Survival Food, Creature-Critter Soup
January 28, 2012
Guest post: by Christine Coburn
Scenario:
The SHTF 3 months ago and the grid has been down with no end in sight. You had 3 full months of canned food put up for your family which now you are down to items like vegetables, barley, flour, etc. All of the Vienna sausages, tuna and canned chili are long gone. Let’s say you have never hunted but you bought that 22 rifle “just in case”. With civilization down the wildlife (creatures) have been finding their way in closer to suburbia and you have noticed lately that there have been some rabbits and squirrels in your yard. Or maybe you live in a more rural area and the rabbits, squirrels and other wildlife have been there all along but you have just never shot any. After you get one what do you do with it? Wild rabbit or any other wild game can be very tough if it is not cooked properly.
Soup has long been a way to cook food for multiple people at a minimum of cost and difficulty. Soup is a very easy meal to prepare and you do not need frozen or box mixes from the stores to make it (Contrary to popular belief). The limit to the kinds of soup you make is only limited by your creativity and availability of food stuffs to put in the pot. You can make it with meat or without, with grain, pasta or rice or without, or even with or without vege’s. The art of soup making has literally been around since we discovered fire and started cooking our food. It really is just a matter of putting various foods into a pot of water and cooking it together. It can be served hot or cold. It can be preserved by canning it or freezing it. It can be cooked on any heat source including a camp fire. If using an open fire then place the pot over rocks or bricks set over a bed of coals. Placing it directly over the flame would be too hot.
Remember that in a survival situation Soup has many advantages over canned, store bought ready to eat foods:
1. It can be made with anything you have on hand, can catch, shoot or forage
2. It provides liquid at the same time as the meal to decrease dehydration
3. The salt content of home made soups will be a lot less than that of store bought (excess salt consumption will increase you water requirements)
4. It provides a nutritionally balanced meal that is filling and warming.
5. It can be eaten hot or cold
6. It can be preserved by canning or freezing
7. It can be kept warm on the back of a wood stove or camp fire for your whole family to eat at will.
Disadvantages:
1. You have to cook it
2. You need heat to cook it
Equipment Needed:
Large soup pot with a lid (Mine holds 5 gallons), the thicker the bottom the better
Long wooden spoon, you want to be able to stir and scrape the bottom when the pot is full
Heat Source
Water
Any kind of meat, vegetables, grain, seasonings
Creature Soup
You will need:
1 large soup pot
1 long wooden spoon
A heat source for cooking (camp fire or wood stove will work just fine)
1 creature killed, cleaned and cut into pieces (any small mammal: rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, or even a piece of a larger creature such as a deer shoulder, etc)
Water to fill your pot
Vegetables (any kind will do) or cat tail shoots cleaned and cut up
Grain (any kind barley, steel cut oats, cracked wheat, rice etc)
Beans if you want
Spices (what ever strikes your fancy and is available IE: Onions, celery, peppers, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, thyme, rosemary, etc)
Pasta if you want
Place your creature, seasonings, beans (if desired) and water into the pot. Make sure there is enough water to thoroughly cover the creature by several inches. Cook slowly over a low heat with the lid on. In order to make a rich broth and have tender meat you will need to simmer it (not boiling) on low for several hours. Keep adding water as necessary to keep water over your meat by several inches. Once you notice the meat falling off the bones take it out and set it aside. By now the broth should smell yummy and have a nice rich color to it. If it is too weak for your taste you can add some bouillon. Tomatoes make a nice broth also. Add your grain to the pot at this time. Continue cooking slowly at a simmer. Stir frequently, as the grain cooks it will have a tendency to stick on the bottom and burn.
When the creature is cooled enough so that you can handle it remove all the meat off the bones, cut it into small pieces, across the grain of the meat and replace the meat into the pot.
Watch the grain. It will take a couple hours at a simmer to cook the grains until they are soft. If you are using fresh vegetables, add them when the grain still has a bit of a crunch to it. If you are using canned vegetables then add them when the grain has cooked to a soft texture and continue to simmer only to heat them up. Add pasta last as it only requires a few minutes of boiling to cook.
Left to right: Chicken broth, turkey vegetable (noodles to be added after opening, vegetable barley, French onion, Venison with vege’s and barley, Bean soup and Beef and barley (no vege’s). Notice the white lids with tape. Those are the Tattler reusable canning lids. You can see the edge of the red gasket under the white plastic lid. When I open those jars I will wash and reuse the lid the next time I can something.
This soup will provide a filling nutritious meal. Any leftovers may be frozen or canned into quart jars for eating at a later time. Always process your jars for the recommended time for the ingredient requiring the longest processing. If you are cooking it on a woodstove the soup pot can be kept on the back corner so as to keep it warm for several hours. Stir and add water as needed to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot or drying out.
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How To Divert The Unprepared From Your Preps
January 15, 2012
Guest post: by ‘Be informed’
Most people are probably going to be much better off after a society crushing event to be located away from highly densely populated centers. Unfortunately the majority of everyone lives in suburbia or in urban areas, and the problems of total or near breakdown of civilization are usually magnified there. Even in rural areas the anguish of collapse will be apparent and a problem. For those that failed to plan and put away what they need, their main issue is going to be food, clean water, and their everyday needs. For those that have prepared and sacrificed to be ready, “just in case”, their main problem is keeping what they have.
The prepper and survival driven person needs solutions to be able to better handle the fact that people are going to be coming for what they have in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Some people will turn their homes into forts, and battle to the end before anyone takes what they have saved up. For these people there are plenty of survival military manuals and training that go into great detail how to defend your home from booby trapping everything to every weapon you can imagine. For the person that has stored up and wants to survive as long as possible there are some less drastic measures (solutions). It should be remembered though, everyone should have some form of reliable self defense.
First and foremost what you have is your LIFELINE, it may be all that you have to work with for an indefinite amount of time. Sharing with those who are unprepared could cost you your chance of making it. You cannot feed everyone. There are precautions you can take beforehand to make your stocks safer. There are viable solutions that can be taken to try to avoid dangerous confrontations. There are things you can do to bypass hurt feelings with those you share a community with so as not to come back to haunt you if there is a recovery of the society.
Pre-planning and securing food and supplies.
- Find good hiding places for everything. A storm cellar is wonderful because it is buried, can be concealed, a place for personal safety, and it is cool and if properly insulted frost free for supplies. If moisture is a problem, keeping everything in plastic air tight boxes should solve this. Other hiding places include in the attic under insulation, inside walls, crawlspaces, anywhere you can hide your supplies, as you know your house best.
- Many people will stack food and other items in plain view of all to see, a simple window covering in a store room will not let people see in to what you have.
- If you can afford it, get enough plywood and screws for every window in the house. After a disaster your windows are vulnerabilities that can be shot out or broken for many reasons. Without windows you are at the mercy of the weather elements, harmful insects and animals, people having an easier time of getting in, and you become more visible.
- Don’t let anyone you don’t trust know what you are doing beforehand. Find reliable people you can count on and add them to your group. Safety in numbers.
Some suggestions for helping to keep people away after a cataclysm.
- On top of not being visible to others, keep your home as void of light during the nighttime as possible. Try to keep your home as blending in with the darkness as you can. People can see the dimmest light for miles.
- Be aware of the smell of food. Aromas of cooking food can be smelled for long distances, especially meats.
- Bury all your trash. This keeps disease down, and does not let desperate people know you have been eating food that there is probably more of.
- Make the outside of your place look more rundown and less appealing. Like during regular times the homes that look like they have nothing, are less likely to be ransacked. It doesn’t take much to quickly make a house look worse than it actually is.
- Avoid movements and noise. Where there are people there is food, and things that others need.
- A clever tactic that can work to keep others away is to spray paint in big red letters “QUARANTINED” across your home, even add “DANGER VERY SICK PEOPLE”. Most people don’t want to add to their misery being deathly sick or eating food contaminated by someone with a deadly disease.
When people come knocking at your door,
You can of course confront people with force, but doing this can send out a message you have something well worth fighting for and end up in a fierce battle being outgunned. It may be the only way, but there can be alternatives to this.
- Try never to allow people in your home, but if it happens, have clutter and unkempt surroundings to keep their focus on. Like the outside of your home, look like you have nothing.
- Physically look shabby and depressed like you have nothing.
- Admit to nothing you have stored, even like saying the mistake of saying you ONLY have 2 weeks of food. People will want you to share even this with them.
- Discussion about what you have, should include key words like; meager, little, very limited, bare, empty, sparse, etc.
- If you just have to give away some food, make it seem like it’s a huge sacrifice to do so. Less likely for someone to think you have much more.
- Give away food first to those with children as this makes you appear like you are doing what you can.
- Be ready for any excuse for someone to try to get into your home to see what you have.
- Never talk to a large crowd of people, mob mentality rules and you will find this out.
- Have only one person be the spokesperson for your group. One person is less likely to make a mistake than several that could let out what you have.
- Watch people’s eyes closely when talking to them, beware of the “sizing it up” wandering eyes. Never look away. Watch the body language.
- Remain calm and say what you mean and don’t change your mind, this doesn’t open up for all sorts of manipulation of people trying to get you to feed everyone till you have nothing.
- Don’t let others make you feel bad about sitting on your hoard while they suffer. Convince them that you wish you had food to feed everyone but you don’t. Even make it believable that you are worse off then those coming to your door. Sickness is again something to play on, people are ill inside.
- Get a person’s thought sidetracked what you “might” have, to what the person or people are going to do, ask them about their plans for the future.
- Without discriminating, the more overweight someone is the more desperate they are going to be to eat, the more likely that they are not going to take no for an answer. The more likely they are going to hound you or do something drastic to get any food that may be around.
- To try to predict how people will react, picture yourself in their situation and ask yourself what you would do.
This gives you a foundation to think about and plan for if and when people come to your door wanting what you might have.
- Have a collection of native plants, such as dandelions, that are eatable and discuss with your neighbors that this is what you have been living on and they can also find this around the city. This should curb their interest that you have much or any stored up food for them.
This is a set of ideas that can help you keep a hold of what you have to survive, those things that you have saved up for and sacrificed for to be prepared. It must be realized by most of us that we all have a degree of warmth and compassion for those hungry and desperate, it is called humanity. The problem with this is that you cannot support and keep everyone alive and thriving unless you are a multimillionaire and have all sorts of stored food and supplies and other means of manufacturing food and needs.
You can attempt to feed and supply everyone that you can, and end up with nothing, and in the same sinking boat as everyone else. You also can decide to keep what you have prepared for and try to survive for your family’s and group’s sake, and attempt to keep what you have by using these methods or other inventive and creative ways of avoiding “giving or having the shirt taken off your back”.
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Be Prepared For Unprepared People
January 12, 2012
Guest post: by ‘Be informed’
In the aftermath of any unprecedented disastrous event, no matter how well prepared someone is with regards to a well accumulated stock of survival supplies, no one is truly ready or can anticipate how people will handle it. The emotional upheaval is difficult enough for yourself, throw in those around you within your circle of family and friends and you have some genuine stress. Nevertheless you are familiar and have certain bonds and mutual understandings with each other. Now, unless you are a totally isolated group, the actual issue is how those casual acquaintances, little known neighbors, people of your community, and strangers are going to act towards you and others when the normalcy and stable structure of society has broken down or collapsed.
It can be downright frightening to witness how a person you thought you knew becomes erratic and very volatile, a perfect word is “unhinged”. Try now to imagine that there is a calamity that goes into uncharted territory of overwhelming shock. You, your family, friends, maybe your whole neighborhood or even the better part of the city you live in might have stocked up and prepared to survive varying degrees of disasters. However, what do you do in regards to those that have NOT prepared?
This is mainly the issue that one is going to have to face with irrational people – the lack of their preparation and their need of food and other items. Aside from the obvious dangers of people that will try to come to your home or retreat and attempt to forcefully get what you have (which you should have defense plans for ahead of time), you might have to deal with individuals that are desperate, terrified, and disoriented. These people will come to your door in terrible distress, and whether you choose to answer the door will be a decision that you will have to make. You will have to decide whether to share what you have or not. I have personally reserved some food that I got with coupons for next to nothing for certain neighbors. Please beforehand, consider the following when thinking about handing out your supplies after a disaster.
Most people that have not stored away some food and supplies, other than those too poor to do so, have failed to “out of personal choice NOT to do so”. You and those in your group have gone without luxuries in order to prepare. Those that laughed at the idea of preparedness have spent their money on much useless junk, TOYS for amusement. Everything you give away will cut down on your family and group’s own time of survival. Survival food for 10 people for 3 months if shared with the average block of neighbors that is about 100 people that didn’t prepare will now only last 9 days. Think about the math and not being able to replace what you stored for your own survival before divvying it up. It may become quite difficult when very scared ill prepared people, nice and not so nice, come to your home and either plead or demand that you share.
An “in advance” solution that many people do not understand is to keep their mouths shut in regards to their preparations. Getting neighbors on board and getting them to store up is wonderful as this benefits all. Going around bragging about all the survival supplies you have and how you can make it through anything puts a great big fat bull’s eye on your home. You want to encourage and give valuable advice on how to stock up and store food and supplies to neighbors, not openly advertise that your house is a mini supermarket ripe for the pickens when the need presents itself. Too many make this mistake and become overly enthusiastic about prepping and forget the old adage that “loose lips sinks ships”.
On top of safeguarding what you have at all times, people MUST also watch over their dear pets. As repugnant as this sounds, some people are going to become ugly inside because of the desperateness of the dire situation and find and eat whatever animal is available. Someone MUST remain with their pets if they go outside or risk them disappearing. Your victory garden is also something that either has to be guarded at all times, or harvested early, to avoid the two legged varmints snatching every last vegetable and fruit you have growing. Disaster brings out some true weirdness in people, and people in your group should always go in at least pairs and children always have adults in their presence, if and when you must venture outside.
There are two extremes of unpredictable behavior to expect after a very intense and societal breakdown type of catastrophe. The first is not as likely at the offset, but becomes more probable as the time or lack of social order drags on. People begin to exhibit some raw animalistic behavior when doing whatever is necessary to get food and whatever they need and want. Ugliness that someone would expect in a prison in which just a handful of inmates have the remaining resources. Then there is the good nature of people that is supposed to separate the beast from man. This is where the community comes together and works for a common goal towards everyone’s survival. The standoffish neighbors are the ones out there with chainsaws clearing fallen trees and other debris. In other words, unpredictable stand and work togetherness. We can all hope!
Each community is different. But know this, whether it is intensely positive or horrifically negative, unprecedented and unbelievable disasters WILL bring about highly uncertain reactions in people around you. Any person planning survival and preparedness for future bad, ugly, and worst case events must understand and plan for; how to handle, adapt, and be ready for the many different “person to person equations” that will certainly continuously play out in everyone’s life.
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Situational Awareness and Your Personal Protection
December 18, 2011
Guest post: by ‘TripodXL’
In having a personal protection plan (and you do have one, whether you’ve thought it out or NOT), before you make a personal protection plan you have to ask the following question… “What is a survivalist?”.
Now this will sound obvious after the question, but if you get up and manage to get bathed, fed and make it to work without dying and get home the same way; if you can get up, find breakfast, make it to school and back without dying, are you a survivalist? Of course, you are. You survived! That is the definition of survivalist in its simplest form. So, in essence, everyone is a survivalist to some degree or other and is differentiated only in the degree of survivalism that we embrace.
This would come as a great surprise and shock to those who would claim to not be “one of THOSE survivalist people”. Survival is one of the strongest elements in our human nature and perception of life around us. Some think it barbaric to address such an issue and others will embrace it. I embrace it. The freedom to survive, the RIGHT to survive is, as far as I’m concerned, a God given right, or if you are so inclined, a natural right.
Anyone that stands between you and your survival implies that they don’t care if you live or die, they don’t care what your quality of life is, and you are of no consequence or meaning to them. It becomes a key philosophical mountain that you must climb and conquer conceptually, to have a basic survival MINDSET, with which to use for you and your family’s survival. If you do not come to a point where you think that you have a right AND an obligation to your family and self to survive, then you will probably not survive, except by luck, and if that’s how you manage to survive, you may not be happy with the outcome.
So, what does a personal protection plan encompass? First, have a plan. A proper plan encompasses situational awareness, physical and mental preparation, and proper equipment and execution (tactics). The equipment is easy. All you have to do is buy it after researching what is best for YOUR situation.
Situational awareness is a mindset of just being aware of what is around you and the dynamic circumstances related to you.
Expertise is also something that you can buy, sort of, but will require practice, whether it is a classic martial art or some other training by either getting DVDs, or books and/or professional instruction. You have to have the discipline to accomplish it.
Mental preparation is also something you can get training on, or read books and listen to CDs/DVDs. It is something that takes place inside your head. Your psyche MUST change to the point that you understand (in advance of needing it) and will do whatever it takes to survive and protect you and yours. It will require getting past the lame, egalitarian, sheeple crap that you are taught in school, from liberal academia and society in general, about not hitting, not fighting back and just being a cooperative little sheeple in general.
Execution, both mental and physical requires practice, practice and more practice. Practice your plan mentally and brainstorm scenarios as well as hone the physical skills needed to have reasonable physical prowess and execute the appropriate skill sets successfully.
The number one part of a Personal Protection Plan and probably the most difficult to achieve is situational awareness (SA)? Simply put it’s your situation and your awareness of it. The best way to deal with trouble is to avoid it in the first place, which is the purpose of SA. No trouble, no problem!
Next time you go to Wally World, perform this exercise. Sit way out in the parking lot for a while and watch how insipidly and inanely people do things. They will walk down the middle of the driving lane, talking on their phone, completely oblivious to the 8 cars they are holding up, right behind them, motors running. Or they will just walk out in front of oncoming cars, pedestrians have the right of way don’t they, and just walk on in complete bliss and oblivion. No one will look around and they won’t look behind themselves to get some idea of what their situation is, day or night! They will mosey on and never look back. How dumb.
Here are two real-life examples of SA or the lack of it.
A young Wally World employee was walking out to her car after work, in the dark, and you can see on the parking lot video as she walks along, oblivious to all around her. In the dark a guy runs up behind her as she nears her car and abducts her in her car and as you can probably imagine she was found dead some days later. I’m not blaming this on her, it is solely the killer’s fault for killing her, but she does bear responsibility for her own well being, or lack thereof.
This next one is personal. My wife calls me one morning from work and asks me to go home at lunch and see if her purse is there. I do and it isn’t, the purse is gone. After hindsight and thought, we came to the conclusion that when she dropped off the baby (you park, run in, throw the baby through the window and sign the paper and leave), someone in an adjacent parking lot watched her at daycare and noted she did not have her purse with her, ran over and took it out of the running car. Wow, how much worse could that have been? Less than two minutes.
Some people are nothing but trash and you accommodate them (by being easy prey) at your own peril. Others are very opportunistic and will stab you in the back, literally. You will have to learn to be steely hard and be aware of subterfuge and cunning when dealing with everyone, even a “defenseless” mother and child. Beware, who’s watching you? That’s scary isn’t it?
Don’t just daydream and walk along…quit it! We all do it but when you make an active personal protection plan, your ways of looking at the world change and your mind changes the way it functions. You develop a cognizance of the world around you.
Some of the things you need to think about or be aware just don’t occur to you because you’re not a criminal by trade. I remember someone said something about having their rural house broken into and they performed some serious security upgrades to the house. The next time the crooks just chopped a hole in the roof! I remember thinking to myself, “why would they mess up the roof that way”? Oh, they’re criminals and don’t care about the mess they leave. To deal with the criminal world around you, you have to think like a criminal.
Also, listen to the “inner you”. The INSTANT a thought goes through your mind that, “that doesn’t look right”, it probably isn’t. You should do a 360, both mentally and physically right then, just stop, spin around and reassess your situation (I don’t mean bust a dance move or behave in a manner that would cause stress to people, just stop, look at your watch, dig in your pockets like you’re looking for something ALL the while looking around you and taking it in).
You should look around and watch people. I never park by the door at the big box stores. I need the exercise and it lets me overlook the parking lot and see who’s watching whom. What looks odd, out of place and not right? Be observant, it is a learned habit. It should become second nature to look for oddities in people’s behavior.
Not to be sexist, but women are taught to be nice and tolerant. They will climb into a locked, soundproof, isolated, metal box (elevator) with someone that gives them second thoughts, but they don’t want to be impolite or rude, even though they get bad vibes they do it anyway. Ladies AND gentlemen, quit it! In the military it’s called “watching your six” (your six o’clock position, directly behind you).
Be aware of what and whom is/are around you, with out fail. If it doesn’t look right, feel right or you’re just not sure, then BREAK OFF THE ENGAGEMENT (be impolite) with the situation so you can back up, observe, consider the facts and reassess the situation.
The key to SA is to stop, look, assess and then act on that information. The better you get at this, the more likely you are to ACT in advance of some event, instead of REACT to it as it occurs. Which do you think is to your advantage?
Remember, the best way to use your Personal Protection Plan is to avoid using it with situational awareness.
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Survival Hygiene
December 5, 2011
Guest post: by ‘TripodXL’
Hygiene and survival, are you really serious? Absolutely! Your best line of defense for disease and other simple, but debilitating conditions, is following good hygiene habits and procedures, religiously. If your idea of being a survivor is being a “mountain man”, with a big bushy beard, wiping your mouth off on your sleeve and bathing “every so often” you’re in for a potentially life threatening surprise. If you’ve ever had butt-crack-rot, fat thigh rash, cracked toes with gooey toe-jam funk and other cleanliness related issues you have experienced what in today’s world are minor issues. You can just go take a bath in hot, steaming water and use plenty of soap and some “Gold Bond” powder or some “Lotrimin” and voila, you are “healed”. Not so in a survival situation.
In a survival situation you have to strive to avoid developing the problems in the first place. Your first line of defense against disease and functional debilitation is just plain, simple cleanliness. If you are in your “bug out place” and you have reasonable water supplies then by all means bathe everyday, without fail. At least have a sponge bath and stay clean. If you are hoofing it, you need to take a “cat’s bath”, cleaning under your arms, your crotch, and between your toes at least once a day.
Baby wipes are a good portable solution, just don’t use “kitchen counter” disinfectant wipes as they will cause irritation and actually cause problems. Preventively, use Lotrimin or some other anti-fungal on your feet, and talc or some other powder on your privates, thighs, butt crack and under the arms.
If you’ve ever had cracked toes with itchy, gooey, toe-jam, funk and it gets really bad, walking becomes a problem and if you are walking, guess what? You could be in real trouble if you have to lie up for a few days to get better or can’t move at all. If you are in place, this should never be an issue. Get prepared properly and have what you need at home or in your BOB to avoid this and maintain your foot and other body health needs.
In either case, unless you are being chased you should stop and let a significant problem get healed before hiking off or starting back to work on the homestead. Also if on the hoof you can change your clothes and turn your dirty ones inside out and lay them in the sun or hang them on the outside of your pack. This will kill odors, bacterial build up in the cloth and freshen the clothing. This is almost as good as washing them.
If you have any problem areas, such as acne or hypersensitivity to plants or other tactile contaminants you must keep them clean as well. If you are in place it is much easier to meet these needs and shave as well. Unless you have a bona fide hypersensitivity to shaving you should shave every other day at least. If you keep them clean, 30 plastic razors will last you 5 years. I am cheap, but I have a razor that is more than a year old and it works fine, I just make sure it is perfectly clean when I’m through. Being clean-shaven prevents odor, dirty skin, boils and reduces lice and other infestations. If you are on the trail try and shave as much as you can but remember, the heavier your beard the shorter the lifespan of your razor.
The most probable way of making yourself sick is with your hands, either by hand to mouth/nose/face/eye contact or by damaging a very dirty hand or extremity. Hand washing is THE number one disease prevention hygiene habit. Most illnesses are acquired by touching someone else (hand to hand) or something they touched, and then touching your face/mouth/nose/eyes. Develop the habit of NOT touching your face/nose/mouth/eyes and keeping your hands washed and/or use hand sanitizer, religiously.
When using tools or engaging in other hand and arm activities, keep your extremities clean. If you skin your knuckles, scratch your arm or have a really bad looking hangnail, be proactive and trim it/clean it up and rinse it with alcohol, Phisohex or hydrogen peroxide and put antibiotic ointment (keep 5 tubes or more on hand in your prep supplies) on it and a band aid.
I had an incident where I was bitten, accidentally, by an inside cat with all it’s shots. Within 24 hours I was in the hospital for 4 days and went through 11 bags of IV antibiotics. I would probably have died otherwise. If you can swing it the well-prepared survivor should also have on hand tetracycline (Doxycycline), Cipro (or some form of methicillin analogs) and some sulfa drugs. These have different uses depending on what illness/injury you have. Some of these drugs can be found on veterinary sites and ordered OTC without a script and used on humans (check this out, thoroughly on your own before using these, and only use them in a dire emergency where medical care is not available but ONLY IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO SO).
To recap, keep clean and address open wounds immediately. Being on the move is no excuse for not being clean. If you are in place then cleanliness should never be an issue. Stay clean-shaven, cut your hair, clip your fingernails, bathe, wear clean clothes, clean shoes and socks, and wash your hands. Make sure you have a supply of disinfecting materials, band-aids, and antibiotics. Also if you can find one get a Combat LifeSaver (CLS, Army manual) manual and find a trained individual to train you in it. These few simple things can prevent you from surviving TSHTF and then dying from something simple like a boil or a skinned knuckles. The History channel has a “survival” story where the guy manages to survive all manner of danger for months and months with his family only to die because he ran a splinter deep into his finger picking apples and died of sepsis. Due to my experience with the cat, I sincerely feel his pain.
Be safe and survive well!
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be construed as medical advice for specific circumstances. The information here is general, basic, first aid and hygiene concepts and applied to EXTREME survival situations as a general “example given” for intellectual discourse. Formal training in first aid and/or EMT trauma response is advised and they and your family doctor should be the overriding authority for your decisions for medical care for you and your family.
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Surviving After Apocalypse
November 30, 2011
Guest post: by ‘Be informed’
Doomsday, Judgement Day, The Apocalypse by any name, probably means the same, the end of human civilization as we know it. You as a survivalist, a dedicated prepper, or just someone that made it through the devastation phase are now faced with the stark reality of the aftermath. Whether it is a global war, eruption of a super volcano, worldwide anarchy, highly fatal pandemic, whatever, there are some essential basics someone must know and follow through to continue to stay alive and be all right for the future.
First and foremost a person must determine where they will be safe. Do you stay where you are, and if so for how long? Can you get to where you need to if you choose another location? Is it too dangerous to safely travel, would you even make it there? Do you risk staying too long where you are at, like from the up coming freezing winter? Is it better to continually move around to try to avoid detection by those that would be violent towards you? All of these and many other unique circumstances have to be taken into careful account.
One of the most important issues with human survival is food and water. Where you decide to “start over” with your life has to provide a reliable clean source of water and food almost, or all of the days of the year. Fresh, safe, all year water sources for irrigation of crops needs to be considered. This probably means finding or staying in an area that is primarily hard-freeze-free most of the year unless you are quite good at PRIMITIVE long term food storage and or be willing to depend on hunting, fishing, or gathering skills.
Whatever you call “shelter” is a definite concern. Your primary pre-apocalyptic home is very unlikely to never be the same. If you stay in your home, go to a second home type retreat, find a new refuge, the shelter must be able to keep the harsh elements of the weather out. The shelter must be out of contamination zones; radiation, disease, chemicals, etc. Even short-term havens (temporary makeshifts) have to be constructed safely so they won’t collapse on you. This is something to give much thought to after a mega disaster that has weakened many structures everywhere. The shelter needs to be safe from future natural disasters; fires, floods, avalanches, wind, so on. You also may have to construct or repair a shelter, and having building materials where you are going to live is important to consider.
Fuel is an item many people forget about as modern life has provided us with all our heating and cooking needs. After the disintegration of the modern world, you are going to need some form of energy. This could be solar, wind, or other renewable energy sources. If you are lucky it could be abandoned natural gas supplies to run generators and heating units. Most people though are going to have to burn wood, charcoal, coal, or other safe combustible to stay warm and cook. There are many areas that lack even wood to make a fire and this must be taken into account.
Lawlessness and predation is going to run amok after the end times and self defense will be paramount. Deserted sporting goods stores are good places to pick up firearms and ammunition, but even better would be unoccupied national guard and army base armories. Amongst chaos, you want to have the best weapons, and this is going to come from the armed forces of your country. Don’t hesitate to grab whatever you can carry, push, or pull. Even so called “heavy” weapons can provide a true defense for you, your family, your group. Someone else will take it and possibly use them against you one day. Aside from the 2 legged threats, there are going to be enormous packs of very hungry animals that want to literally eat anything, including you. Rabies will run rampant. You will need firearms for protection.
Movement and viable transportation to safety, including an almost nomadic approach might be a necessity. Even after an EMP event, there are still a few older vehicles that will still operate. Bicycles and boats should also be considered as a means of getting somewhere. Many animals, including the horse, cows, oxes, can pull your supplies packed in trailers. Don’t forget good weather proof pairs of shoes for everyone for when travel by foot becomes necessary.
The absolute most essential point to remember after an apocalypse or even after a near or total breakdown of society, is that whatever is left and not claimed by someone, is yours for the taking to use for survival. Survival motto is “use what is available to survive”. We are taught and conditioned to not take what is not ours. After a mega catastrophe however most owners of property, supplies, merchandize will no longer be around. In all fairness these become survival items for those still alive who are first to claim them. If you don’t take what is left, someone else will, or it will go unused, something that you, someone in your group may need to live.
Your shopping list of high priority items from abandoned places should be food, seeds, clothing, means of self defense, toilet paper, bleach and other disinfectants, every hand tool, containers, blankets, canvas tents, everything with a camping focus to it. One essential stop should be wherever medicine is stored, especially antibiotics, in pharmacies, hospitals, physician’s and dental offices. Medical supplies are going to be needed and used someday, making scavenging for these a top task. No one should ever feel bad about moving into someone’s home who will never return. In other words, you don’t have to steal or take from someone else who is a survivor because there will be plenty of supplies to go around for the taking from those who did not, which is one real positive note to all of this.
People don’t like to even think about a worldwide cataclysm, but with any survival minded person that plans and prepares for disaster they need to also take a worst case scenario into their plans, even if it never happens. It really does not have to be hopeless for those that do survive a nightmare as many aspects of technology will still exist and may function well to make life more bearable. It could be the end times for 99% of humankind, but for those 1% that do make it, they can continue to live a long life afterwards if they are fully willing to take advantage of all the still workable survival supplies that are left and waiting to be used to its fullest.
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The Four Stages of Disaster
September 25, 2011
preparation
One of the biggest challenges for disaster preparedness (survival preparedness) includes the general public acknowledging that there is the possibility of disaster, and then actually forming contingency plans and preparations for a disaster. You yourself may be tuned in to ‘risk awareness’, but how many of your neighbors are?
The more who are prepared in a disaster, the less the danger during the aftermath. Rather than focusing solely on one’s own personal preparation, converting others to the notion of risk awareness and preparedness ‘insurance’ (prepping) is the bigger goal, leading to a higher percentage of survival (even yours).
Preparations vary widely in scope and resources, but at a minimum should be based upon the risks of the local region. In all cases though, the basic and essential principles should be the foundation of your preparedness (food, water, shelter, security).
warning
Disaster sometimes comes with plenty of warning, provided the public has been listening. Other times however disaster will come in an instant, with no warning at all.
When it comes to weather related disasters for example, there is usually lots of warning. In fact, one could argue that there is so much warning and hype over weather related disasters that the public has largely become numb to it all. This is an unfortunate result of the main-stream-media outlets need to make more money – more hype – more ratings.
Really, the best method of warning is the intuition of the individual who instinctively has a suspicion that something isn’t quite right. This requires the discipline of being informed enough to ‘know’ when something is out kilter.
Increasing the odds to surviving a disaster includes recognizing the warning signs as early as possible, or recognizing the risks as early as possible, so as to have a head start in front of the unprepared mass. Don’t wait for the siren to wail before you take action…
impact
This is the stage at which the contingency plans take effect. Emergency services and rescue teams will work to help who they can, but the ultimate disaster response insurance is your own preparation and the actions you have taken prior to impact.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of the public assume and depend upon the government or others to save them, which may lead to a jolt-to-reality when the rescue team isn’t at their door immediately after a large scale disaster.
During disaster impact, a prepared person will be sheltered in place, provided there were warning signs. If there were not warning signs, a prepared person will be better able to act quickly with purpose – having planned ahead.
For the unprepared, the impact stage will be frightful and shocking, often leading to very bad decisions.
During ‘impact’ it is important to remain level-headed, recognize what has happened, estimate the follow-on consequences, and gauge your response and actions to beat the odds. Think quickly, clearly, calmly, and adapt to the impact.
aftermath
This is the period of time which hopefully will be short, but may become long and may challenge even the best of prepared. A goal of the disaster-response is to reestablish normalcy including providing supplies and aid to those in need.
This is the stage where preppers win, and may take comfort in their own preparedness. Hopefully there is enough left to help your neighbor.
The aftermath itself will consist of several stages, from surviving the immediate disaster (getting to short-term safety, medical attention), getting to home-base and securing the family – hunkering down, to perhaps a longer term survival scenario where your way-of-life will need to change to adapt to the new ‘normal’.
The aftermath, in a worst case scenario, will require skills that our ancestors had and used in their every day lives. Knowing how to live and survive without the direct support of technological assistance, could be the difference between life and death.
If you enjoyed this, or topics of current events risk awareness or survival preparedness,
check out our current homepage articles…
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