else. If you are cold at night, snuggling with your mate is a great way to keep warm.

Cross ref http://www.preparesurvivethrive.us/sheet-fort/

PLAN to Prepare Survive Thrive

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We all know to have a 72 hour kit, however, what if (where we live there are lots of forest fires) you were told you had 45 minutes to gather your stuff and leave, and you may not ever see your home again if the fire could not be stopped. Forty-five minutes is a bit of time that you could gather some things from your home and put into your car that you would not want to loose, but with time counting down most people would freeze and not know what to gather or end up getting things that you don’t really need and leave things that you could use or that mean a lot to you.  This has been proven time and time again. The best way to prevent this is to have a few different [time frame] plans and to organize and gather things together. One thing is to have a concrete plan just like a 72 hour kit and written down in a notebook that if you have 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes and an hour, exactly what you would gather from your home to take with you.

Also included you might want to have what you could bury in a hole already dug with a trash can already in the hole and the top on it and a pile of dirt beside the hole and a shovel close by or bags of dirt that you could throw on top, that you could come back after the fire and retrieve. Or just go ahead and build a fire proof root cellar that you can secure stuff in. That way you would not have to take it with you, but it would be safe even if your house went up in flames. There are places that would not burn in a house like the refrigerator, freezer and if you have a safe.

Write a separate list for each time frame that might happen, this will be a “What if” scenario. Also you need to think of what type of disasters could happen where you live, like tornado, hurricane, fire, flood, tsunami, or radiation leak. Taking the time now, saves time and added stress at the time something might happen. Have different tabs for the different scenarios. Also included in the notebook needs to be what is in your 72 hour kit and a page for when you come up with something you would like to include in it for the next time you go through it or something you would like to purchase for your kit. Also anything that may expire before the next time you would go through the kit. It is best if you go through your kit at least every 6 months [for example the fist full weekend of April and October] to change out clothes and food. And it is a good idea to keep the notebook next to your 72 hour kit and maybe a sack to place the items that you would like to include in it next time.

PLAN Prepare to Survive and Thrive ;]

 

bug out clothes – extra set

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Extra set of clothes ready to bug out

I want to talk about having a set of clothes ready to bug out. This is a full set of clothes including underwear, of layered clothes ready close to your bed in case you need to bug out fast.  These would include underwear, a sturdy pair of pants not shorts, with lots of pockets, a leather belt, a tee shirt and a long sleeve shirt with pockets and a heavy jacket, long socks, hiking boots, gloves and a stocking hat and a wide brim hat. This set of clothes needs to be by the bed at all times and something that you do not wear other times.  You can switch out the clothes at times for the season, but always have this set clean and ready in a bag with you 72 hour kit by your bed so that even if you are in the middle of a shower or whatever, you can grab and go outside to finish dressing.  For the children the same thing even if you have to get used jacket and boots. And make sure that the clothes are changed out when the children and you change sizes.  This set of clothes and your backpack need to be by your bedside or near the door in case that you need to bug out quickly for any emergency that may happen.  If you hear a weather alert such as a tornado, then you can quickly dress in these clothes and grab your backpack and you are ready to take off.  If there is a fire just grab these things and go.  It is a good idea to have fire drills at home where you would wake up grab your things and get out.  Then when the time comes that there really is an emergency you know exactly what to do, and do not have to spend time gathering stuff when you should be getting out. Having the children also practice this then when you need to do it for real they are not just in shock, standing paralyzed screaming.

This act of setting clothes aside and a backpack will greatly reduce fears of ‘what if’. Being prepared decreases stress. Discussion of what to put into the backpack in another blog but this one I just want to stress having these clothes set aside and ready to go at a moments notice.  Imagine when you are notified of an evacuation that you have to find clothes to wear. Could you do it in 3 minutes? If the clothes are out and ready to go you could. Imagine not only finding your clothes and getting dressed but waking the children, finding their clothes and getting them dressed and everyone out the door. If you are prepared this way, you could take care of yourself instead of depending upon the government to take care of your family.  It gives you independence and confidence in your own ability to take care of your family.

sheet fort

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Recently, while talking with a friend, the topic of ‘sheet forts’ came up for playing with grandkids. A common way to build a sheet fort is to take 4 or 6 kitchen chairs [or folding one work too] and place them back to back far enough apart that you can sit or lay between them. After arranging the chairs, drape bed sheets over them to form a tent going clear to the floor. Then play whatever game you want to.

First off, it is a lot of fun to play with the kids that way. On a deeper note, sheet forts are a great way to stay warm this time of year during a power outage or if you want to cut down on power usage for monetary reasons. For this application you will need to place a mattress on the floor in your ‘fort’ to lie on. This will insulate you from the floor to prevent heat loss due to conduction. The sheets or blankets will help to hold your body heat in and cut down on drafts so that you don’t lose the heat by convection. A variation of this would be a freestanding backpacking tent set up on the mattress. There is also a thing called a ‘bed tent’ that you can buy for the kids that goes on their bed or you could build it for a queen or king sized bed too. Going back in time there are the 4 posters or canopy beds.

If the power is still on and you are just trying to save on the power bill you can use an electric blanket placed UNDER you as heat rises, this will keep you very toasty. If on the other hand the power is out, you will have to rely on conserving your body heat of course this is a good opportunity to snuggle with a friend;]   do NOT use any type of open flame such as candles to warm this ‘fort’. Open flames are a fire hazard and depletes the oxygen in the enclosed space, either of which could kill you OR worse.

If you are doing this to conserve energy you can set the house thermostat to about 45 degrees which will keep the pipes from freezing and you will still stay comfortable in your fort. If, however the power is out you will have to drain your pipes to prevent freezing damage or at least let the faucets drip to maintain water flow to at least try to prevent frozen pipes. Here in Wyoming it sometimes gets cold enough that we have to run the water to keep the pipes leading into the house from freezing in the ground.

full time RV

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Can you give me some input on RV full timing?  Your opinion on best type of rig, size, must haves, etc.?  I’m thinking Class A or 5th wheel — but no experience

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Currently we have a Winnebago type 20+ foot camper because that is what was available when we needed it and in our price range.

The up side for the driver compartment being connected to the cabin portion is that you can spread out a bit and still be able to talk with each other. Your co-pilot can get cold drinks from the frig without stopping or make you a sandwich too. In the morning if you want an early start, you can get up and just start driving without the hassle of going outside to the truck. You can, depending on how you have the thing configured have a bread machine making bread for you while you drive. Others can sleep comfortable while one drives.

The down side is that your whole house goes with you to the store and if /when you have mechanical issues or need the engine serviced your whole house is in the shop for however long and you have to figure out where to live and how to get around during that time.

PULL behind

I like the bumper hitch type over a 5th wheel. A 5th wheel interrupts the use of the bed of the truck. I would want a camper shell for ‘extra’ hauling or to put stuff from the store or lumber whatever else you may want to haul. Several people that I know have an external gas tank mounted in the bed. I have seen 100 gal tank as a single and with 2 of the tanks- so 1600 – 1700 lbs of fuel. One guy that I talked with at church this summer has 1 – 109 gal tank and his range is from here in Wyoming to south Florida without refueling.

Generally the other up side to a pull behind is that it can be parked either at a park or free standing and left behind when you go shopping or to the movies or appointments ect, when the truck needs serviced you can still use your home on wheels. Also when the miles build up and you switch out the truck for a newer one the house stays the same, which is cheaper.

The down side is that everyone has to move from the camper to the truck when you are on the road. Given your situation ¾ to 1 ton crew cab may be a good choice.

POWER issues

We have 4 [I would like to expand this to 8] deep cycle marine batteries wired into the camper along with an 800 watt power converter so that it charges while we drive. The o2 concentrator and C-pap [s] run off the same system and we can set up stationary for 2 days before the batteries need to be charged again. We do have solar panels that help extend that time. We plan on adding a couple of 600 watt wind gens at a later date. We do have a 5,000 watt gen set as back up. At some point I would like to change that out for one in the 800-900 watt range as it will use less gas and will be easier to move around.

With some of the newer security systems out there you can alarm the door[s] and windows along with the truck & perimeter with wireless motion alarms and even have CC with a recorder.