Preppers, what did you forget?

Lead smoke or soot? I didn't want to leave anything to chance. All the smelting stuff is it's own stuff no comingling in my AO.
Meh I dont know to be honest. Its basically one of those burners people use to deep fry a turkey in the yard. I set an old dutch oven on top and smelt in that. What I meant was it doesnt have any actual lead splashed on it. Wasnt thinking about soot or smoke residue. I guess it things were to get so bad that Id have to resort to cooking on it, I wouldnt really have a choice as the only other option would be to not eat
 
Great! Thhnks I wasn't 100% positive if it lost any efficiency.

LPG is the most “shelf stable” fuel there is.

it’s sealed so there’s no oxidation, no varnish, no ethanol to settle out and it’s an inhospitable environment for bacteria or algae to grow.
 
So Friday morning after an early morning grocery run, I came home to the sound of generators running in the neighborhood. No biggie, as the power outage lasted less than two hours so I didn’t bother breaking out the generator. But it did make me run through everything I had on hand to get through an extended outage. The only thing I was short on was 1 lb. propane tanks to run the propane camp stove(s) that would take over cooking chores. It dawned on me that while I had 5 full 20 lb propane tanks in the barn I didn’t have a hose to connect them to the camp stoves. So two hoses on way to house now.
 
So Friday morning after an early morning grocery run, I came home to the sound of generators running in the neighborhood. No biggie, as the power outage lasted less than two hours so I didn’t bother breaking out the generator. But it did make me run through everything I had on hand to get through an extended outage. The only thing I was short on was 1 lb. propane tanks to run the propane camp stove(s) that would take over cooking chores. It dawned on me that while I had 5 full 20 lb propane tanks in the barn I didn’t have a hose to connect them to the camp stoves. So two hoses on way to house now.

There's a company on facebook that continually spams me with ads about an adapter that lets you "straight" fill up little green tanks from the larger 20 pounders. Looks like a great idea. Only reason I didnt buy it is I have plenty of little green tanks and don't use them much.
 
So Friday morning after an early morning grocery run, I came home to the sound of generators running in the neighborhood. No biggie, as the power outage lasted less than two hours so I didn’t bother breaking out the generator. But it did make me run through everything I had on hand to get through an extended outage. The only thing I was short on was 1 lb. propane tanks to run the propane camp stove(s) that would take over cooking chores. It dawned on me that while I had 5 full 20 lb propane tanks in the barn I didn’t have a hose to connect them to the camp stoves. So two hoses on way to house now.
You may want to consider a Mr Heater.
 
There's a company on facebook that continually spams me with ads about an adapter that lets you "straight" fill up little green tanks from the larger 20 pounders. Looks like a great idea. Only reason I didnt buy it is I have plenty of little green tanks and don't use them much.
I have one of those adapters, I think I got it from Amazon. I need to use it today actually. I have probably a quarter of a tank in the 20lb'r but it didnt give me enough pressure to fill the small tank. Small tank is currently in the freezer, and big one is in the sun. I'll fill it later and have my woodstove starter back.
 
I sold my 300lb Olympic bench set for a kiss and a promise on NES about 5 weeks ago. Which was about 2 weeks before my gym closed.
 
Expired yeast does not make good bread so I failed to have yeast on hand. I do have some bread in the freezer.
I have N95 masks for work and offered them to a niece who works in health care. I have a couple for working in the shop for dust, I am not going out yet.


Get the 1lb bag from fleischman that is vacuum sealed.

Had 2 bags in storage.

Proofed someday yesterday in sugar water.

Worked like charm.

Expiration was 2012.
 
I just removed a treadmill from the basement to make room for a new food shelf. Its outside under a dry porch at the top of the driveway. Yours for the taking if you can bring someone to help load it.

Convert that treadmill into generator :)
 
Some are things that were holes in my preps, others are just things I'm learning through actual usage of what we have.

Holes:

Not enough masks and gloves. You can burn through nitrile gloves pretty fast on every day things if you're really trying to be careful. I've transitioned to some of my old patrol gloves that can be washed off after use for some things. Masks, we are improvising.

Kids books and activities. We have what we have, but without being able to introduce something new every so often, it would get pretty stale.

Fish food and supplies. I keep plenty of dog food but I didn't consider my boy's fish. Mainly because they are useless.

Flour. My stored flour somehow got bugs in it. I had to dump it all. Plenty of corn meal, no flour. For a week or two it was really hard to get more. We have some now, but I'll lay in more soon and figure out a better way to store it I guess.

Yeast. I didn't have any.

I need a bigger freezer.

I had two months of toilet paper going in to this. I thought that would be plenty to get through anything short term. That situation hasn't gotten any better, so I'm ordering TP from places that are shipping in about 3 weeks or so.

General use learning:
When everybody is home, meals become a bigger, more elaborate thing. Big family breakfast, lunch and dinner means we go through food stocks faster than I thought we would. We could easily pare it down but family meals are also a great social time right now so I don't want to. I just have to recalculate when I am figuring out how long my supplies last.

Sides. I did not plan on enough side dishes to go with meals. Like, we're fine if this were real survival eating, but making family meals there are certain expectations.

Alcohol. We are going through that faster than I ever thought possible, and we aren't even day drinking. It's just, when you spend all day with your whole family under one roof, when the kids go to bed, you really want to relax a little, refresh for the next day. I'm going to have to look in to making some kind of home brew or something. Or get a second house to store my booze in.

Planting. We got ready to start our tomatoes, realized we had no seed cups. Had to improvise. Such a simple thing to keep on hand but I hadn't thought of it.
 
Some are things that were holes in my preps, others are just things I'm learning through actual usage of what we have.

Holes:

Not enough masks and gloves. You can burn through nitrile gloves pretty fast on every day things if you're really trying to be careful. I've transitioned to some of my old patrol gloves that can be washed off after use for some things. Masks, we are improvising.

Kids books and activities. We have what we have, but without being able to introduce something new every so often, it would get pretty stale.

Fish food and supplies. I keep plenty of dog food but I didn't consider my boy's fish. Mainly because they are useless.

Flour. My stored flour somehow got bugs in it. I had to dump it all. Plenty of corn meal, no flour. For a week or two it was really hard to get more. We have some now, but I'll lay in more soon and figure out a better way to store it I guess.

Yeast. I didn't have any.

I need a bigger freezer.

I had two months of toilet paper going in to this. I thought that would be plenty to get through anything short term. That situation hasn't gotten any better, so I'm ordering TP from places that are shipping in about 3 weeks or so.

General use learning:
When everybody is home, meals become a bigger, more elaborate thing. Big family breakfast, lunch and dinner means we go through food stocks faster than I thought we would. We could easily pare it down but family meals are also a great social time right now so I don't want to. I just have to recalculate when I am figuring out how long my supplies last.

Sides. I did not plan on enough side dishes to go with meals. Like, we're fine if this were real survival eating, but making family meals there are certain expectations.

Alcohol. We are going through that faster than I ever thought possible, and we aren't even day drinking. It's just, when you spend all day with your whole family under one roof, when the kids go to bed, you really want to relax a little, refresh for the next day. I'm going to have to look in to making some kind of home brew or something. Or get a second house to store my booze in.

Planting. We got ready to start our tomatoes, realized we had no seed cups. Had to improvise. Such a simple thing to keep on hand but I hadn't thought of it.

How to Brew

Brewing supply stores online are still shipping.
 
There's a company on facebook that continually spams me with ads about an adapter that lets you "straight" fill up little green tanks from the larger 20 pounders. Looks like a great idea. Only reason I didnt buy it is I have plenty of little green tanks and don't use them much.
Even Harbor Fright sells those. Propane Bottle Refill Valve
 
What a find! This well built "rocket stove" disassembles to fit in the included 50 cal ammo can.

$99 shipped. All you do is put twigs, leaves, and other tinder, and this thing burns 100% efficiency up the chimney. In a SHTF scenario, you can boil water, grill meats, cast iron skillet, moka coffee, etc.
OR you can make a nice breakfast on your porch on a summer sunday morning with a nice cigar :cool:

1586396081615.png
 
What a find! This well built "rocket stove" disassembles to fit in the included 50 cal ammo can.

$99 shipped. All you do is put twigs, leaves, and other tinder, and this thing burns 100% efficiency up the chimney. In a SHTF scenario, you can boil water, grill meats, cast iron skillet, moka coffee, etc.
OR you can make a nice breakfast on your porch on a summer sunday morning with a nice cigar :cool:

View attachment 346228


It's the upscale version of the regular pocket stove. that I got for $12

1586397750843.png
 
One of the things that I never really thought about was what happens if there isn't a way to use your toilet, primarily #2, you don't want to just dump it outside for sanitary purposes. I ended up picking up a "Luggable Loo" on Amazon and some of their GEL bags if it is a short term thing, and you can use composting bags or trash bags to line the bucket if it is longer and compost.
 
I forgot to not listen to the wife and stock up on crap that I might need. Fortunately we are also minimalists so haven't needed much yet. But now she is seeing things my way. And although she supports 2A with her vote she is not a fan of guns. However she admitted that she is sleeping pretty comfortably at night knowing that I totally ignored her about that subject.

And I also regret not taking my girls to the range more. So we are having drills in the evenings.
Same thing..10 weeks ago...”don’t bring one more can of food into this house”. Two weeks ago...”how much food do we have downstairs?”
 
Having crappy eyesight, a spare pair of glasses would be reassuring. I managed to order a 9 months supply of contacts just prior to things getting real crazy, but I will be sure to prepare for such necessities from here on out.
 
Rotate his left hand more forward, point thumb at target. It's a bit awkward, but it works.

Biomechanically locks his left wrist and forearm. Better recoil management when he moves to real pew pew.

To nitpick, you shouldn't see any black between the hands :D. Otherwise, keep at it. Good is good, fine tuning is fine tuning.

1/2 serious, 1/2 jest btw.
 
I was lucky to have a couple of boxes of N95 masks and nitrile gloves , bought during the 2009 flu scare.
I should have been more up to date with replenishing those, I had been using them for various cleaning and working in the basement
shop over the years.

There are not many things that are currently unobtainable these days, as far as I can tell , except for some paper goods and N95 masks.

I realized that we use a lot of milk now that the kids are home, so one thing I should have had more on hand was powdered whole milk.
I think it's hard to find in stores (I haven't been to a grocery since early March though so I don't know). But it is still available online.

I would have liked to have more sanitizing wipes on hand, we just had a three pack of Clorox wipes. I managed to order a couple of bottles
of hand sanitizer in February, but we don't use much at all, we just wash hands with soap and water. It's good to have a bottle in
the car if we have to actually go out someplace, which we really have not had to so far. And there seems to be no shortage of
bleach spray, at least online.
 
I'm in no way a prepper but in the last few years I have been trying to be more prepared. I can't believe the amount of people who didn't have masks? It's one of the first things I bought. I was never even thinking of a plague but more like debris from something like 9/11. Breathing that stuff in is STILL killing people! Thisbplace is a wealth of information and this event has certainly taught me some things. Once the economy starts back up I hope to start prepping more.
 
That’s pretty cool too, but it’s actually different than the rocket stove.


It looks a bit more efficient with the heat.

I should break out the one I have and see how well it works. It's in the hiking bag but never used.
It's different from the one I posted
 
Same thing..10 weeks ago...”don’t bring one more can of food into this house”. Two weeks ago...”how much food do we have downstairs?”
This time next year she'll be back to saying, ”don’t bring one more can of food into this house”. I guarantee.

Girl I used to date would go from...

at home- "...that stupid gun."
an hour later out and about- "...y-you have your gun, right?"
at home again- "...that stupid gun."
 
I wish I had 3x the freezer space so I could have avoided the grocery stores for a month or more. But that isn't reality.

We tend to keep a good supply of paper goods and such on hand. Hand sanitizer - we are low. I have ingredients to make it, so NBD. And in a normal life, I rarely use it, so being short is not a shock. Maybe keep the 91% Iso handy in the cupboard. 2-3 bottles for JIK.

I've still got 5gal pails of grains and buckets'o'MountainHouse if stuff gets REAL bad. We're talking REAL bad. And water filtration. I stocked up around 2005-2010 with long-term supplies. Gonna have to rotate them out in the next few years. I think the MH stuff had a 20-25yr shelf-life.

Wife hit BJ's yesterday and got a short-case (6-8 cans) of fire-roasted tomatoes, black beans, corn and. . . . something else that was on our list. We aren't REAL short of food out there. (She went b/c we needed other items but grabbed those as good for dinners or three later on.)

Oh, and the Chicken Nugget shortage seems to be over. Every moronic mom that bought 5-12 boxes back in mid-March is still mega-deep in them and they are all back on the shelves. My son is happy. And sad. (It means I don't have to make as many from scratch.)
 
For those of you that have land/cabins etc and trying to weather out a shtf scenario in your stationary supply loaded coffins. It will be naive to think your GSD, pussycat, goldfish, land perimeter tin cans and your guns can keep you alive.
 
If I had a well stocked cabin in a remote area and I didn't have to work during this shit, that is where I would be. The main idea right now is to stay away from people. Unless you are talking about roving bands of cannibalistic marauders storming your cabin. But I don't think we are at that stage just yet. Some keys signs to look for would be the shutting down of the EBT system, pets start disappearing, zoo animals being eaten, rolling power outages, and the government telling you that everything is fine.
 
LPG is the most “shelf stable” fuel there is.

it’s sealed so there’s no oxidation, no varnish, no ethanol to settle out and it’s an inhospitable environment for bacteria or algae to grow.
I had a few brand new tanks from 2008 that look brand new but now are three 12 years old and need to be recertified. only issue with storage if you need to refill them sometime down the road.

What a find! This well built "rocket stove" disassembles to fit in the included 50 cal ammo can.

$99 shipped. All you do is put twigs, leaves, and other tinder, and this thing burns 100% efficiency up the chimney. In a SHTF scenario, you can boil water, grill meats, cast iron skillet, moka coffee, etc.
OR you can make a nice breakfast on your porch on a summer sunday morning with a nice cigar :cool:

View attachment 346228
that's one of the nices ones I've seen, and aluminum to boot, light weight.
not sure if the AL at the top will hold up.

I've ran out of ice-cream and potato chips, a week or so ago a broke quarantine to buy more, now I'm out again.
 
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