Where To Get Prepping Supplies

Where do you get your prepping supplies?  I picked a couple things up today at a second hand store and it occurred to me that I have spent a bit of money there over the past couple years since I have given serious thought to prepping.  I try to spend money on small, local business when I can, even if it means spending a bit more, but in some cases, it has cost me much less.  Here are some of my experiences, thoughts and second hand information on what to get and where to get it:

Hand tools: pawn shop, second hand store, gun show/flea markets and yard sales.
For my money, older tools are the way to go instead of the newer Taiwan and China pieces.  I don't feel the need to buy shiny, new tools, I'm just going to scuff them up anyway.  Here are some of the last ones I picked up:
US made Crescent wrench $3 at pawn shop, the mechanism was stuck.  A wire brush and some oil while I watched a TV movie has it working line new.
Brace and adjustable bit $5/$4 at flea market/gun show.  A little oil on the mechanism and a few strokes with a stone to touch up the bit, good to go.
US made plane $10 at the same flea market as the brace.  There was some rust on it, but some sandpaper cleaned up the bottom.  I just need to sharpen the blade now.
C-clamp $3 at a second hand store.  No work necessary.
My cohort and good buddy NinjaClerk has a good knack for the yard sale finds that can beat some of my flea market scores in a lot of categories.







Nuts/bolts/screws/nails: going out of business sales, estate sales, your own old equipment.
When hardware stores go out of business, especially mom-and-pop places, they will start selling items off until it's gone.  They usually start with 20% off and go up 10% every week or so until the remaining items are almost free.  Rural estate sales will frequently have half-empty boxes of nails or other fasteners from a barn.  Nails and screws don't care much about minor rust; bolts and nuts might.  Before throwing out or recycling old equipment, I like to tear it apart.  I'm curious about the inner workings, but I also have a tub of screw, bolts, etc from these items that I keep handy.  The bent or rusted ones get tossed in the recycle bin. 

Garden and outside tools: pawn shops, second hand stores and flea markets.
Shovel, hoe, rake, ax, pick, hand garden tools are all important to keep on hand.  I recently broke a shovel handle and discovered that new handles are going for $10-15 and the whole new shovel is $12 on up.  I was hard pressed to just buy a handle when I can get the whole thing, so I have a new shovel and an old blade without a handle in the garage.  One pawn shop near me sells all the tools they take in for $5.  A little linseed oil on the handle and the ones I picked up were better than some new ones.

Firearms: pawn shops, gun shows, local paper.
If you know about guns, private party sale is usually the best way to get a deal.  If you don't know about guns, you should bring a friend along that does to a private sale or a gun show so they can talk you through what you want to look for.  Pawn shops can have quite the variety and they are usually willing to deal as well.  A little barter practice is always good, too.


Kitchenware:second hand stores and flea markets.
Below are my cast iron pans.  Love those things.  The largest, smallest and middle sizes were from a flea market.  I paid $6 total for them.  The largest was in bad shape and needed a lot of work, but the smaller ones were great.  The other two there were obtained from a second hand store and needed little work to spruce up.  From the second hand store I have also picked up a food grinder, utensils, and several other things for a fraction of new cost.





I ended up with more ideas that I initially thought, so this post is- to be continued...

Medical Procedures--get them done while you can!

I will be having amblyopia eye surgery next month to correct my 'lazy eye' that I've had since I was born. This will be the third surgery for me--the last one was in 1979.

I honestly did not think I was a candidate for eye surgery again as I had been told there was too much scar tissue from the previous surgeries. When I met with the eye doctor and she said she could help me out I was ecstatic. I have double-vision all the time--not the cross-eyed double vision but just the opposite.To say that this causes headaches would be a gross understatement.

Not wanting to stop there--I met with an orthopedic surgeon to see if they could fix my shoulder that I injured on a fishing boat back in 1991. As soon as I heal from the eye surgery I will have my shoulder fixed up. The shoulder doc is saying that right now it looks like he can do everything with the arthroscopic procedure but he will know more once I have an MRI with contrast next week.

What I'm getting to is this...if you are financially able to have any work done that you need to have done and have been putting off...do it.

I've been putting off having my shoulder looked at because I didn't want to hear the doctor say, "Yep, you need surgery." And that's exactly what he said.

I have a job with some pretty-darn-good insurance. I know I am extremely lucky compared to some family and friends of mine who do not have insurance and wouldn't be able to have work like this done. Why haven't I done this before?

Easy answer. I was scared.

What motivated me to finally get this looked at and to stop being such a baby was I thought, "if everything goes to hell in a bucket in the near future...I'm screwed." I wouldn't be able to have my eyes fixed. I wouldn't be able to get my right arm working again like I want it to. I may need my eyes and my arms more in the next couple of years than I do now. (That EBR in the gun safe isn't going to use itself now is it?)

You just don't know what the future holds. I'm a pessimist. I don't think things are going to get better. That's why I'm having the work done.

If you need new glasses...get them.

If you need a hearing aid...get one. (I hear Costco has some great deals.)

If you need dental work...get it done. (My folks have all of their dental work done in Mexico just across the border from Yuma. The work is top-notch and the prices are ridiculously low.)

A friend of mine is having foot surgery because she doesn't know if she'll have a job next year.

Don't be scared like I was. If you have something that needs to be done and you are able to do it--there is no reason not to have it done while you can. What would you do if our medical system as we know it collapses?

Book Review: 299 Days:The Stronghold by Glen Tate

The Stronghold continues the 299 Days story with the development of the main town, some development of the lesser characters that are building their own extended households, and more information on the situation in the major cities without effective law enforcement.

We see the main town and some of the lesser characters' locations pull together for security in their respective locations.  All of the security is done the same way, though: guard the front gate. There are a couple of other small ideas as well, that I'll leave to your discovery as you read through the books. 

In The Stronghold we get another dodge of a big battle.  We see some people from the main town go to the neighboring, larger town for supplies and get a good picture of how the author believes things will go in larger towns during a major, long-term breakdown. 

Some of these lesser locations start to develop a bit more.  We get more information on a functioning family farm with long term guests (the main character's co-workers from The Collapse).  The main character's pre-collapse community falls lower as it is led by a semi-psychotic big government resident.  A glimpse is presented into the state government workings from the view of a loyalty torn public information mouthpiece.  A couple other locations are described along with the how those local economies function with and without government assistance. 

The main town's community meetings continue and the main character continues to verbally spar with a man and his followers who disagree.  It seems as if the author uses this antagonist as an outlet to explain some of the things he believes, forgoing the need for an all-knowing narrator talking to the reader.  For the most part this works, with some awkward moments that don't seem like interactions real people would have. 

The books, this one included, end in cliffhangers, reminiscent of the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.  Oh, well.  It doesn't hurt anything.

OK, now I wait for the next two books to be released. 

The author's blog and the story homepage.

Book Review: 299 Days:The Community by Glen Tate

Our story picks up, of course, where it left off in the last book, The Collapse.  The family and immediate community (hence the title) start to pull together. 

The author takes us through his vision of some occurrences in the local area.  The main group goes to "town" and split up to gather supplies, finding most things very expensive.  Fuel, groceries, household goods, are twice the normal price or more and many of the local businesses are rationing sales.  We see most people not taking the collapse seriously and not even thinking about stocking up on longer term items.  Lines are starting to be drawn as the larger area town divides itself into areas racially. 

In The Collapse we start to see some of the minor characters that lived or worked with the main character break off into multiple smaller side-stories of the main plot.  Perhaps the author will bring them back together somehow later in the story, or maybe they will remain separate and will just be used to demonstrate how other areas around our main town suffer and/or thrive in different ways.

Still no "action" in the sense of gunfights.  The author continues to feint at action like a man playing in traffic; he'll stand in the lane and jump away at the last moment before being hit by a car.  (There's my poor literary analogy for today, but reading the first few books it will make sense)

The main character begins his journey as a leader in the small town near his new home.  He and a permanent resident of that town start to form a leadership group and plan the safety of the area.

OK, enough for now.  The story is still good.  I'm still reading.

299days website

Keeping Garden Seeds Organized

I had a problem last year where the small plastic storage container I was using to keep my seed packets in allowed the seeds to spill out as they were laid down and the container was carried around.  I had to come up with something different, so here's what I did.  

It's a simple idea that I'm sure isn't unique, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.  I just use an expandable file folder and organize them mostly by alphabetizing by the seed type.  They stay organized and the open packages stay upright.  By design the file folder fits in file cabinets or is a perfect size for a bookshelf.

Drawbacks:

- as you can see, some of the letters get  much thicker than others.  The bigger seeds (corn, beans, peas) really take up space.
-once you get a larger collection of seeds, the top doesn't close as well.  If you were to have an organizer with a top and a string or latch, it would at least hold the top closed.

Hope this is of some help or, at least, gave you some sort of an idea.

Hugelkultur (sorta) Beds

In the spring of 2011 I had been hearing about the "hugelkultur" stuff for a while from Jack Spirko and Paul Wheaton so I decided to give it a go.  In the corner of my back yard I had a pile of wood that had been there for years and was now in various stages of decay, so I thought "Perfect!" I have what I need.  What did I have to lose other than a pile of rotting wood that was probably attracting carpenter ants?

Before I go into what I have done (and I am by no means an expert, this is just one man's attempt at bettering his garden), here's a quick definition:
Hugelkultur: buried wood
That's it.  You can click the link for a more thorough description and history, but "buried wood" is it.  The premise being that when you bury the wood, it rots.  As it rots away two things happen, one is the wood gets spongy and holds water, the other is that the wood itself becomes nutrients and organic matter on which the garden plants and soil critters live. 

The moisture holding ability is an asset during drought.  If it is done right, your plants can even survive hot, dry summers without the addition of manual watering.  Mind you, the vegetables will do better and thrive when well watered, but they can survive without water addition if you need to go on vacation or are trying to set up a bug out location where you can't constantly tend to its needs.

OK, so here is what I have done and what little results I can attest to so far.  I wish I could find the pictures, but as a result of my disorganized life, I can't come up with them.  If I do I'll add them in later.

#1:  Done up in the spring of 2011.  Simple, I dug a deep, round hole (4' across, 2' deep) in the middle of my garden, piled in a bunch of wood from the top of the old wood pile, then put the dirt back on.  The problem is that I have only been gardening in earnest for a few years and I don't have really good, deep soil yet.  My ground is quite sandy, so digging down a couple feet resulted in a lot of sand that ended up thinning out the topsoil when I piled it back on.  This, I believe, is what has resulted in poor performance.  The first year (2011) was not good at all.  The wood wasn't well rotted and the nutrients were scarce.  The second year (2012) was better, but still not optimal.  I have been piling on the organic matter trying to build the soil back up.  I have higher hopes for this year. 

#2: Second one done in spring of 2012.  Thinking that the wood in the first bed was too deep, I dug a shallower bed (1' deep and 2'x3' rectangle) and made a higher pile above.  I also added coconut coir to the dirt I piled back into the hole to help my sandy soil hold more moisture.  The 2012 garden didn't see much in the way of results here, either.  The wood was newer and I'm starting to get the impression that the first year or two aren't going to do well as the wood starts rotting and the nutrients and microbes return to a balance in the disturbed soil.

#3: My best hope yet done during last summer (2012).  While cleaning that back corner of my yard I came to the bottom of the wood pile.  Here lay the wood that was well on its way to being soil itself.  For this bed I dug a deep hole again (2' or so deep) that was 5' by 6' square in shape.  Trying to overcome the first year blues I mixed the well rotted wood with some newer stuff (trying to balance longevity with immediate useability).  I also lasagna style layered this in with other things.  So my bed was built with three layers, each consisting of these layers: mixed wood, a slop of kitchen scraps, leaves and grass clippings and dirt.  My hope is that the kitchen scraps and leaves will add the immediate nutrients after having sat for 9 months, the dirt will add some structure, and the layers will help with the mix.


Well, folks, that's my attempt.  I'll do up a report this fall on how well those beds worked this year.  Here are a few resources I have used to gain what information I have:

a Paul Wheaton video on hugelkultur

TSP episodes (audio) with hugelkultur

richsoil.com page with lots of visuals and details

Some closing thoughts:
-I don't know how long these beds last.  It seems to be a newer idea here so I have found only speculation on how long it's good before you have to "recharge" your beds with new wood.
-My wood is pretty much all pine.  It should rot faster and be useable faster, but would also be depleted faster.
-Something I didn't do, as seems to be the recommendation, was plant some sort of cover crop immediately after building the bed.  I let them sit and settle a bit.  Future beds will be immediately planted with peas (for nitrogen fixing), as well as clover or buckwheat just to get some root paths started and the soil held together.

If the SHTF and you have to survive, having this stuff already established is a better idea than trying to survive on what I have gotten as first year results.  Work out the bugs ahead of time.  Be prepared for no commercial water, or no ability to pump water and still have your food source survive.

So now... WWYD?

Book Review: 299 Days:The Collapse by Glen Tate

The Collapse is book two in the 299 Days series.  The story continues from the first book: The Preparation.

In The Collapse we see the main character (Grant) as he watches the continues to witness the collapse of society around him.  We also get snippets of local goings on from others' as we see some of the action in their third person points of view from a couple of Grant's acquaintances, including an individual who turns out to be quite disturbing.  Towards the end of the book we get some action that causes our hero to flee to his BOL (Bug Out Location).  He has to make a tough choice to do this, which I will not spoil for you.  Grant's connections through the gun shop and shooting range prove most helpful during this time of escape.

The premise and the writing style remain the same as I wrote about in the initial book review; simple and plain but engrossing.  This book, however, has less of the prepper instruction and more story building than the last.

And, again, the author's web page: 299 Days where you can again find a bonus chapter.  I have been printing the bonus chapters and using them as book marks, that way I can pass them on with the books when I finish and they land on a friend's bookshelf.

This review will be short as I don't want to give too much of the story away; but I do want to continue the reviews as I am still happy with the story.  At this point I am a couple chapters into book 3.