time to get posting!

Well, I think we need to make this blog work... what happened to everyone's enthusiasm?

On my end of things, my garden is doing OK. It's about 15 feet by 30 feet, and I am growing tomatoes, corn, squash (winter and zucchini), radishes, pumpkins, lettuce, beans, peas, peppers, and kale.

Something has been nibbling at the kale big-time, but my friend and fellow prepper suggested that birds might be the culprit, so I have covered the kale with some wire fencing.

I'll post some garden photos, soon...
While visiting my sister down south of here, we stopped at a farmer feed store, and bought their last 50 pound bags of wheat berries - the same stuff that farmers actually plant in the spring. It's edible, because it has not been treated.

As far as technical preps, I've acquired paracord, a grain grinder by Retsel (vintage) that grinds using stones, a flip-out blade knife, books on edible plants, and more. Including a new Russian friend of the portable variety that will be able to confront attackers with doses of high-velocity reality. His first name is Nagant, and last name is M1895.

I have also had training in the use of said friend, and will soon be able to legally take him around with me.

What else? Things look like they are getting far worse on the economic front: my brother, whose middle name has been denial, is now officially worried about the economy, because he didn't make his sales quota last month. For the first time. Late last fall, I remember him telling me that anyone who was jobless was just too lazy to work. I guess he couldn't admit reality until it started to affect him. My uncle has also lost his job, and my sister-in-law out in California has been told that her catering job will be ending, as the company is closing down.

All in all, wouldn't you say you should be prepping?

gardens

Well, I suppose everyone is too busy with their gardens to do any posting, right?
Here in the city, I've finally cleared my somewhat large (for a city) garden plot. It's at a friend's yard, a 10 minute bike ride away.

My only slight worry is that, if things get bad late this summer, I'll have garden raiders to worry about... of the human kind. The furry kind I will deal with using fencing if necessary. I'd like to pop a few rabbits with my new Beeman dual caliber (.177 & .22) air rifle, but I doubt that the friend who is leasing me her yard would approve. We'll see.

I also need to try to bribe her into give me a bit more yardage, because I want to grow some corn. I am also going to try the "secret patriot garden" idea from Big John... I live near the river, and there are plenty of areas that seem out of the way. The problem, though, will be lack of sunlight.

That's all. Let's get some interesting gardening articles on here!

Baby Coon Hound's Preparations...

Our thanks go out to Baby Coon Hound for this post, aprising us of his preparations to date and thoughts on purchasing a SHTF vehicle. Without further ado, I present his thoughts...

PICKING A VEHICLE, AND OTHER PREPS

I'm a pretty new prepper, having just got started in the last couple of
months. I've gotten some LTS food, bought a full array of non-hybrid
seed, made plans to install a wood stove in the house, stashed about 50
gallons of gasoline that I rotate, beefed up our medical supplies,
thought about and discarded (after careful thought) moving to an even
more remote location (we're currently two miles out of a small town in
outstate MN) but decided against it because we've got a great house for
sitting tight and inviting some important friends and family to stay in
case TSHTF before we're really ready.

I had a prepper mindset before I "officially" became a prepper. By that
I mean that for about 13 years I was a professional geek in the cities.
I made good money, I lived in a nice house, and had I wished it I could
have been driving a Corvette and had a boat on Minnetonka, maybe even a
home. But I always felt uncomfortable flaunting wealth, and I ferdamshur
felt like the money could be spent more wisely...though I never seemed
to do that well. One decision on a September day in 1997 was one of the
better ones I ever made. I was in Minnetonka at a car dealership, not
sure what I wanted, when I spotted a slightly used 1996 Geo Tracker.
Purple. Vikes anybody? I drove it home. I drove it about 145,000
miles. I drove it until last week.

The alternator went bad. Probably just the brushes, but who knows? By
this time, of course, it also has LOTS of "personality". Rust almost
through both doors, one panel coming off the vinyl top (brrrr.), iffy
ignition on occasion, passenger door that needs grease but is used so
seldom it hasn't been worth greasing, carpet in back coming out, etc.
Anyway, I may or may not keep the critter as a backup, but I decided it
was time to get a new vehicle. Given my relatively new awareness of all
things survival, I thought it would be good to put that knowledge to
work as I surveyed the field.

I'm a bit of a Rawlesian, but very lite. That is to say that I'm wary
of the "Golden Horde" and I like his take on many things, but I'm not
COMPLETELY convinced of all he writes. Geez, I feel like a minor-league
rock musician describing my "influences". Anyhooo...Rawles and those
like him seems to think that you should go for a diesel vehicle, and I
looked at them. Really. I don't know if it's because of the inverted
fuel prices lately around here (diesel more expensive than gas
generally), but diesels are NOT abundant. And those that are are all
newer, with electronic ignition and all the extras that I really don't
care about. The purple Tracker didn't even have air conditioning, and I
loved it. I could care less about electric locks, power steering, and
the rest. I also am not as afraid of storing gasoline as many seem to
be. If it was that dangerous, more gas stations would explode. With
the dumb yahoos I've seen handle gas and still come out alive, I figure
I can do it. (Editorial note: I think diesel is preferred due to longevity of both engine and fuel without stabilization requirements, but I could be wrong. Also, if driving a vehicle with electric windows, always carry a knife or EMT/police window punch to break a window out in an emergency. Shy)

So I decided on gasoline out of partial necessity/convenience. I always
wanted a pickup and they seem REALLY handy for both pre- and
post-TEOTWAWKI, so this seemed like a good time to make the leap.

I like to buy American, and to judge by the business news, it looks like
Ford is the only American company that sells trucks that might actually
know how not to die. (Also, buying Ford keeps Minnesotans working- for now.)

That leaves me with the FXXX line. Speaking with some contractor
friends, they steered me "down" to the F150 for the purposes I had in
mind. When you look at F150 compared to F250 or F350 you get the idea
that it might be small if you don't know much about pickups. Then you
have a wife who insists on a back seat that can carry an infant seat,
and that steers you to the F150 extended-, super- and whatever-cabs, and
you start to see that an F150 can be a formidable vehicle.

I'm doing okay, but I'm NOT "rich" and I don't believe in buying brand
new. Any vehicle loses 10% of its value once you drive it off the lot,
and I just don't see the economics in that. I wanted something less
than $10,000 and less than 125,000 miles. Those of you who have only
driven cars may feel I'm nuts for just stating that. I would have
thought so. Until I entered the world of pickups and discovered that
they both hold their value better than cars AND have a longer lifespan.
Figure that while your average car is likely to conk out somewhere
between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, your average pickup has AT LEAST
200,000 miles in it, and likely 300,000 or maybe even 400,000 or more,
if it's been well-maintained.

Long story...well...less long that it could be, we decided on a used
F150, 150,000 miles, total cost including tax, license, etc. right about
8 grand. Carfax says it's been immaculately maintained (how many people
have their oil done professionally for 150,000 miles, with the greatest
deviation from 3,000 miles being about 100 miles?), the engine and body
are spotless, it comes with a REALLY nice topper and all the
accessories, and it is just plain a sweet-looking and -running vehicle,
so I'm guessing it has a better-than-average chance of seeing 400,000
miles. Not so good on gas, but then you're ahead of the game if you can
find a workhorse pickup that gets better than 15 anyway. It's got a
"super crew" cab, which means that the back seat is basically full-size
and it's a 4-door. Short box and not much room to put in a long-range
box-held tank, but I may do that anyway. First, it only has the one
tank so I'll likely look up auxiliary under-body tanks soon and see
what's available. I'd like this thing to have a cruising range of at
least 1,000 miles fully fueled, as I could see a trip to the cities
possibly in my future if TSHTF and I need to pick up a few friends that
live there to come home with me...and it's always good to have something
left over for, you know, LIVING, right? (Ed.note: with the saddle tanks on my F-150 4WD stick I can cruise close to 800 miles without refill: and it's easy to throw a couple jerry-cans in the box with extra gas. Shy)

So there's the short story on how I arrived at my decision. I have a
wife who isn't on board with the prepping thing yet (though I see signs
of hope there) so this was the best I could do. I'm not unsatisfied. I
fully realize that this vehicle will not fare well in the event of an
EMP attack, and I'm just hoping that doesn't happen. I happen to live
in the only house I've ever seen that has a 3-car tuckunder garage. The
topography of our lot is such that our cars basically sit in our
basement. I'm hoping that might give them some protection, as they sit
there usually 2/3 of the day and chances are really good that that's
where at least one of them will be at any given time. For that reason,
I'm planning on not habitually using the truck, hoping that it will
survive such a thing. But in all other ways, I'm happy with my purchase.

So while not all preppers would be happy with my decision, I think it's
the best I could do given my personal set of circumstances and pressures.

Next up:

1) Making that wood stove purchase and getting it installed ASAP.
Anybody who hasn't done that, be aware that the stove is the minor part
of the purchase. The flue is the major part in most cases, including ours.
2) Buying a whole lot more LTS food and stashing it in the basement.
3) Planting at least 4 fruit trees on our property within the next 2
months, two each (for cross-pollination) of apple and some other fruit.
4) Buying a whole lotta canning equipment.
5) Planting at least a few seeds of every single variety of heritage
seeds I have, if for no other reason than to get a new batch of seeds
for next year. They're supposed to keep for several years at least, but
you never know, right?
6) Convince at least 3 other people in town that I'm not crazy. It's
not general knowledge to anybody but my wife and parents that I'm a
prepper, but this would be a whole lot easier, and even fun, if I had
somebody else to share it with. (That's why we're here, Baby Coon Hound :-D )
7) Buy a handgun (probably 9mm) and start the process of getting a CCW.
8) Buy a shotgun. I have a .22 and a .30/30, and I want a
9mm and a 12 to go with them. Maybe also a battle rifle, but I don't
feel a pressing need for that right now. I feel that the .30/30, a
shotgun and a 9mm would suffice in our position to defend anything I see
us having to defend, if we have enough ammo. When I feel wrong about
that, I'll buy something else. (Don't forget a good supply of ammo for each.)
9) Convince my wife to learn to shoot. I think I could at least get
her hooked on the .22 (an excellent "gateway drug"), and see if I could
move her on to the .30/30 and so forth.
10) Get a gasoline fuel tank of at least 200 gallons
installed somewhere unobtrusive on the premises. Maybe underground, I
dunno, but I want something to last us out at least 1 winter with
whatever happens to be in our NG tank when TSHTF in combination with my
soon-to-be-installed wood stove, our stored food and our 4000-watt
generator (probably to be upgraded to a >10kw generator in the
medium-term future).
11) Install a solar system and/or wind system, grid-tied to begin
with, that will fully support our electricity usage. Start with one,
then the other, and when we have the kinks worked out, get off the grid
entirely. My understanding is that if there is an EMP attack, if you're
hooked to the grid, you stand a much greater chance of having your
panels and so forth fried. I'd rather that not happen. Plus, I just
like the idea of not depending on the grid, and it would be cool to be
the only kid on the block with power when the electricity dies. I got a
taste of that after a bad thunderstorm a few years ago (due to my
gasoline generator hooked up to power my house as long as we didn't run
the microwave, the stove, or any other major appliances) and was able to
win major brownie points with the neighbors by running extension cords
to keep their freezers and refrigerators going.

There are others, but these are the majors.

Keep on prepping. Two years ago, looking at a guy doing the things I'm
doing, I would have said that guy's crazy. But I'm a college-educated
guy (alumnus of our fine Minnesota State University System) telling you
here and now that while it's not a foregone conclusion, the shit could
very well hit the fan in the next few years. I'm prepping for all I'm
worth. I've cashed out nearly my entire 401K and converted to "physical
assets", as they say. No gold or silver yet, but that's next after the
meat-and-potatoes stuff.

Now if I could just convince my family. My brother-in-law is from El
Salvador and has intimate knowledge of the troubles of the 80s. I'm
pretty sure he's a closet prepper. I'm soon going to open the
conversation with him. Wish me luck. (We do.)