Winter is no longer coming – it has arrived! Last weekend we woke up to over a foot of snow outside. I thought I would share a few of our preparations and lessons-learned from this event. There’s nothing new or ground-breaking, but hopefully some of our lessons can be helpful to your own winter weather preparedness plan.
A Personal Financial Preparedness Methodology
This post is a guest post. The author is a friend who cares deeply about financial preparedness. I was more than happy to publish his thoughts here, and I believe you will enjoy this article. Above all, I hope it helps someone out there! The author would like to remain anonymous, but if you have feedback you can reach him through me. Let’s get into it!
Survival Cooking: DIY Denatured Alcohol Stove
The soda can stove has always intrigued me. It’s about as cheap as a camping stove can possibly get: it takes about 30 minutes of your time and can be made from two soda cans. Fuel is also cheap; a gallon of denatured alcohol will cost you under $20 at Lowes. Today I’m going to talk about the infinitely accessible “soda can stove” or DIY denatured alcohol stove.
Basic Preparedness: A Down and Dirty Primer
This basic preparedness primer was originally published in September, 2020. It was intended to help people become more prepared for the uncertainty of an upcoming election. With the recent flooding in North Carolina and Tennessee I thought it would be a good time to re-post it, along with a substantial update. I added a couple thousand words to this very long article, including a brand new section on bug-out bags. I sincerely hope this article helps you become better prepared to deal with emergencies.
Survival Cooking: Ultralight Isobutane Stoves
Next up in the Survival Cooking series is… well, I don’t really have a brand or model for you. Today we’re taking a look at an example of many no-name, variously branded, Chinese-manufactured, isobutane stoves. These ultralight isobutane stoves might not have a durable brand but they work insanely well.
Survival Cooking: Ohuhu Camp Stove
The next stove up in the Survival Cooking series is the Ohuhu camp stove (also available under other brand names). This is a unique stove in that it is designed to burn wood. With very non-specific fuel this is a very, very flexible option. It does, however, have it downsides. Let’s get into it.
Survival Cooking: JetBoil Flash Stove
The second stove in the Survival Cooking series is the Jetboil Flash. The Jetboil has been around for twenty years (since 2001) and is the gold standard in personal camp stoves. It is used by backpackers, climbers, preppers, special operations personnel, and just about everyone else who spends significant time away from the comforts of home.
Survival Cooking: Charcoal Grills
Today I’m going to talk about using your charcoal grill for survival cooking. It’s not a conventional “prepper” item, and most of the prepper literature prefers to talk about dedicated wilderness/survival stoves. Those definitely have their advantages, but the lowly grill is often overlooked. In my opinion it is one of the best “entry level” survival cooking items you can own.
Prepping Others: The Handout Fire Kit
A couple weeks ago I wrote about small, handout first-aid kits. I made them for our hiking friends who have not made their own preparedness efforts. Both of these individuals are great people, they just don’t know where to start. More recently, I decided to build them each a handout fire kit. The handout fire kit is a small, relatively lightweight, fairly inexpensive kit full of really good tools. Let’s take a look at mine.
Neighborhood Rapport/Community-Building Follow Up
Two of my best, most original pieces of writing on this blog are two of the least popular articles here. They deal with building rapport with your immediate neighbors and building rapport with your larger community. If you haven’t, I strongly encourage you to go back and read those articles. Today I’m going to follow-up with some lessons learned, and share our success and failures.