The Big Gas Crisis of ’16

Posted on September 19, 2016 by BigDuke6

We are in the middle of a gasoline shortage, caused by a POL pipeline leak. It had to shut down for repairs, which causes a hiccup in the supply but should not cause a total lack of delivery. Turns out the news media started running stories about how prices were going up, which caused everyone to rush out and fill up, which then led to stations running out and so on.

Now there are very few places in the state that still have fuel, and it’s a crisis. As I posted long ago, I store 10 gallons of gasoline in sealed jerry cans so we are OK for a few weeks, plus I have 50 gallons in my pickup that I can drain out if needed. This was another wake up call, I didn’t anticipate the need for that much fuel to be stored. I figured if something happened I’d just need enough for a few car trips and then the generator for battery bank charging. Based on this event, I think I need at least 25 gallons stored plus truck tanks for 55-60 total.

It’s not the supply itself, rather the panic buying that causes the issue. I can see how any little disruption in fuel/food/supplies will get amplified by the media, so it’s best to have plenty on hand of whatever you may need. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts, in a actual crisis things would take forever to recover due to the lack of backups and people’s behavior. I can totally see rioting happening, it probably wouldn’t take much esp. if food was involved. Case in point: 22 LR ammo. Back in 2012 there was some talk of tightening up gun laws, which somehow led to a run on 22 ammo. It took over a year for the supply to get to above zero, but in 2016 we are still on allocation with high prices in place. Unbelievably, people are STILL trying to amass 10-20K rounds which is just killing the supply chain.

Spring update

Posted on May 29, 2016 by BigDuke6

It’s been a busy spring, not much time to post and just working on getting all the plants pruned/in/maintained. I have two gardens, one at work and one at work so they’ve kept me hopping. I’m still on the path of planting all the various crops I’d need, and then getting them to yield and produce seed for the next season. And figuring out how to store and process them.

Here’s the highlights:

Berries

I have blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries all in big pots. This is working well so far, the only difficulties are keeping them watered in the summer and protecting them from pests. Everything else is well-documented on the web, the need for fertilizer and pruning, and various diseases (all which I’ve encountered). The pests are a big issue, I had to build a wood frame with plastic bird mesh to keep the catbirds out. They take every single mature blue and blackberry, but don’t seem to care about raspberries. That worked for the birds, but I had squirrels wiggle under the mesh and trample one of plant’s canes. I added a 48″ fence, but they raised that up and did it again, unbelievably. So, they had to go the hard way which I’ll leave to the imagination. The far left plant has yellow leaves due to the broken canes, grrrrrr…If you look closely, you can make out the black mesh but it’s nearly invisible.

Berrypatch

Since using fruit fertilizer, all the plants have borne a heavy crop of berries and I’ve been able to eat them every day as well as freeze enough for cobblers. It is very satisfying, and I’d say if I had room for nothing else I’d grow berries.

Potatoes

Recall I had a few fall plants growing from seed, those all croaked BUT one produced a 1″ diameter tuber than ended up sprouting. This dude is doing well in the wet, cool weather:

It’s a lot leggier than the reds I have at work, but we will see how it yields. I started it in 3″ of soil, then added the rest as it grew. I will probably just see how this one fares before going nuts with the potato tower idea. Work spuds are rocking, the 8 I planted overwintered and came up in April just fine. In fact they are everywhere, so with luck they yield and I can try to finally save ’em in a mini fridge for fall. I plan on packing them in moist dirt at 40 degrees, that seemed to work great last winter.

Garlic

Last summer I had some grocery store garlic that was sprouting, so into the dirt they went. Big hit, they came right up and overwintered and are huge. I’m anxious to see how the bulbs form, it can be hit or miss but they sure look healthy. There’s bunching onions and Valencias mixed in, those all did well too. The fence is to keep out the rabbits, which ATE THE ONIONS.

Garlic

Seed production

The chives finally bloomed (beautiful purple flowers), I got a small quantity of seed which I’ll fridge for the fall. Oregano and celery are forming, so those ought to be ready soon. I think that was everything I planted, it all went to seed but took 2 years in some cases.

Corn

I have 32 Tophat sweet corn plants at work, I got them in early this year and they are about 2 1/2 feet tall. I’m hoping they will produce fully formed ears, I hit them with shots of nitrogen at sowing and again recently. That seems to the be the key, it definitely made the wheat head out.

Winter time harvest

Posted on January 15, 2016 by BigDuke6

Wheat Bread

I finally got around to grinding the wheat I grew, then making bread. I used an Oster bread maker, it worked quite well but still needs improvement. I didn’t know about the need to use less yeast and let the dough rise for 3 hours, that avoids the collapsed top common to the heavy wheat flour. I also skipped the multiple knead/punch/rise steps, I found it’s better to just do a single 12 minute knead and then a slow rise. It makes the loaf a lot lighter. Here’s the result:

This was a 1.5 lb loaf, as you can see it was pretty decent in terms of the rise and the density although I kick myself for not letting it rise to the top of the pan. I was worried it would collapse, but I don’t think that would have happened. It tastes great, it was the Oster manual recipe and no complaints about that. Pretty cool, I went from a handful of seed to actual bread. I’m out of homegrown wheat, so I am using the Emergency Essentials cans to continue the breadmaking process improvements. I hope to eventually make first class bakery style bread, but this is perfectly acceptable for survival.

Potatoes

Recall the red new potatoes I put in the planter? Well, those grew like mad until Christmas and then died. They did make a fair size crop of new tubers, I was so excited to see the little guys buried in the dirt:

I boiled these and we ate some with butter and thyme, then the rest fried. They had a very delicate flavor, I’m not a big potato guy but they were as good as the store. Win there too.

Things have settled down now that cold weather is here, not much to do outside just waiting for the last heavy freezes to pass to plant again. I’ll probably try the wheat bread again, and see how much better I can make it.

The mini-garden at 60 days

Posted on June 13, 2014 by BigDuke6

Results

We are now eating some of the mini-garden produce, so far just Romaine lettuce and raspberries. TOTALLY WORTH IT!!! I never had off the vine berries, oh man they are good. So this effort is paying off aside from any emergency planning aspects.

The goal of this project was to plant everything intended for the long haul, to see:

How each seed came up and how robust the plant was in our climate
How much area was needed for each plant
Any special considerations (amount of light, water, pests)
What was the yield per foot
If the plants could be successfully propagated, i.e. hybrid seed recovery/storage/germination

I should have a good idea of 1-4 this fall, bullet 5 next summer. I’ll also plant the fall stuff to see what happens, although the containers will complicate things. It’s not the same as being in the ground, I’ll bring them inside so they won’t freeze but no idea if that will interfere with the natural cycle. Probably not, we’ve had strawberries winter over that way and be just fine next spring. Hopefully that’s the case with everything else.

Lessons learned and other tidbits

Pests

Definitely needed rabbit fencing. My first round of sunflowers nearly got mowed flat by bunnies, the little ones seem to be the culprits. Putting up 24″ high graduated rabbit fence fixed that, so any garden that is accessible will need to be fenced in. You will need to acquire enough rolls to go around the vulnerable plants, with stakes. May need to bury it 6″ to keep them from tunneling under, although I haven’t had that happen yet. Cabbage worms infested the broccoli, we picked them off but it’s wise to have the Bt or other spray on hand. They would have stripped the plants had we not seen them soon enough.

Containers

I’m leaning towards long planter boxes as the best solution to container growing. They are light, cheap, volumetrically efficient and stack for storage. Pots are OK, they look good (we have a bunch of really nice ceramic decor units) but are cumbersome and waste precious space. I’m contemplating making up some wooden stands, sort of like bleachers but with treated 2x2s. I think you could get a TON of planters in a small area, it would be mostly vertical up to 5 ft. A 60 degree angle would minimize the footprint. That’s next year’s work though.

Sunlight

All the seed packets say “likes full sun”. Maybe that’s full sun in Norway, but down here it nukes the plants. Lettuce and spinach need partial shade, as do the bell peppers. They seem to want the light but need misting in the afternoon to avoid wilting. Everything else is OK so far, it might be that I started the peppers as nursery seedlings didn’t harden off enough. The ones I grew from seed seem to be holding up better.

Onions have risen from the dead

I was planning a wake for these guys, they were all dejected and droopy but have rallied. The initial shoots looked awful, but they took off after I stopped fooling with trying to trim the shoots and moving them around for best lighting. I figured they either lived or died and there was nothing else I could do. I put a few in the ground, they are good but I need to figure out how to get the seedlings out of the starter pot and separated. I went overboard with seeds, I only needed 3-4 but I have an onion forest. Good problem to have I suppose…

Successive plantings

I’m going for round 2 on the lettuce and carrots, I want to see if I can stage them to produce the rest of the season. Also trying the spinach again, this time in a planter box and in shade.

Kale

It would be tough to get enough calcium without dairy, turns out kale is high in that. We have seed on hand, so a planter of that went in. It’s with the rest of the greens, hopefully it makes it. I’ve not eaten it raw, no idea what’s it’s like.

Midrange planning and supplies update

Posted on January 25, 2014 by BigDuke6

I am finally getting caught up on the midrange planning and supply situation, that had been languishing due to work demands and other things. As you recall I had gone through the old stocks from 2005/6, and pitched anything that was not a classic “dry goods” item or known to have a very long shelf life. I focused on basic staples like flour, corn meal, salt, spices and extracts, oil, sugar, etc. I determined that these all keep fairly well if kept in Ziploc bags and plastic tubs, and at a reasonable temp. 5-6 years is about it, most of it passed the smell test but the cost just isn’t a factor. I filled a grocery cart for $220, if you had to do it from scratch (I had a few things on hand) maybe $300. I’m pleasantly surprised by the total volume of the supplies, they fit in a fairly small area and will last about 3 months or more depending on how lean I can go. The day to day stuff I have on hand (non-prep) will last at least a month, then there’s a month or two of freeze dried. I’ll add a month of MREs, and the long-term grains which will put it past 6 months easy.

I’m looking around at it, and thinking how tough it would be to store a year’s worth. You could, but it gets expensive and takes up a lot of room. My idea is to have enough on hand to weather any immediate emergency, then start growing things if the situation seems like it will go longer than a few months. 6 months allows me time to get past winter and get plants going. Yeah it’d be nice to have more but I’m just not doing that.

Mid-term emergency planning

Posted on October 26, 2013 by BigDuke6

We’ve discussed short term planning and prep in a previous post, the next phase begins roughly 20-30 days after the event and lasts until you can achieve sustainability. Recall that the short-term will be covered by a relatively moderate amount of preparation and supplies, augmented by whatever you have on hand or can grab prior to the depletion of local stores. That will represent the last link to normal and familiar existence, after that runs out you will need to shift to a much more labor intensive routine. Most of us take advantage of prepared foods and many modern conveniences, none of which will exist. There are a number of categories to consider:

Heating
Power
Cooking
Water
Food
Sanitation
Self-defense
Shelter
Fuel
Transportation
Human interaction

It’s sort of a “OK I made it this far, now what?” scenario. Up to that point, chances are it will seem like a camping trip or the aftermath of a hurricane; not a lot of work just consuming supplies. The next phase will need to last long enough to get things ramped up to allow existing on what you can grow and collect in and around your dwelling. That’s the Day366 idea, maybe it’s Day183 but same principal. At some point, no matter how much stuff you hoard you will run out. That will be primarily food related items, the rest is less critical and beyond the scope of this blog. To a large extent, other things will become available as people move on (both figuratively and literally). For instance, say 5 months later you need some nails. The local Home Depot will probably have lots of them, you can’t eat nails and they are useless to looters.

I’m going to cover the last item of my list first, Human Interaction. This might be the most important one, since your survival could depend on who shows up at your place.

Human Interactions

There’s a new movie out called “American Blackout”, I don’t plan on watching it but the plot revolves around a cyber-attack on the power grid. It covers the first 10 days, but I’m not sure if it assumes the blackout lasts longer than that. This made me think (again) about how people would respond in a crisis, and how my planning would be affected. Frankly, I have a very tough time imagining what others will do. We all tend to assume people will behave in a certain fashion, either like us, helpless incompetents, or as criminals. That’s the sense I get visiting prep sites, maybe that’s correct but no idea, really. I’m going to try to be open-minded and think this one through.

Neighbors

These folks are, by virtue of proximity and familiarity, going to be the first to come a ‘knocking. I expect them to be out and about and seeking help and information from the start of the crisis, it’s only natural but begs the question of how to respond. On one hand, if outsiders cause trouble you may want to band together for protection. On the other, chances are they will only drain what limited resources you have and expect you to help even if you can’t. My position is to offer guidance, information (you may be the only link to the outside), and assistance defending against outsiders. Say nothing about what you have, that will create a terrible problem later. I’d like to be able to function as Farmer Bob and feed the subdivision, but that’s not practical. So, the only reasonable path is to defer food requests and make them find it themselves. I could probably provide clean drinking water, assuming they bring it to me for filtering and treatment. I could also give them a few seeds, if they can plant and maintain a garden. You have to force people to shift for themselves, otherwise they will do nothing and expect to be taken care of. Sound harsh, but there’s no other way to handle it. It’s the old saying about teaching someone to fish rather than giving them one…

The exception to this is block defense, if strangers begin roaming and looting houses you may need to form a team to repel them. I suppose it would be like a tiny version of the Minutemen, those who own firearms respond to the call. That assumes your neighbors are not royally pissed off at you and/or are the ones doing the looting.

What I’d really like to do is organize the nearby homes, pool resources, and get cranking on the gardening/farming/wood cutting/improvising. Whether or not I can convince people to follow that is a big question, but they’d have few options. Beats me if this is feasible, or it breaks down and we end up in Mad Max mode after all.

Outsiders

This is the land of pure speculation. I’m not sure if too many outsiders would show up, given the difficulty of travel and resupply. If they did, I would stay quiet and wait until they left. If they caused trouble, warn then dispatch. I don’t see how you could tolerate any form of looting, that defeats the whole purpose of prepping and would cause you to lose everything you worked so hard to put in place. ‘Nuff said there. One complication would be cops and armed forces, if they started commandeering private property under some bullshit law it would put you in a real bind. I could just see the local doughnut eaters trying this, although I doubt it would be successful. If the armed forces do it, maybe better equipped but still facing resistance from heavily armed homeowners. Same approach, hide then attack if they persist.

Food

Learning from my storage experiments, here’s what I recommend as the food options:

Freeze dried entrees, veggies, fruits. This stuff is reasonably priced, stores for up to 25 years, and has enough variety to prevent food monotony. How much is up to you, but I suggest at a minimum three meals a day per person for 3 months. This, added to the short term stock plus things I list later, should get you to the 6 month or beyond mark. http://www.beprepared.com is a good source of these items, I’ve been very happy with them.
Freeze dried basics. You will want to augment the entrees with some staples, like potatoes, soy protein meat substitutes, powdered eggs, powdered milk/butter/sour cream/tomato paste, etc. These allow you add in simple sides and also make things like pasta sauce from long term stores. This will stretch out your entrée selection and use things like rice, beans, and pasta in normal dishes rather than prison camp fare. What’s for breakfast? Beans. Lunch? Beans. Dinner? Get ready….RICE! Yay! Need to avoid that trap. http://www.rainydayfoods.com/ is a good source for all this.
Grocery Store items. You don’t need to buy everything in sealed cans, here’s a sample of what can be safely stored in Ziplock bags and boxes:
1. Pasta.
2. Rice
3. Baking powder
4. Yeast
5. Salt
6. Sugar
7. Spices
8. Cocoa
9. Dry soup mix
10. Potato flakes
11. Canned meat. Note: this needs to be stored separately, rotated and checked. The cans do corrode and the result is a disaster.
Grains and legumes. Sold as a kit by BePrepared, contains a years supply of misc grains. Highly recommended, but note requires a grain mill for the wheat and oats.
Oils. I’m still working on this, but so far the leading candidate is coconut oil. It’s almost fully saturated, is a solid below 75 F, and is said to keep for 6+ years if kept cool, dark, and unopened. Plain corn oil is OK if you check it, but this is a work in progress. BTW you MUST have some kind of fats and oils in your diet, plan on looking like the Olsen twins without it.
Powdered drink mix, coffee. This falls under the monotony rule, it is said that drinking just plain water leads to dehydration, esp. with kids. Packets and jars of Koolaid and chocolate milk store well and are easy to make.

Heating and Cooking

Really the same thing, you probably will be using the same item as a heat source and for cooking. The best approach is a propane burner, this can be run indoors with no smoke. Downside is the need to stockpile gas, but some quick ciphering leads you to about 8-10 15 lb cylinders as a minimum. That’s not bad at all, and highly recommended. Using a Coleman camp oven on top the burner gives you a small volume stove.

Alternately, you can purchase a cheap wood stove and pop for the Lehman’s Amish oven. This is a lot more hassle, you have to run a chimney, cut and season wood, and will create a giant signal that says “go here to pillage”. It’s totally non-stealthy, and really belongs in the Day366 section but thought I’d mention it.

Stay tuned for more when I get motivated to finish this post….

Realistic preparedness plans, some guidelines and specific information

Posted on June 23, 2013 by BigDuke6

So after all the introduction and argle bargle, here’s the start of the relevant material. I’m writing this for the person who may not know much about the subject, may be they are interested but not sure where to start or even if it’s practical. If you are already deeply involved with it, it may be of limited usefulness but might expose some gaps in your own plans.

How to begin

I recommend starting small, with a specific length of “off grid” time in mind. This is the whole idea of prepping (I hate that word but it’s terse), if something happens how can you and your loved ones survive if not be comfortable. When I started, I picked the following goals:

30 days
3 months
6 months
One year

I have since added “indefinitely” to the list, it’s the Day366 thing but a much more intense and long-term exercise. It may be good to add two weeks on the front, this is a more realistic time frame for common emergencies and doesn’t require the same level of effort and expense. Let’s walk though that first….

TWO WEEKS

We will assume a standard scenario for most of the timelines, i.e. you’ve lost electrical power, utilities, access to most if not all outside facilities. This one doesn’t include any self-defense, as 2 weeks will likely not lead to unrest.

Water

You will need one gallon per person per day, so 14 gallons each. Family of four, just under 60 gallons. Distilled water is a buck a gallon, cheap and keeps a long time. Buy these 4 at a time, and cache them in a cool place. You can stack 3×3 or 4×4 in a small area, 4-5 high on plywood and bricks so there’s 36-125 gallons. This one is non-negotiable, you can exist without a lot of things but water ain’t one of them. Notice I’m not recommending a purifier, too expensive and a hassle to dick with collection. You can supplement your cache with the hot water and toilet tanks, they contain clean water but will probably have some sediment. Use that for washing or a reserve. The hot water tank will have a drain at the bottom, just open the valve and gravity will force it out. Toilet tank (not the bowl!) is accessed by lifting off the lid, dip it out.

Food

I recently read the average family has just two days of food on hand. Judging by the duct cleaning young-uns comments on our modest pantry, I’d say that’s about right. My parents went through the Depression, and always had plenty on had. They weren’t hoarders, just of a different time when food wasn’t readily available. You will need 3 square meals a day, per person, plus snacks. This food will not be low-cal. It needs to have lots of calories and protein, and be tasty so everyone feels like eating. No one wants crap food in a highly stressed environment, just ask combat vets.

Speaking of vets, one very easy way to meet this need is to buy MREs. Uncle Sammy spent a lot of money and time on these, and they are the shit in an emergency. I’ve eaten aircrew versions, they were pre-MRE but had lots of the same stuff. They were great, I’m not a food snob and think people like to bitch about the grub no matter what. If you are wise, just buy MREs from a reputable supply house and you are done. Kinda spendy but if you store them in a cool area they last 8-12+ years. They are also a building block of the longer term plans, those incorporate MREs as variety to the stored food and grains. And, you can get the chemical heaters that make the entrees hot without flame. VERY HARD TO BEAT.

Other food options

If MREs just can’t be had, be prepared to spend a lot of time and space on the alternative, plus rotating stock to avoid spoilage. And, you will need ways to prepare said food. Keep this in mind, the last thing you want is to have to run an oven all day to eat. Everyone is different, but here’s some ideas of what and what not to buy:

Yes

Peanut butter
Pilot crackers
Jelly
Canned meats
Chili
Cereal, esp granola
Mac n cheese (the fattening, in a cup kind). Requires boiling water but not pots full.
Ramen noodles
Any “add boiling” water foods, including freeze dried. Those really belong in the longer-term category but will work fine.
Instant drink mix
Powdered milk.

Canned soup. Salty and heavy as hell, needs a stove, and no nutritional value.
Pasta, flour, cake mix, or anything needing cooking.

So if you want to be cheap, eating will not be much fun. Kinda like real life.

Cooking

Notice how you needed boiling water for most foods? You might also need it for other things, like coffee and tea or to sterilize water. A heat source is needed, here’s some options:

Jet Boil. This company makes climbing stoves, these have an insulated chimney that can boils 16 ounces of water in a minute. Pretty much the bomb for freeze dried grub and hot water. Uses little cans of butane, very light and portable. Spendy but like MREs, hard to top.
Harbor Freight or Coleman burner. A single gas burner, runs on small propane bottles. Less than Jet Boil, heavier and bigger, sprays BTUs everywhere. Can double as a small furnace, which is tres handy.
Kindling burner. A glorified camp fire in a can, uses wood so fuel isn’t a problem. Outdoors only, not really recommended.

Heat

Heat Buddy. Runs on the same small propane bottles as the stoves, will keep you from freezing. Anything else is seriously not recommended, for the price this is the way to go.

Fuel

Either cases of the small propane bottles, or 1-2 cylinders. The bottles are a whole lot less to carry, and don’t need complex adapters and hoses. Get enough to last the whole time, both cooking and heating. You can follow the consumption rates listed in the instructions to add up the amount needed.

Light

You don’t need to go nuts with this, although I have found just a flashlight really blows for illumination. Coleman and others make nice dual fluorescent lanterns, they take a wad of D-cells and can be run off 12 volts. I’d consider that a minimum, along with a few LED flashlights. Stepping up from here is a regular lamp, using CFLs. They use 7-8 watts, but need an inverter and battery bank. This option feels more normal, you can read and do regular activities with that much light.

Power

A couple of options here:

Dry cells. This assumes you run everything from AAA-D cells. Not a bad choice, just make sure you buy lots of name brand cells and keep them current. You are limited to lanterns and portables.
Deep cycle or SLA battery with an inverter. Ahh, now we are talking. Costs a lot more, but can be set up to run larger loads like a lamp or laptop. I won’t digress on the details, but expect to spend 300 bucks for a decent setup. More than that for a small solar array to charge it. This may not be practical for the 2 week’er, but electricity is sooooo nice.

Sanitation

You will need the following:

Toilet paper
Paper towels
Plastic ware, cups
Soap. Good old Ivory bars, nothing fancy
Two buckets. One to wash up, one to..you know.
HD trash bags
Feminine hygiene accoutrements
Disposable razors
Travel shampoos
Kleenex

OK, I think that’s everything. If you have everything on the list, you are good to go for the duration barring any medical crisis.

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Emergency prep on a small scale

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