Contents Introduction: Systematic Survival Battle Plan ........................................................................................... 7

What to Expect .................................................................................................................................. 10

What do You Need to Survive? .......................................................................................................... 12

Chapter 1 - Developing a Survival Mindset ............................................................................................. 15

Developing a Defensive Mindset Too ................................................................................................. 17

OPSEC (Operational Security)............................................................................................................. 18

Co-Opt Your Neighbors .................................................................................................................. 20

Chapter 2 - #1 Need: Homeostasis Maintaining Your Body's Temperature ............................................. 21

The Importance of Shelter ................................................................................................................. 22

Your Home as a Survival Shelter......................................................................................................... 23

Building Materials You Should Stockpile for Emergency Repairs ..................................................... 24

Clothing - Your First Line of Defense .................................................................................................. 24

Heating Your Home Without Electricity.............................................................................................. 26

Installing a Wood Burning Stove Temporarily for Emergency Heat ................................................. 29

Chapter 3 - #2 Need - Potable Water ..................................................................................................... 30

Storing Water for Long-Term Needs .................................................................................................. 31

When Your Water Supply Runs Out ................................................................................................... 33

Purifying Water; at Home or on the Run ............................................................................................ 34

Mechanical Filtration ..................................................................................................................... 34

Chemical Purification ..................................................................................................................... 35

Heat Purification ............................................................................................................................ 36

Distillation ..................................................................................................................................... 37

Building a Bio-Filter ........................................................................................................................... 39

Harvesting Water at Home ................................................................................................................ 41

Rainwater Collection System .......................................................................................................... 41

Putting in a Well ............................................................................................................................ 42

Water Conservation in a Survival Situation ........................................................................................ 44

Chapter 4 - #3 Need – Food ................................................................................................................... 46

Instant Storage Stockpile ....................................................................................................................... 46

Building Your Food Stockpile.............................................................................................................. 47

Packaging Food for Long-Term Storage .............................................................................................. 50

A Bit More on Food Preservation Techniques .................................................................................... 53

Salt and Sugar, the Magical Preservatives ...................................................................................... 53

Dehydrating Food .......................................................................................................................... 54

Canning Food ................................................................................................................................. 55

Smoking Meats .............................................................................................................................. 55

Refrigeration, without Electrical Power.............................................................................................. 56

The Root Cellar .............................................................................................................................. 57

The Zeer Pot .................................................................................................................................. 58

Alternate Cooking Methods when the Grid is Down ........................................................................... 59

Wood - the Easiest Option ............................................................................................................. 60

Making Charcoal ............................................................................................................................ 61

Another Cooking Option ................................................................................................................ 61

Baking without Electricity .............................................................................................................. 61

Cooking with the Power of the Sun .................................................................................................... 62

Solar Box Oven .............................................................................................................................. 63

Parabolic Solar Oven ...................................................................................................................... 64

Fresnel Solar Cooker ...................................................................................................................... 65

Chapter 5 - #4 Need - Home Defense ..................................................................................................... 67

Household Homeland Secuirty............................................................................................................... 67

Defensive Tactics ............................................................................................................................... 68

Cover and Concealment ................................................................................................................. 68

Defense in Depth ........................................................................................................................... 69

Layered Defense ............................................................................................................................ 69

Deter and Delay ............................................................................................................................. 69

The Prepared Ambush ................................................................................................................... 70

A Word About the Law ...................................................................................................................... 70

Preparing Your Home - the Perimeter ................................................................................................ 71

Warning Systems ........................................................................................................................... 73

Hardening Your Home ....................................................................................................................... 74

The Front Door .............................................................................................................................. 74

Windows ....................................................................................................................................... 76

Sliding Glass Patio Doors ................................................................................................................ 77

Garage Doors ................................................................................................................................. 77

The Safe Room .................................................................................................................................. 78

Your Active Defenses ......................................................................................................................... 79

Let's Talk Weapons ........................................................................................................................ 79

Firearms Training ........................................................................................................................... 83

Defending Your Home ....................................................................................................................... 85

Stockpiling - What Else do You Need...................................................................................................... 88

Chapter 6 – Fail-Proof Fire Fusion .......................................................................................................... 90

How to Lay a Proper Fire.................................................................................................................... 91

Secondary Fire Starters ...................................................................................................................... 92

Sparkers ........................................................................................................................................ 92

Solar .............................................................................................................................................. 93

Friction .......................................................................................................................................... 93

Fire Accelerants and how to Make Them ........................................................................................... 93

Dryer Lint & Wax ........................................................................................................................... 94

Cotton Balls & Petroleum Jelly ....................................................................................................... 94

Black Powder & Nail Polish Remover .............................................................................................. 94

Chapter 7 – Household Military Medic................................................................................................... 96

Building a Survival First-Aid Kit ........................................................................................................... 96

Personal Protection ....................................................................................................................... 97

Medical Equipment ........................................................................................................................ 98

Medical Supplies ............................................................................................................................ 98

Basic Medicines You Should Have ...................................................................................................... 99

Understanding Hypothermia and Hyperthermia .............................................................................. 102

Treating Wounds ............................................................................................................................. 104

Treating Broken Bones..................................................................................................................... 105

The Importance of Personal Hygiene ............................................................................................... 106

A Quick Word About Herbal Medicine ............................................................................................. 107

Chapter 8 - Urban Survival System ....................................................................................................... 109

The "Grey Man" Theory ................................................................................................................... 110

Where to Find Water in the City ...................................................................................................... 111

Turning Your Home into a Homestead ............................................................................................. 111

Gardening .................................................................................................................................... 112

Raising Chickens .......................................................................................................................... 114

Raising Fish .................................................................................................................................. 116

Chapter 9 – Backyard Power Plant ....................................................................................................... 118

Building Your Own Wind Turbine Generator .................................................................................... 119

Building Your Own Solar Panels ....................................................................................................... 122

A Touch of Electronics.................................................................................................................. 122

Connecting the Solar Cells............................................................................................................ 123

Assembling the Solar Panel .............................................................................................................. 124

Building a Battery Backup ................................................................................................................ 125

Chapter 10 – Bug Out Battle Plan......................................................................................................... 127

Bugging in or Bugging Out? .............................................................................................................. 128

Building a Bug Out Bag..................................................................................................................... 129

Shelter ......................................................................................................................................... 130

Clothing ....................................................................................................................................... 130

Tools ............................................................................................................................................ 130

Water .......................................................................................................................................... 130

Food ............................................................................................................................................ 131

First-aid ....................................................................................................................................... 131

Self-defenses ............................................................................................................................... 131

Communications .......................................................................................................................... 131

Miscellaneous .............................................................................................................................. 131

Beyond the Bug Out Bag .................................................................................................................. 132

Developing Your Bug Out Plan ......................................................................................................... 133

A Survival Retreat on a Cheapskate Budget ...................................................................................... 134

Chapter 11 – Modern Wilderness Warrior ........................................................................................... 136

Shelter in the Wild ........................................................................................................................... 137

Finding Natural Shelter ................................................................................................................ 137

Setting up Temporary Shelters ..................................................................................................... 138

Building a Long-Term Shelter ....................................................................................................... 139

Finding Water in the Wild ................................................................................................................ 140

Follow the Terrain........................................................................................................................ 140

Look for the Green ....................................................................................................................... 141

Look for the Low Point ................................................................................................................. 141

Follow Animal Trails ..................................................................................................................... 141

Look for Animals .......................................................................................................................... 141

Always Make Sure the Water is Safe ............................................................................................ 142

Finding Food in the Wild .................................................................................................................. 142

Plant Life...................................................................................................................................... 142

Fish .............................................................................................................................................. 143

Small Game ................................................................................................................................. 143

Big Game ..................................................................................................................................... 144

A Final Thought ................................................................................................................................... 145

Introduction: Systematic Survival Battle Plan

Look around you... what do you see? Do you see a world that's at peace, with people living in prosperity?

Do you see stability in the government? Do you see that people's lives are getting better and better as

time goes on? Do you see security? What do you see?

No, you don't really see any of those things today. The times we are living in aren't what they used to be.

The generation of those who are now in their 40s and 50s is the first generation since the founding of

this country in which the children didn't have things better than their parents. The children of that

generation, who are the ones in their 20s today, have it even worse. Many of them can't afford to move

out and live on their own, so they are staying at home, living with mom and dad, even though they are

adults and have completed college.

Where do things go from here? Unfortunately, none of us really know. There are forces at work to

destroy the United States, some overtly and some covertly. As a result of that, the country has become

divided and shattered. Whereas 50 years ago people wouldn't hesitate to help each other out; today, we

can't be all that sure.

The mentality of the country has changed; or at least the mentality of a lot of people living in our

country. All my life I've seen people with what we called the "Welfare mentality," expecting a hand-out.

But today, that's been replaced with an entitlement mentality, where people believe that society owes

them whatever they want. When I hear some of these people complain about what the government is

not giving them, while they talk on their iPhones and drive newer cars than mine, I just have to shake my

head and wonder.

What would happen if we ever faced a true disaster? Would the country pull together or would people

be at each other's throats? Looking around me, I'd have to say that they would be more likely to be at

each other's throats, than they would to help each other.

Most people would probably expect the government to take care of them if anything went wrong. But

from what I've seen, the government isn't all that good at that. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the news

was filled with stories about how poorly the government and especially FEMA was doing in helping

people out. Seven years later, when Hurricane Sandy hit, FEMA didn't do a bit better. Oh, we didn't hear

about it in the news, but I heard about it from people on the ground.

Why didn't we hear about that in the news? Because the president had changed. Since the new

president was the media's darling, they couldn't report on the poor government response to the

disaster. It would have made him look bad.

FEMA didn't even start preparing for the damage that Hurricane Sandy caused until three days after the

hurricane hit, destroying miles of the New Jersey coastline. That wasn't because they didn't know that it

was coming, that's just how they work. Like everything else the government does, it's expensive, it's late

and it's not what you need it to be.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to depend on Uncle Sam to bail me out, if I'm faced

with a disaster. I just don't trust the government that much. I could die, waiting for FEMA to come

around and bring me the help that I need. That doesn't sound like a good plan to me.

Statistically, more people die in the aftermath of a disaster, than die from the disaster itself. That's

because most disasters destroy much of the infrastructure which we depend on to live. When that

infrastructure is gone, we instantly become a much more primitive society; one which has to be able to

do things the way they were done before all we became so dependent on one another. But you know

something, there are few who still know how to do that.

When we talk about disaster, we could be talking about just about anything. We live in a world that is

replete with disasters. At any moment, we could find our world shattered by natural or man-made

disasters, destroying our security and taking away much of what we need to have in order to survive.

More than anything, we are likely to face some sort of a natural disaster. The specific type of disaster we

might face depends upon what part of the country we live in, the climate in our area and the time of

year. Some parts of the country are prone to hurricanes, while others are likely to be hit by an

earthquake. It really doesn't much matter what part of the country you live in, there is some sort of

natural disaster that your area is known for.

There is also a constant risk of an epidemic. While modern medicine has come a long way in defeating

many epidemics, there are still many diseases that they can't overcome. The 2014 Ebola outbreak in

Western Africa proved that epidemics are still possible and that they can still kill thousands of people.

But the disasters that nature brings us aren't the worst. We are also subject to man-made disasters,

which are much more severe. Should the country face a financial collapse or some enemy attack us with

an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse), it could destroy life as we know it. In fact, official government

estimates state that a high-altitude EMP (known as a HEMP) could kill 90 percent of our population

within a year. Recovery from the EMP would probably never happen, as it would take a few years to

restore the electrical grid. By then, too many would be dead for the nation to be able to recover.

What's the real chance of an EMP attack? Who knows? We have enemies in this world who have the

technology to do it. Actually, the technology isn't all that hard to come up with; just a nuclear bomb and

a rocket. Shoot the bomb high enough to explode above the atmosphere, over the central United States,

and you have instantly put the country back 120 years, only... few people will be ready for it.

Those that will have the greatest chance of surviving a disaster are those that are ready for it. It doesn't

matter if we are talking about a severe winter snowstorm or that EMP attack, in either case, power lines

will be down, services will be disrupted and the supply chain will be cut. The only real differences will be

how quickly will things get back to normal and how much people will suffer before it does.

Those who suffer the least will be those who are prepared; those who have built stockpiles of food and

other supplies, learned survival skills and made plans to protect their families. While others suffer and

die around them, these few people will be the ones who will make it, regardless of what else happens.

The modern prepping movement really isn't anything new. Before the industrial revolution, when

America was a largely agricultural society, prepping was normal. People would spend the warmer

months planting, cultivating and harvesting, so that when winter rolled around, they would be able to

survive. They expected disaster to strike and lived their lives making sure that they were ready for it.

In reality, much of prepping is nothing more than returning to the ways of our ancestors. It's about

becoming independent once more, rather than dependent upon the Nanny State to take care of us. It's

about taking responsibility for our lives, instead of expecting someone else to be responsible for us.

More than anything, it's about being ready.

So, how do we do that? We do it by making sure that we have the necessary knowledge, equipment and

supplies to get us through a disaster. That way, when a disaster strikes, we'll be ready. Notice the three

key words in that sentence. The first one was knowledge, the second was equipment and the third one

was supplies. In order to be prepared to survive a disaster, you need all three. Oh, you can get by with

less equipment and supplies if you have enough knowledge and you can get by with less knowledge if

you have enough equipment and supplies, but generally speaking, you need all three.

Many people look at prepping as only stockpiling supplies for a disaster. It's true that stockpiling is a

major part of prepping, but it's not all. We will talk about what you need to stockpile and a bit about

how much you need to stockpile. But we'll also talk about the things you need to learn and the

equipment you need to have ready, so that you and your family will be ready to survive.

This book will give you the information you need, so that you can prepare yourself and your family to

make it through any disaster. We're not going to focus on just one sort of disaster, nor are we going to

go overboard on some unlikely problem. I'm not planning on teaching you how to eat bugs or worms

either. What I'm going to do is lay out a plan, which will give you what you need to have, in order to

survive just about any disaster you are likely to encounter.

If you've seen the program Doomsday Preppers, I hope you've realized that it has been sensationalized

for television. While I am fairly sure that all those people are really preppers, I'm also sure that we're not

getting the whole story. Some of the disasters that they say they are preparing for are so far out there,

that I really don't think they are likely. But they sound good on TV, so that's what they say.

True preppers, the kind that live all around us, don't just prepare for one mega-disaster; they prepare

for everything. Fortunately, the same preps will take care of most situations. So, the idea is to come up

with a plan which will take care of your family, in the most likely disasters. Hopefully, that will give you

everything you need, to survive whatever disaster comes your way.

What to Expect

There are a lot of ideas about what sorts of disasters we might face, as well as the results of those

disasters. Generally speaking, preppers tend to over-estimate the effects of many disasters, turning

them into cataclysmic events. This is actually a good thing, as you're better off being over-prepared than

not preparing enough.

While the likelihood of a true cataclysmic event is much lower than that of a natural disaster, that risk

still remains. Therefore, we can't ignore it. Should such an event occur, after we've dismissed its

possibility, then we wouldn't be in much better shape than those who ignore preparing altogether.

One of the worst possible things that could happen is an EMP attack (electromagnetic pulse). This can

happen from solar activity, but it can also me a man-made attack. Exploding a nuclear device above the

atmosphere would create an EMP, destroying all solid-state electronics within line of site.

Such an attack isn't as high-tech as it might seem. Some of our nation's enemies have the technology to

do so. The hard part is the nuclear warhead; but China, Russia and North Korea all have this capability,

while Iran is working hard to get there. For a missile, something just a touch more sophisticated than the

SCUD missile can launch the nuclear bomb high enough to create an EMP. Launched from the Gulf of

Mexico to explode over the center of the United States, we would instantly find ourselves put back over

100 years, technology wise.

According to DHS (Department of Homeland Security) estimates, such an EMP, if exploded at high

enough altitude could wipe out electronics for over 95 percent of the United States. The results of that

single explosion would be the death of 90% of our population.

This is one of the many cases where the aftermath of the disaster is much worse than the disaster itself.

The EMP itself will not kill anyone. However, all of our commercial aircraft would instantly plummet to

the Earth, killing their passengers. The loss of electricity on a nationwide basis would cause people to

lose heat in their homes, disrupt supply chains and cause people to die from a lack of medicine,

starvation and disease.

Rebuilding the grid, after an EMP, would take at least two years, which means that it might never fully

happen. Mortality rates would outpace the ability to repair the grid, ultimately bringing us to the point

where there wouldn't be enough trained workers to do the restoration work.

Another likely and serious nationwide disaster we face the possibility of is a financial collapse. Once

again, this is a situation where expectations far outweigh reality. But in this case, we have historic

evidence to point towards. The Great Depression of the 1930s, as well as the Argentinean collapse of

1999 provide us with excellent models of what to expect.

The two biggest problems during a financial collapse are high unemployment and runaway inflation. Due

to these two problems, many people who have lost their jobs turn to crime, in order to feed themselves

and their families. While crime will increase, there probably won't be a total collapse of society as many

people expect. There definitely won't be a collapse of the government, as they will take care of

themselves first, even to the hurt of the citizens.

The most likely disaster any of us will face is a natural disaster. As we've seen during Hurricane Katrina

and Hurricane Sandy, natural disasters can be devastating; requiring years of rebuilding. While regional

events, rather than nationwide ones, for those living in the region, they are just as devastating.

Regardless of the type of disaster we face, there are certain things I believe that we can expect. First of

all, we can expect power outages. The electrical grid is the weakest part of our infrastructure. A serious

storm can take it out, let alone any sort of major event.

Power outages have been on the upswing over the last decade. As the electrical grid ages, we can expect

to see even more of this. To combat regional disasters, power companies transfer workers and

equipment from unaffected areas to the affected ones, in order to speed repairs. Even so, there were

areas of New Orleans that were without power for over a month. What would have happened if they

couldn't transfer work crews into the area to help?

A power outage means more than just losing our televisions and computers. Pretty much everything we

use in our modern society depends upon electrical power. Loss of electrical power means loss of heating,

loss of refrigeration, loss of communication and loss of light in our homes. Since gas stations wouldn't

have electrical power, they won't be able to pump gas, so we lose our transportation. Supply chains shut

down, due to lack of transportation and communication. Even city water can be disrupted, as most

systems count on pumps to distribute the water.

Electrical power is usually restored in days, after a regional disaster. But in the case of a major disaster,

that time can be greatly extended. This loss of power and its effects is the greatest danger in any

disaster scenario.

When city water goes down, few people have any means of getting water to use for drinking, cooking

and other daily needs. The average American uses 100 gallons of water per day. While not all of that

usage is strictly necessary for survival, enough is that a loss of city water becomes life-threatening in a

hurry. Even with electrical power, city water supplies can become unusable in cases of flooding, or when

the supplies become contaminated through chemical spills or sewage systems backing up into water

supplies.

The average grocery store only stocks three days worth of sales on their shelves. During the prelude to

any disaster, it's not uncommon for the shelves to become bare, as people rush to the stores to stock up

before the disaster hits. Those shelves don't get restocked until the supply chains are back in place.

The average family has less than a week's worth of food in their home. Much of that is in the form of

fresh or frozen food, which can only last about 48 hours, without electricity. Then it spoils rapidly.

While we can live without being able to buy the next season's clothing, we can only live so long without

food. Many of our most critical needs, such as food, are the first things to come off the shelves. Once

that happens, people have to depend upon what they have in their homes in order to survive.

What do You Need to Survive?

I know I'm painting a pretty bleak picture here, but there's a reason for that. Before getting to work on

preparing to survive a disaster, you need to realize how serious this is. If you don't, you won't take

preparing seriously.

Now, maybe you're already serious about this... that's good. You're ahead of the game. But not

everyone is. Sadly, even with the massive increase in people who are preparing for a disaster, the total

number of people who are in some stage of getting prepared is still less than one percent of our total

population.

Our lives, as Americans, are rather complicated. We are the world's largest consumers, using much more

per person than any other country in the world. However, we don't really need all of that to survive.

Contrary to their thinking, your children really can survive without their favorite television shows and

Nintendo games.

So, what exactly do we need to have, in order to survive? You've probably heard at one time or another

that you need food, clothing and shelter to survive. While that sounds pretty good, I'll have to say that it

isn't. If all you had to survive was the items on that list, you'd die. What you really need (in order) is:

1. Homeostasis

2. Water

3. Food

4. Protection

5. Fire

6. First-aid

Most people actually do a shorter list than this, but I want to make sure that I don't miss anything

important. Actually, I did leave one thing off that list and it's the most important thing there is, that is

oxygen. You can't live for more than a few minutes without oxygen. But since we get that out of the air

around us and we can't really prepare air or stockpile it for survival, I've left it off the list.

Homeostasis refers to maintaining your body's core temperature. If your body's core deviates more than

about three degrees in temperature, chances are more than even that you will die. This can be either

through hypothermia (loss of body heat) or hyperthermia (too much body heat). In both cases, you stop

thinking clearly and are unable to do the things necessary to keep youfrself alive.

In that classic line about what you need to survive, two of the items are actually part of maintaining

homeostasis. Clothing and shelter are both essential parts of maintaining an environment which will

allow your body to retain its heat. The other element that figures into this is fire, because fire is still the

most common method of heating. Between the three, it is possible to keep warm, preventing

hypothermia.

The next most important need is water, which is left off of that famous list. The human body is largely

made of water. Our bodies use water in many ways, including for cooling (by sweating), the chemical

breakdown of nutrients and removing waste from our bodies. Without enough purified water, a person

dies in about three days. If they happen to be in a very hot climate, it is actually possible to die in one

day, without adequate water.

Food is not as critical a need as water, as most of us can live for some time off the reserve energy we

carry in our fat tissue. Depending upon whose statistics you believe, the average American can live from

30 to 100 days without food. However, even after as little as a week, you begin to see a reduction in

strength and stamina without adequate food supplies.

I've included protection on the list mostly in the sense of protection from two-legged predators. In the

aftermath of any disaster, these predators seem to come out of the woodwork, attacking any and all

they can. Some merely become looters, stealing television sets and other luxuries, while others attack

their fellow humans, with the intent of stealing what they have and even making slaves out of their

victims. The severity of these attacks pretty much aligns with the severity of the survival situation.

The ability to protect yourself from these predators could trump all other needs in the wrong

circumstances. While many people will make it through a disaster without ever needing to defend

themselves, there are those who will be forced to do so or die. If you are not ready to defend yourself in

such a situation, it may very well be the last mistake you ever make.

While fire is not an absolute need for survival, there are many ways in which we use it. Most importantly,

we use fire for heat and for cooking our food. Cooking is essential in a survival situation, especially one

in which we don't have refrigeration available. When we cook our food, it kills bacteria which could

otherwise infect our bodies.

The last item included on the list is also left off of most survival lists; that is, first-aid. While you might

manage to live through a disaster and its aftermath without ever being hurt, chances are that you will be

hurt in some way or other. If that happens, you may not be able to get to medical services to help you.

Simple first-aid can and does save lives in such circumstances. Without the ability to properly treat

wounds, we cannot prevent infection. In the past, such infection often cost the individual their life. But

with proper disinfection and protection of a wound, it will heal, protecting the person's life.

These are your top priorities for survival. While you could get by with just shelter, water and food, you

really need the others, in order to ensure that you make it. In this book, we are going to look at how you

can make sure that you have all of these needs met, even in the worst of survival situations. If you put

this simple information to practice, you will not only survive a crisis, but you may even be able to thrive

through it.

Chapter 1 - Developing a Survival Mindset

While having the right tools and supplies is an important part of being able to survive, the right

mentality is even more important. We refer to it as the survival mentality. More than anything, it is the

positive conviction that you will make it through, no matter what. This sort of mentality will keep you

going, when there's nothing else that is.

When Navy Seals go through training, they make it very easy for them to quit. They can quit at any time

they choose. All they have to do is walk over to a bell that is right in the middle of their training area,

ring the bell and take off their helmet liner. Once they've done that, they're shipped out to another duty

assignment, based upon their experience and training, no questions asked.

Why do they make it so easy to quit? Because what makes a Seal special, more than anything else, is the

attitude that they won't quit, no matter how hard it gets. Their motto says it all, "The only easy day was

yesterday." They expect things to be hard and they expect to overcome those hardships to complete

their mission.

All too often, people give up way too easy in a survival situation. They don't commit themselves to

surviving, no matter what. When things get hard, it's always easier to quit. But those that quit don't end

up surviving.

Survival is difficult, there's no question about it. When you are faced with a survival situation, you're

going to have to do things you've never done before. You're going to have to overcome problems you've

never faced before. You're probably going to have to work harder than you ever have in your life. That's

all part and parcel in the game. But you can do it.

For almost 400 years, people have migrated to what we call the United States of America. When that

great migration started, there were no corner convenience stores. There were no public utilities. There

was no great infrastructure. There was no wealth, no food stamps no welfare program and no free

health insurance. All that America had was a lot of wide-open land, filled with trees and wildlife. Yet

people have flocked to this nation for the last four centuries, seeking a better life.

If there is one thing that those millions of immigrants have in common, regardless of where they came

from or in what century they arrived, it is an independent spirit. Rather than stay at home and accept

things as they were, each of them made the decision to break ties with their homeland, travel to the

United States, and make a better life for themselves and their children.

All that those millions of immigrants asked for was opportunity. They didn't come here with their hand

out, asking for food stamps and welfare checks, they came here asking for land and jobs. They sought

nothing more than the chance to prove that they could do it on their own.

That indomitable spirit is inside you. Oh, you may not recognize it, but it's there. You received it from

your parents, who received it from their parents. It has been passed down from generation to

generation, passed along genetically or in your mother's milk. It is what makes Americans unique. What

makes us a people who cannot be defeated and what makes us a people who will always overcome.

Part of why we don't recognize that spirit is that those things aren't valued today as much as they were

in past times. Today, people are looking for a handout, rather than an opportunity. They think that

society owes them, rather than realizing that they have a debt to life itself, to make something of the

opportunity that they have been given. They have given up being the people their parents and

grandparents were, with many of them becoming socialist creatures that sponge off of society.

Those who make the decision to stay that way are going to be those who die in a survival situation. They

won't do what they need to do, expecting someone else to do it for them. They won't take care of

themselves, rather expecting big government to take care of them. They will still be waiting, with their

hand extended, when the grim reaper pays them a visit.

You need to awaken that pioneering spirit within you. That's the spirit will do whatever is necessary to

survive. Many of those immigrants did things that you and I wouldn't want to consider, but they

survived. They took jobs that we wouldn't want to take, but they survived. Through their willingness to

do whatever it took, they became part of the very fabric of this country; and through their survival, they

made this country grow and become strong.

All of that is still within you, just waiting to be awakened. It would be better to awaken it now, before

you need it, than to wait until a crisis comes and then try to awaken the strength you have within you.

As you are preparing for the coming disaster, prepare your heart, mind and spirit, not just your stockpile

and your home.

Developing a Defensive Mindset Too

Your survival mindset is going to help you to survive, but it's not going to do much for you in the sense

of protecting you from the two-legged predators that are going to be out there after a disaster. You will

need to be prepared to defend yourself from them, or it won't matter how well you are prepared to

survive.

These two-legged predators will be a combination of the current criminal element that lives throughout

the country, as well as people who have only avoided being criminals because they were afraid of being

caught. Between a lack of law enforcement and their own desperation, they will step over the line into a

life of crime.

This happened extensively in Argentina, after their financial collapse. Many of those who lost their

livelihoods turned to crime in an effort to feed themselves and their families. There were no job

prospects for them, so they could either turn to a life of crime or starve.

In normal times, criminals mostly use guns to intimidate their victims. However, in a time of crisis, with a

lower chance of getting caught, criminals are going to be much more likely to shoot first and ask

questions later. To counter this, you will need to be ready to protect yourself at all times.

A lot of this is just being aware of what's going on around you. Learn to keep your head on a swivel,

looking all around you to make sure that you see everyone within the area and what they are doing.

Never assume suspicious looking activity is benign, look to see if there is something dangerous behind it.

By being aware, you will spot any suspicious activity, before they can get close. That will give you the

time you need to have, in order to react and protect yourself.

The other thing you must realize is that these people will kill you if necessary to get what you have.

Therefore, you can't hesitate in treating them the same way. Hesitating could very easily get you killed.

You need to follow these basic rules of engagement.

Make sure you see what is happening all around you.

Never assume that someone is not dangerous, just because they don't look dangerous.

Don't hesitate to draw your gun if the situation looks dangerous.

Never draw a gun with the intent of scaring someone. If you draw it, it is with the intention of

using it.

Never fire unless you intend to kill them; wounding an attacker is harder.

Once they fall to the ground and stop attacking, it's time to stop shooting.

You will always be at a disadvantage in a shooting situation, in that you don't know the intent of the

enemy. They have the initiative. That's why you want to stay aware and draw your gun as soon as you

sense danger. By doing so, you save yourself precious seconds when the lead starts flying.

The other disadvantage you have is that you are probably not a violent person who would think nothing

of ending someone else's life. Taking a life is serious and many people falter when it comes time to do so.

However, you can be sure that those bad guys aren't going to falter. You will need to overcome your

natural reluctance to shoot, otherwise they can take you out of action before you can do anything.

A lot of this is mental. You need to think it through and prepare yourself for making that decision and

taking that action. You can't wait until you're caught in a gun fight to think about it, you've got to think it

through ahead of time, so that you'll be ready.

If you ever have to shoot; remember that it was their fault. They were the aggressor who put you in a

position that you had to defend yourself. There's a huge difference between them and you. They were

going to use violence to destroy and take away what is yours. You chose to use it to defend and protect

the life of your family. While methods might be similar, the motivation is totally different.

OPSEC (Operational Security)

In addition to those people who are going to choose to become a danger to those around you, there is a

good possibility that you might find yourself in danger from pretty much everyone around you. You see,

you are about to join the ranks of that one percent of our population who is preparing to face a coming

disaster. By doing so, you could become the target that some are looking for.

Perhaps I can explain this the best if we turn the tables for a moment. Imagine for a moment that you

are not part of the one percent who is prepared, but you know someone who is. What would you do if a

disaster struck and you couldn't find food for your family? Wouldn't you show up at their doorstep,

trying to talk them out of some food?

Okay, now let's take that a step farther. Your family is starving and you show up at their doorstep

looking for food, but they refuse to share anything with you. Now what are you going to do? Are you

just going to walk away, saying that "you understand" or are you going to become violent?

That's the very problem that you are likely to face, people showing up at your doorstep. That is, you are

likely to face it, if people know that you have food and water and they don't.

The military has a concept called "operational security" or OPSEC for short. To put it simply, the idea is

to deny the enemy any information that they can use against you. The more they know, the easier it is

for them to plan an attack against you. But if they don't know anything about you or what you are doing,

they may not even realize that it would be to their benefit to attack you at all.

In other words, everything that you are about to do, in order to prepare for a disaster, just became top

secret. The only people who have a need to know are your family members and anyone else you choose

to bring into your home as part of your survival team. Those people (your family and team members)

must be sworn to secrecy, so that they don't tell anyone either.

Of course, even if you don't tell anyone, there's a good chance that some people will find out what you

are doing anyway. It will be hard to hide what you are doing from your friends, neighbors and family

members, although for different reasons. Your friends will come into your house, so they might see

something that is left out, rather than put away. Your neighbors may see things just because of

proximity and carelessness. If you aren't careful to hide it, there's a good chance they will see something,

especially if you have nosy neighbors.

You will need to take extra pains to keep hidden what you are doing. If you go to the local warehouse

store and fill your truck up with food, make sure that you unload it in your garage or backyard, where

people can't see it. Find places to put the things you are going to buy, where they won't be visible to

those who come into your home. Disguise your preparations, so that people don't realize what it is they

are looking at.

You can even use disinformation to your benefit. My neighbors know that I like tinkering in my garage

workshop, making things. So, when they see me erect a wind generator or put some solar panels on my

garage roof, they don't think anything of it. When I built a big greenhouse in the backyard, we explained

it away as wanting to grow our own vegetables, so as to avoid eating GMO foods. The 500 gallon water

tank in my backyard is there for us to mix chemicals into for watering our garden.

Everything that we do to prepare for a disaster is explained as something else. Since the explanations

happen over a period of months or even years, people don't make the connections, thinking that they

are related. They are just separate events, happening over the years.

OPSEC doesn't stop when a disaster hits. In fact, it's even more important then. During the disaster you

need to hide the fact that you're better off than the people around you are. If they think that you are

living better than they are, they'll come around to see why.

You need to appear to be suffering as much as anyone else is. Lose weight, so that they will think that

you don't have enough food either. Don't shine lights from your windows. Don't let trash pile up,

especially food packages and other things that will show that you are living well. Don't drive your cars

around all the time if nobody else is. Save your gasoline for emergencies.

Hiding that you are living a more normal life will be difficult, when everyone else is suffering. Cooking

food can give off odors that will attract others. Watching a movie on the television set might be heard

from in front of your house. Everything you do to live normally might be seen or heard, making people

wonder how you are doing it.

Part of OPSEC is disinformation, like I mentioned a moment ago. That's why I suggested losing weight, to

give your neighbors disinformation. Another way of doing so is to go pick up any government assistance

that is available, just like everyone else is doing. If you are seen in line waiting for a handout, it will imply

that you need that handout, just like everyone else does.

You might also need to do things like avoiding cutting your yard and letting your house look a little

disheveled. If nobody else can cut your yard, then how will you be able to? Of course, if you have a

machete and cut it by hand, nobody will be wondering.

Watch out for smoke coming from your chimneys or fire pit. If you burn your trash, it might put off

smoke, especially plastic. Wet wood also puts off smoke, so make sure that your firewood is dry before

using it. Every detail counts towards perfecting your OPSEC.

Co-Opt Your Neighbors

Another thing you can do, in place of such stringent OPSEC is to co-opt your neighbors as part of your

survival team. There are two basic ways of doing this. First of all, if your neighbors are friends, you might

be able to get them interested in preparing for a disaster as well. In that case, you could make an

agreement to work together in the event of a crisis.

That's actually to your advantage, as survival is a lot of work. By working together, you can work more

efficiently, saving time and getting more done. But the biggest advantage is that you can work together

to defend yourselves, increasing the number of shooters you have at your disposal.

It's doubtful that you'll get all your neighbors to work together as a survival team. There will always be

people who want to depend upon big government to take care of them. They won't prepare, because

they are honestly expecting FEMA to show up with truckloads of food and keep them fed. These are the

dangerous people; the ones who will expect a handout.

Okay, so here's what you do. Buy lots of beans and rice, as well as lots of heirloom seeds for a vegetable

garden. Then, after the disaster strikes, when they come knocking on your door, you can trade them

beans and rice for their labor. If they want to eat, they can choose to work for it. Granted, it won't be as

good as what you are eating, but it will keep them alive.

At the same time, you can help them to start a vegetable garden in their backyard. That way, they don't

become a permanent burden to you. Instead, you will be helping them become self-sufficient, working

their way to becoming a full-fledged member of your survival team.

Chapter 2 - #1 Need: Homeostasis

Maintaining Your Body's Temperature

Okay, so let's get started developing a plan to help your family survive whatever disaster might come

your way. The first thing I mentioned that you need for survival is called homeostasis, maintaining your

body's temperature. It is commonly said that if you can't maintain your body's temperature, you can die

in as little as three minutes.

About the only situation which I can think of where you would actually die that quickly from the cold is if

you fell into the North Atlantic Ocean in the middle of winter. If that were to happen, your clothing

would provide no insulation to your body. The extreme cold of the water would draw the heat out of

your body extremely quickly. If you actually managed to get out of the water, you would die even faster,

as the air temperature would be lower than the water temperature. In such a case, your wet clothes

would help you lose your body heat as much as 200 times faster than standing there naked.

Okay, so unless you were on the Titanic, that's not likely to be what happens to you. So you won't freeze

to death in three minutes; but if you were to get hypothermia, you could get to a point in 15 minutes

where you wouldn't be able to think clearly enough to save yourself. Unless someone else saved you,

you would die within a short while.

Hypothermia can kill year round. Every year, there are people who die in the Colorado Rockies of

hypothermia in the summertime. What happens is that these people fall into the water shortly before

sunset. When the sun goes down, the temperature drops quickly, drawing off their body heat.

It doesn't have to get down to freezing (32oF or 0oC) for hypothermia to set in. The human body's

thermostat is normally set at about 98.6oF (it can vary slightly, especially for women). Any ambient

temperature lower than body temperature means that your body is radiating heat, rather than receiving

it. If your body starts radiating heat faster than it can create it, you start into hypothermia.

Wet clothing is extremely dangerous, especially if it is cold out. Pretty much all clothing loses its

insulating value when it is wet. The insulating value of those materials is dependent upon air pockets in

the material. The more layers of air pockets, the more insulation the clothing provides. But when the

clothing is wet, there are no air pockets, as they all fill with water. Down is the worst for this. An

excellent insulator when dry, down will cause you to lose your body heat 200 times faster than being

naked, when it is wet.

The only material regularly used in clothing that will help keep you warm when wet is wool. Wool fibers

are hollow. Natural wool is also coated with a fine film of oil. So, when it gets wet, it sheds water quickly.

But even soaking wet, there are still air pockets, inside the wool fibers. So, it maintains half of its

insulating value.

We use a combination of clothing, shelter and fire to help us maintain homeostasis when it is cold out. If

one of these is unable to do its job, we need to increase the others to make up for it. One way or

another, we need heat provided to us, in order to keep our bodies warm.

The Importance of Shelter

Shelter is actually the biggest part of maintaining homeostasis. We build shelters as a means of

protecting ourselves from the environment around us. Specifically, that means protecting ourselves

from rain, water and cold. Any shelter should be able to keep rain from falling on our heads, shelter us

from the wind and capture the heat from our fires, so that it is used to heat us and doesn't escape into

the environment around us.

Our modern homes are designed with this in mind. We put up walls to keep water and wind out;

insulating those walls to help hold heat in. A roof covers the home, capturing any rain and shedding it so

that it can't come inside. Modern home roofs are designed to last 25 to 30 years, regardless of how

much rain they receive. Furnaces in the home provide heat, essentially using fire to provide warmth.

In actuality, with such a shelter you don't need clothing. Your body can maintain its core temperature,

even when you are naked. Isn't that what happens when you bathe? You're naked inside your home, but

the home is protecting you and keeping your warm enough so that you don't lose your body heat.

Shelter also works to protect us from too much heat, although this is actually a secondary function,

compared to keeping us warm. The same roof that keeps the rain off, also works to provide shade from

the hot summer sun. Insulation, which is put in the walls and attic to keep the heat in, also work to keep

the heat of summer out. Then, to make up for the difference, we add air conditioning to cool the air

inside our homes.

When we leave home, we do so with the idea of traveling from one shelter to another. If we are

traveling, we'll stop at a hotel for the night. When we go to work, most of us work in another shelter

during the day. While these shelters serve a multitude of purposes, their major purpose is to protect us

from the weather and allow our body to maintain homeostasis.

Your Home as a Survival Shelter

One of the questions that people face when confronted by a disaster is whether to bug out or bug in.

Bugging out means to leave their home and head for a place of safety, while bugging in refers to

sheltering in place. There is a lot of talk about bugging out in the prepping community, but for most

people, bugging in makes more sense.

The problem with bugging out is having somewhere else to go. Unless you happen to own a cabin in the

woods or someplace else you can use as a survival shelter, bugging out means that you won't have

shelter, other than what you can take with you or build out in nature.

On the flip side of the coin, your home is an excellent shelter. Even without the modern conveniences

we all depend on, your home has been designed and built to protect you from the elements. Not only

that, but it has all of your tools, supplies and other equipment. Unless there is some reason to leave

your home, it actually provides you with the best shelter you are likely to find.

There are exceptions to this, of course. If your home gets flattened by a tornado or hurricane, it's not

going to provide much of a shelter to you. But that's not usually the case. While tornadoes are pretty

good at destroying homes, they usually don't destroy very many; just the ones which are directly in their

path. One house can be totally demolished by the tornado, while its neighbor only receives some

superficial damage.

So, unless your home is severely damaged by a natural disaster, it is your best survival shelter. Even

some superficial damage can be sustained, while keeping the integrity of the home as a shelter.

Windows that are broken out can be covered, as well as roofs that have received damage. While a few

emergency repairs might need to be done, your home will work as a survival shelter.

The biggest problem you may have in using your home as a survival shelter is the loss of utilities.

Electricity, water, sewer and gas service are likely to be lost in a disaster, especially electricity. Since they

depend upon the same electrical utility as you do for your home, loss of electricity can cause the loss of

those other services.

Building Materials You Should Stockpile for Emergency Repairs

If you are going to use your home as a survival shelter, then you should be prepared to accomplish at

least some minimal repairs to it, in case it is damaged by the disaster. You can actually do a lot of repairs

with minimal supplies, so you don't need a whole lumberyard or hardware store in your garage.

The most likely damage your home will receive is damage to the roof and windows. So, those are your

priorities for repair. We're talking emergency repairs here, not making it like new again. Actual

restoration of your home can wait until after things get back to normal. All you're concerned about is

making sure that your home will keep you warm and dry.

So, put in a small stock of these materials, and you should be able to take care of just about anything:

Plastic tarps - Tarps are great for covering damaged roofs, broken windows or even covering a

wall that had a tree fall through it. They are inexpensive and will stand up to most weather for

several months. The trick to using these tarps is to make sure that they are stretched tight and

attached all the way around. Any part that can move in the wind is likely to be shredded.

Duct tape - Can be used with the tarps or for a myriad of other repairs.

Plywood - If you need something a little stronger to make repairs, plywood is the all-purpose

building material. A couple of sheet, stashed in your garage will allow you to repair doors, cover

broken windows and fill a hole in a wall.

2x4s - The infamous 2x4 is the partner of the plywood for emergency repairs. This is the same

structural lumber which is used to build the walls of your home. So, it can be used for replacing

broken supports in the walls, propping up a sagging ceiling, replacing broken roof trusses or

building new stairs when they are broken.

Caulking - This is great for sealing leaks that might be caused by damage to your windows, doors

or exterior walls.

Wire ties - Like duct tape, wire ties are useful for holding things together.

Wire nuts - These are what electricians use for connecting wires together.

Electrical tape - To use with the wire ties.

Plumbing fittings - At times, there can be damage to a home's plumbing, which necessitates

turning off the water. Cutting and capping a broken line can make it possible to turn the water

back on.

Hardware - A good assortment of nails, screws and other hardware will be essential for putting

things back together.

Extension cords - If you have to run your home off a generator or other alternate power source,

you'll need plenty of heavy-duty extension cords.

Clothing - Your First Line of Defense

While shelter can protect you from the environment without any help from clothing, we don't usually

depend on shelter alone. There are always times when it is necessary to go outdoors to perform some

task or to get from one shelter to another. In such cases, clothing is much more important, as it

becomes the only thing protecting us from the cold.

As previously mentioned, clothing provides insulation, trapping air in layers of air bubble, between you

and the outside air. If you could measure the temperature of this stack of miniscule bubbles, you would

find that each bubble moving away from your skin is cooler than the one before, until you reach the

ambient temperature. The more layers of air bubbles, the more heat can be trapped. If an outer water

and windproof layer is added, the clothing becomes a portable shelter.

Of course, the type of clothing you select has a lot to do with how effectively it keeps your body warm.

Thicker fabrics have more layers of air bubbles, providing better insulation. Some fabrics have better

water resistance than others as well. There are fabrics which trap moisture against your skin and others

which wick it away.

In cold weather, you want to wear multiple layers of thick clothing. That provides more insulation, while

at the same time allowing you to take layers off if you are too warm. Getting too warm in the cold is

dangerous, as you may perspire inside your clothing, making it wet. Then, when you stop sweating, that

layer of moisture is trapped against your skin, perhaps even freezing and drawing away your body heat.

There are some fabrics which wick moisture away from your skin. Cotton, the most common material

used in clothing, is the exact opposite, as it absorbs moisture, keeping it next to your skin. But flannel

works fairly well to wick water away. So do some of the newer synthetic microfiber fabrics used in

sports clothing. So, your inner layer should be made of one of these.

A totally waterproof outer layer will trap moisture inside as well. The old army ponchos would do this.

Soldiers wearing a poncho in a rainstorm on a warm day would find that they would be as soaked from

their own sweat inside their poncho, as they would have been if they hadn't worn it.

Ideally, the outer layer should be water resistant, rather than waterproof. That way, the outer layer will

protect you from moisture getting in, but still allow water vapor to evaporate out, helping to keep you

dry.

The other problem with survival clothing is that it needs to be rugged. Most modern clothing is not

rugged, it is designed for style. Designers use thinner fabrics, which aren't as durable and especially in

women's clothing, design it so that it is snug to the skin, eliminating all those important air bubbles.

Clothing like this doesn't help keep you warm.

The first blue jeans were manufactured by Levi Straus to meet the needs of California gold miners for

rugged clothing. The heavy cotton fabric was resistant to tearing, offering some protection for the skin.

More importantly, the fabric wouldn't disintegrate while the miners were working, like many less sturdy

fabrics would.

Your prepping stockpile should include plenty of sturdy clothing. When you shift over into survival mode,

you won't have a need for fancy suits and dresses, but for clothing that will stand up under the strain of

physical work, while still keeping you warm.

Children are a special problem in this area, as they tend to grow. The solution for this is to start buying

your kids clothing a couple of years in advance. Whatever size they are wearing now, start stockpiling

clothing the next size up. When you get enough of that size, then start stockpiling clothing for the next

size. This way, you can have a couple of years worth of clothing stashed away for them.

When your children outgrow the clothing they are now wearing, don't go out and buy them new

clothing, pull out the clothing you have already bought for them, which you have in storage. Then, go

out and replace that clothing with the next larger size of what you have stored away. In this way, you'll

always have a couple of sizes of clothes for them to grow into.

Garage sales and flea markets are a great source for children's clothing. Typically, kids outgrow their

clothes long before they wear them out. So, the same article of clothing can be worn by several different

children, before it starts looking ratty.

If you have a number of children, you can do the same thing by saving clothing from older children to be

worn by younger children as hand-me-downs. While you might get some complaints from the younger

children over this, you'll save a bundle. The complaints can be mitigated by buying some clothes that

weren't worn by the older sibling. Only you have to know that those clothes came from a garage sale.

Heating Your Home Without Electricity

One important part of your shelter that we haven't touched on yet, is heating. Your home has a heating

(and probably cooling) system installed. If it is like most homes, this is a central heating and cooling

system, with an air handling system, that blows warm or cool air through ductwork into your home.

There's only one problem with this heating and cooling system; that is, it needs electricity. As I've

already mentioned, when a disaster happens, one of the most common results of the disaster is to lose

electrical power. That means you lose heating and cooling of your home as well. You have to have some

alternate means of heating your home, for use in a survival situation.

There are a number of different ways of heating a home, without electricity. The most common of these

use wood. Mankind has used wood for heating our homes for centuries. It is plentiful, easy to harvest,

sustainable and relatively easy to use, without a lot of expensive equipment.

Of course, the EPA has complicated the use of wood for heating our homes, developing regulations that

severely limit the design of fireplaces and wood burning stoves. Today's wood burning stove is a much

more complicated device than those of the past. However, these regulations only apply to new stoves

manufactured after the regulations came out, they do not affect wood burning stoves manufactured

before that date. If you have an older one, you can still use it.

One point I want to make in favor of the newer wood burning stoves is that in order to meet the EPA's

regulations, manufacturers had to come up with designs which are more efficient than the older ones

were. So, these stoves actually give you more heat than the older ones did. That might make them

worth buying, even if you do have an older one.

If your home has a fireplace or wood burning stove in it, you've already got some sort of emergency

heating available. If not, you're better off buying a wood burning stove, than you are buying a fireplace.

By being made of metal and mounted away from the wall, the wood burning stove puts more heat into

the room for every log burned, than a fireplace can.

If you have a fireplace, I would highly recommend buying an air-circulating insert for your fireplace.

Some of these have a blower fan attached to them, but for survival you want the kind that doesn't have

one. These take in cold air off the floor at the bottom of the tubes and release warmed air at the top of

the tubes. Working by natural convection, they increase the efficiency of a fireplace, without having to

use any electricity.

If you decide to use a fireplace or wood burning stove for heating your home, you'll need to stockpile

firewood as well. Determining how much firewood you need depends on how fast you burn it. You'll

need to run a test, where you burn wood in the fireplace or stove for 24 hours, keeping the heat output

at what you would want in an emergency. That will give you an idea of wood usage for your system. You

can then multiply that out to determine how much you would use over a winter.

You don't want to buy the type of wood burning stove that uses pellets. If you do, then you'll have a

supply problem when you run out of pellets. You're better off with one that burns logs, so that you can

harvest your own firewood, even in the midst of a disaster.

Don't be surprised if you need three or four cords of wood. You can go through a lot of wood in a winter.

You'll do better if you burn hardwood firewood, rather than softwood. While the softwood is cheaper,

the hardwood stores much more potential heat energy. Ultimately, it is cheaper to burn.

I stockpile firewood for free. The way I do this is to offer to cut down and haul away dead tree branches

for people whose trees need trimming. I don't offer regular pruning service, as that takes special

knowledge that I don't have. Rather, I cut down dead trees, cut out dead branches and cut off branches

that are about to fall from weather damage. Taking those home, I cut them up and split them for

firewood.

There are two other fuels that can be used for heating your home in a survival situation, kerosene and

natural gas. Kerosene heaters are free-standing units which don't need electricity and operate off of

liquid kerosene. They are highly efficient, giving you a lot of heat for each gallon of kerosene burned.

The one problem is that you have to have a source of kerosene.

In areas of the country where kerosene heaters are commonly in use, kerosene can be purchased by the

gallon at some gas stations. This makes the price reasonable. However, in other areas of the country,

where kerosene is not commonly in use for heating, the only source for kerosene is through a paint

store or the paint department of a home improvement center, making the cost about six times higher

per gallon. That makes it very expensive for heating your home in an emergency.

If you are going to use kerosene for heating your home in an emergency, you'll need to put in a good

stock of kerosene. Determine how much kerosene the heater burns in a 24 hour period and multiply

that by the maximum number of days you would need to use it to heat your home in an emergency.

The other fuel that may be able to be used is natural gas. A normal natural gas fired furnace won't work

without electricity, but a natural gas fired catalytic heater will. These are ceramic heaters that burn gas;

some people refer to them as infrared heaters. The heat the produce spreads through the room by

convection, just like that from a wood fire.

It is not widely known, but natural gas pumping stations usually create their own electricity, using

generators that burn the natural gas. So, even if there is a power outage, the natural gas will probably

continue to flow. If you have these catalytic heaters, you'll still be able to heat your home, even when

nobody else can.

There are also catalytic heaters that use propane, rather than natural gas. You can buy small ones that

mount directly on the type of propane tank that is used for a gas barbecue grille. There are also larger,

wall-mounted units, just like those used for natural gas (the orifice size is different), which will heat a

home. If you use propane for heating and cooking, as many people who live in rural areas do, then you

can also heat your home with propane, using these catalytic heaters, instead of the furnace.

Should you use this as your normal heating method, you'll want to talk to you propane provider and

arrange for them to fill your tank more frequently. The typical home propane tank is a 500 gallon tank

and most people wait until it is almost empty before refilling it. You want to keep it full or nearly full, so

that you always have gas for heating your home in an emergency. That will require them filling your tank

every couple of months, rather than every six months.

Installing a Wood Burning Stove Temporarily for Emergency Heat

If you want to use wood as your heating source in an emergency, but don't have a fireplace or wood

burning stove in your home, you can still do so. The first option is to install a wood burning stove

permanently in the home. Unfortunately, this is difficult for some homes, as there is no easy way to run

the chimney. In those cases, you could make plans to do a temporary installation of your wood burning

stove in an emergency situation.

Basically, there are only two things that a wood burning stove needs; someplace to sit and someplace

for the chimney to go. Both can be done on a temporary basis.

For a place to sit, you need a fireproof floor that extends at least one foot beyond all sides of the wood

burning stove. This can be done on a temporary basis by laying a tile floor (without using any mastic to

hold it in place) and then placing another layer of tile on top of it, with the joints between the tiles offset

from the first layer. Placing a piece of plywood beneath the tile will ensure a smooth, flat surface to set

the tile on.

The chimney normally goes up through the ceiling and then through the roof above. However, in an

emergency, it can go out through the window. Simply remove the glass from the upper part of a window

and route the chimney through there. You will need to run some part of the chimney pipe horizontally,

but as long as it is not totally horizontal, the smoke will rise out the chimney and not back up into the

home. A short vertical section of chimney outdoors helps to guarantee this.

Modern chimney pipe is triple-walled. The second wall is open to the third (outer) wall at the bottom.

The smoke from the fire only travels up the middle part of the chimney pipe. Outside air travels down

the outer space created between the walls, is warmed by the fire and travels back up the middle space

made between the inner and second wall. This keeps the outside of the chimney pipe cool, as a safety

measure. It can't catch a home on fire, because it is cool.

If you can get your hands on the old single-walled chimney pipe, you can actually get a bit more heat out

of your wood-burning stove. They used to do this in churches and schoolhouses in the pioneering days.

The stove would be near one corner of the room and the chimney pipe would run all the way across to

the opposite corner, rising slightly all the way, before exiting. That way, the chimney pipe would radiate

heat into the room all along its length.

Where you have removed the window pane from your window, you'll want to fill with plywood, butting

it up tightly against the chimney pipe. Since the outer wall of the triple-wall chimney pipe is cool, it

won't burn the plywood, making this a safe installation. If you're using single-wall chimney pipe, don't

run the plywood all the way up, but rather put some aluminum flashing for the last couple of inches.

Finally, make sure that your installation of the chimney pipe is airtight, so that none of the smoke can

leak back into the room and cause you problems with smoke inhalation.

Chapter 3 - #2 Need - Potable Water

The second need I mentioned was your need for clean, purified water. The technical term is "potable

water." The average American uses a bit over 100 gallons of water per day. Of that, we only drink about

1/2 gallon. The rest is used for watering our lawns, cleaning our clothes, flushing our toilets, taking our

baths and cooking our food. The way the system works, all the water we receive is potable water, even

though the only uses we have which require potable water is for drinking and cooking.

Most of us receive this water from our municipal water system. They pump the water out of the ground,

reservoirs or rivers and purify that water for our use. There are several stages to this purification process,

to remove sediment and dangerous microscopic pathogens. The same city department is responsible for

cleaning waste water and returning it to the environment.

In the aftermath of a disaster, there's a good chance that city water and sanitation will be out of order.

Both depend on considerable amounts of electricity, mostly to operate pumps and monitoring

equipment. Since power outages are common in the aftermath of most disasters, there's a good chance

that they won't be able to supply water. There's also a possibility that city water sources will become

contaminated, especially if there is flooding. In that case, the water will be out until they can clean and

purify the entire system.

Of course, that doesn't eliminate our need for water. We can only live for about three days without

water; less in hot climates. So, we need a strategy for supplying ourselves with water, in the case that

city water is unreliable.

With water being such an important need, it is good to have more than one strategy for providing your

family with water, so we are going to discuss water purification, water storage and places you can

harvest water.

To start with, we need to come up with an idea of how much water you need in a survival situation.

Most survival instructors will say that you need one gallon of purified water per person, per day, for

drinking and cooking. That's sufficient in most cases, for those uses; but if you live in a hot climate, such

as the Southwest in the summertime, you'll need to drink more than a gallon of water per day, just to

keep up with the water your body will be sweating out.

But there's a fallacy in that statement about a gallon of water per person per day. That is, you'll need

water for much more than just drinking and cooking. Even if you stop watering your lawn, bathe with

minimal water and use an outhouse so that you don't need to flush your toilets, you're still going to

need some water. You'll need to wash your dishes, wash your bodies, wash your clothes and water your

vegetable garden. So, you'll need more than one gallon per person per day.

If you learn how to be very good at conserving water, you'll still need a minimum of about five gallons of

water per person per day. That's a whole lot less than 100 gallons, but it still means that you will need to

come up with 20 gallons per day, for a family of four.

Now, there are many things that can be done to reduce water usage. First of all, our appliances are huge

water users. Washing machines and dish washers don't even think about conserving water. You can

wash by hand using much less. Likewise, you can bathe by taking a sponge bath, rather than taking a

shower or full bath, washing yourself with less than a gallon of water. That includes washing your hair.

The next thing you can do is to take all that water you use for washing and reuse it. That water is called

grey water. It can be recycled. The two best ways to recycle it are for flushing toilets and watering your

vegetable garden. Careful use of your grey water for these purposes will greatly reduce your water

consumption.

Storing Water for Long-Term Needs

Most preppers have trouble with storing water for long-term needs. Part of this problem is the huge

amount of water that they need to store. Even if you just look at the gallon per person per day figure, a

month's supply of water for a family of four is 120 gallons. But if you up it to the five gallon figure, which

I believe to be much more accurate, you end up with 600 gallons. However, one month's supply of water

probably isn't enough. You should probably have more; say a three month supply of water. That's 1,800

gallons of water.

Fortunately, water is cheap... that is, it's cheap if you buy it right. The worst thing you can do is to go out

and buy 1,800 gallons of water in half liter bottles. That would work out to something like 14,400

bottles of water. I'd hate to see the bill for that.

The cheapest way of getting clean water is of course to use tap water. If you don't trust your tap water

for some reason, or you live in an area which has a high mineral content in the water, like I do, you

might want to consider buying purified water from one of the corner water purification places, where

you bring your own containers.

That brings up the next issue of storing water; what are you going to store it in? Bottles are actually the

most inefficient way of storing large quantities of water. You lose a lot to the air space between the

bottles. Even so, I'd store up some water in bottles, just for their convenience. I'd also plan on saving

and refilling those bottles when you use them.

One popular option within the prepping community is to use gallon milk containers. These are free,

assuming your family drinks milk, store well and are convenient to work with. Some people like to store

these under the beds, as water stores best if keep in a cool, dark place. Water stored where sunlight can

get to it will tend to grow algae. While algae isn't dangerous to your health, many people are

uncomfortable drinking water that has algae growing in it. But storing water in milk containers really

isn't all that good an idea, as they are hard to clean out thoroughly.

Going up from gallon milk containers, you can store milk well in 55 gallon drums as well. White 55 gallon

plastic drums are "food grade." That means they are safe for putting food in and are only used for that

purpose. If you can find them used, all you need to do is clean them out from their previous contents

and they are safe for storing water in.

Many people use 55 gallon blue plastic drums, rather than the white ones. These are not considered

food grade. While they are still safe for water, you must check what was in them previously. If that can

be cleaned out thoroughly, you're good to go. But don't take any chances with strange chemicals!

The larger the containers used, the more efficiently the water can be stored. What I mean by that is

there will be less space wasted by air, so your water supplies will fit in less space. I store my water

supply in 750 liter (just over 200 gallon) plastic water tanks, which I buy in Mexico. Being built for water,

I know they are safe and strong enough to support the weight of the water. To make it easy to get the

water out of them, I put them on a base of cement blocks, so that the water outlet is high enough to get

a five gallon bucket under.

Not all my water tanks store potable water. I actually only have one with what I would call potable water.

The rest have our tap water, which is so high in mineral contents that I won't drink it. But the water in

those tanks is fine for washing and other uses.

We were talking about OPSEC before. Hiding a lot of water isn't easy. Those water tanks can become

very obvious to your neighbors, especially if they're sitting on your back patio. However, there is one

very easy way to put in a stealthy water supply; that will hold enough water to take care of your family's

needs for a few months, that's to put in an above ground swimming pool for the kids.

If you have kids, having a swimming pool won't seem unusual to the neighbors. The water is normally

kept clean by the addition of chlorine, the same chemical that your city water system adds to the water

to ensure that it is drinkable. So, by taking care of your pool, you are also taking care of your water

supply.

Chlorine is also commonly known by the name "bleach." That's right, the same thing that is used for

whitening clothing is also used for purifying water. Eight drops of bleach per gallon will purify it of all

microscopic pathogens. So, if you want to be absolutely sure of your stored water supply, add eight

drops per gallon when storing it. For larger containers, there are 20 drops per cubic centimeter, so you

can add it in cc, rather than standing there forever with an eye dropper. A 55 gallon drum of water

needs only 22 cc. My 750 liter tanks only need 80 cc of bleach. Be sure to use the unscented bleach and

not the color safe kind.

When Your Water Supply Runs Out

No matter how much water you have stored, you're not going to have enough. Eventually you'll run out.

So, your survival plan for water must include some means of getting more water. This means having a

source for water, as well as a means of purifying it.

Look around your home for available water sources. You have a few in your home and probably some

that are nearby. You'll want to identify all these before you need them, so that you can use them if you

have to.

In your home, you should be able to find water:

In the hot water heater - the hot water heater will have a drain valve near the bottom.

In the toilet tanks (not the toilet bowls)

In a fish tank or pond

In a fountain

In the pipes in the walls - drain it from the lowest faucet in your home, which will be the water

inlet for the toilet in the basement or on the first floor.

In your neighborhood or town, you should look for water in:

Ponds and lakes

Rivers and streams

Irrigation canals

Public fountains

Water towers and tanks

Public swimming pools

Make a map of all these places, so that in a time of emergency, you will know where you can find water.

You should also have some way of hauling water to your home, if you can't use your car. This can be in

five gallon buckets, hauled with a hand truck, a children's wagon, or just

about anything else that has wheels on it.

Purifying Water; at Home or on the Run

Unless water has come from a source where you know for sure that it is

purified, don't trust it. Waterborne bacteria and other pathogens can

cause dysentery, a serious disease and even death. You should always

purify your water, especially in a survival situation.

I used to spend a lot of time high up in the Rocky Mountains. At one time,

it was safe to drink the water right out of the mountain streams; but I

wouldn't do it today. Even those mountain streams, which look like they

are filled with fresh, cold water, can be contaminated. You don't know

who might be upstream of you, using that stream as a toilet or dumping

chemicals into it, not realizing the damage they are doing.

The time it takes to purify your water is insurance for the health of your

family. There are four basic ways of purifying it: mechanical filtration,

chemical purification, heat purification and distillation.

Water purification is so important, that you should have more than one means of purifying water, both

at home and as part of your bug out bag. That way, you'll always have a way of purifying water, even if

your primary means of purifying it gets damaged in some way.

Mechanical Filtration

This is the most popular and easiest way of purifying water. All mechanical filters are porous and work

by allowing the water to flow through them, while blocking out larger particles. Depending upon the size

of the pores in the filter, the particles that are blocked out can be sediment, bacteria or even some

viruses.

Not all mechanical filters are the same by any means. Many of the "whole house filters" you encounter

are only intended to take sediment out of the water. They are rated at 5 or 10 microns, which is actually

fairly large. This won't work for purifying your water. You need a filter that filters out things that are 0.2

microns in size. That actually limits your options to only a few filters on the market.

The most popular water filter in prepping circles is the Berkley filter. This uses an extremely complex,

multi-stage filter element. It is not a whole house filter that is put into the house's plumbing lines, but

rather a countertop unit that consists of two tanks. Water is put into the upper tank and filters down

into the lower tank. Depending upon the model of the Berkley filter, they could use two or four filter

elements.

While the Berkley filter is expensive to buy, it filters water so well that it ends up being cheaper per

gallon to use than many less costly models. The filter elements for the Berkley unit last some 3,000

gallons each, compared to only about 500 gallons that the less expensive units last.

Another excellent filter unit is the Sawyer filter. This is a totally different type of filter than the Berkley.

It is a hollow fiber filter, which filters down to 0.2 microns. The construction of the filter means that it

can be back-flushed with clean water, cleaning out the filter and allowing it to continue being used. The

Sawyer filter is guaranteed by the manufacturer to be good for one million gallons, if back-flushed

regularly.

Sawyer also makes a portable version of their filter for backpacking, which also means it is perfect for

bugging out. This uses the same type of filter element, with a plastic pouch. The pouch is filled with

water and squeezed, forcing the water through the filter.

The other type of mechanical filter is specifically designed for backpacking or bugging out. These are

straw-type filters which are used to drink through. Their design is very compact, which is ideal for a bug

out bag or survival kit. The best amongst these filters is the Lifestraw, which was originally designed to

provide safe drinking water in third-world countries.

Chemical Purification

I've already alluded to chemical purification in talking about using bleach to keep your water stockpile

from going bad. Chlorine bleach is about the best chemical purifier you can find and is quite inexpensive.

For the purposes of using it as a purifier in a survival situation, liquid bleach, such as is used for

whitening clothes, is the easiest to use. In a pinch, pool chlorine can be used as well, but it is not as easy

to work with for small quantities of water.

To purify water, add eight drops of chlorine bleach to each gallon of water and mix it. You will need to

allow it to sit for 20 minutes, in order to allow the chlorine time to kill any pathogens. If you don't like

the taste or smell of the chlorine, you can allow the container to sit open for 24 hours for the chlorine to

evaporate. Cover the mouth of the container with a paper towel, napkin or piece of fabric to act as a

simple filter while the chlorine is evaporating.

Iodine can also be used as a means of purifying water, in much the same way as chlorine. There are

many third-world and emerging countries in the world where iodine is used in this manner. However,

you need more iodine than chlorine and the iodine is more expensive. When using iodine rather than

chlorine bleach, use 10 drops per gallon of water, unless the water is cloudy, in which case you should

double the chlorine.

There are also "halzone" water purification tablets available. These are a chlorine derivative in a tablet

form. They are much easier to carry, but do take a longer to dissolve in the water. Halzone tablets are

excellent for an emergency water purifier to carry in a survival kit or get home bag. However, I would

not recommend using them regularly, as they leave the water tasting bad.

Heat Purification

Pretty much everyone knows that you can purify water by boiling it. This is true, but you don't actually

have to get the water to boiling temperature in order to purify the water. Louis Pasteur discovered that

pathogens uniformly die at 158oF. So, all you have to do is get the water hotter than 160oF to purify it.

This sort of purification process is called "pasteurization" after the inventor of this method.

When you buy milk in the supermarket, it is pasteurized. This is done to kill any pathogens that might be

in the milk from the cows. If the milk was boiled, rather than pasteurizing it, it would spoil the milk. By

pasteurizing it and then chilling it once again, the milk is kept fine, while purifying it.

If you have a good candy or meat thermometer, a pot and a fire, you have what you need for

pasteurizing water. If you don't have a good thermometer, I'd recommend getting a Water

Pasteurization Indicator or WAPI for short.

The WAPI consists of a plastic capsule with a green wax bead in it. This bead will melt at 160oF. There are

two versions of the WAPI available, the one shown is the original WAPI. The plastic container for the

WAPI capsule has a hole in the bottom, which the WAPI can be installed in. This makes it so that the

cases can be used to float the WAPI in the water. The other type has a stainless steel wire for

suspending the WAPI in the water.

To use the WAPI one needs to put it in the water with the wax bead up, as shown in the photo. When

the water reaches the necessary temperature to pasteurize it, the wax bead will melt and fall to the

bottom, indicating that the water is ready. After cooling, the WAPI can be reused indefinitely.

It is also possible to pasteurize water using solar heat, rather than using heat from a fire. To do so, all

you need to do is put the water into clear soda bottles or water bottles that the labels have been

removed from. Then, place the bottles on a dark surface or the corrugated metal roof of a building, in

the bright sunlight. The sunlight will heat the water, purifying it. If a WAPI is available, it can be placed in

one of the bottles to verify purification.

Distillation

The final and most perfect method of water purification is by distillation. The reason I say it is the most

perfect method is that it removes more impurities from the water than any other method, including

most chemicals. However, distillation is also the most complicated method of purification there is.

Distillation consists of heating water to a boiling point and allowing it to form steam. The steam

naturally rises, is collected and passes through a condenser. The condenser is cooler than the necessary

temperature for the water to turn to steam, allowing the water to condensate inside it. For simplicity

sake, a condenser is usually nothing more than a coil of copper tubing. To allow the condensed water to

be collected, the coil is extended, so that the water has an unimpeded pathway downwards through it,

once it has condensed inside the tubing.

Water drips out of the condenser tubing and is captured in a container, as purified water.

Water can also be distilled in a solar still. There are a couple of types of solar stills that one can make,

one for use at home and another for a survival situation in the wild. In both cases, it is the power of the

sun which provides the heat to evaporate the water, rather than fire. Other than that, it works by the

same principle as the simple still shown in the diagram above.

This sort of a solar still is intended for use in a fixed location. It has to face south, where the most sun

will hit it. Sun entering through the glass collector will hit the inside of the box, where it is absorbed and

converted to heat. This provides the heat to cause the water to evaporate, condensing on the bottom

side of the glass collector and running down the glass to be captured.

The most important single factor is the angle of the glass collector. It needs to be a high enough angle so

that the water condensed on the bottom side of the glass runs down it to the drip edge and catch tube.

To calculate the ideal angle for your location:

If the latitude is below 25o, the latitude needs to be multiplied by 0.87.

If the latitude is above 25o, the latitude needs to be multiplied by 0.76, plus 3.1 degrees.

The solar still can be made out of plywood, as long as it is well sealed against the weather. I like to cover

the edges of plywood entirely with caulking, to prevent moisture from getting into it. Paint alone is

enough for the top and bottom surfaces of the plywood, but the greater danger is water seeping in

through the edges.

The catch tube needs to run out of the solar still needs to extend out through the wall of the solar still

and into a container to collect and store the water.

This sort of solar distiller is a bit difficult to carry around in a backpack, but you can still purify water with

a solar still in the wild. One great advantage of this is that it also allows you to get water out of other

substances that contain water, such as cut open cactus plants, urine and the coolant from a car. It will

even draw water out of the ground.

All you need to have, in order to make this sort of solar still is a sheet of clear plastic, a small stone, a

piece of rubber or plastic flexible tubing and a small saucepan or even a cleaned out can.

To make the solar still, start by digging a hole in the ground. It needs to be deep enough for your

container to fit in it and have room between the plastic sheeting and the container. Eighteen inches to

two feet should be enough.

Place the container in the bottom of the hole and make sure it is stable. Run a piece of hose or tubing

out past where the end of the plastic will be, anchoring it at both ends, so it can't slip. Place whatever

other materials you want to get water out of in the pit and cover it with clear plastic film, holding the

edges down with rocks or dirt. The last step is to put a small rock on the plastic, directly over the

container, causing the plastic to dip down into the hole, but not touch anything.

The light of the sun will enter the hole through the plastic, warming everything inside. This will cause

water to evaporate out of the ground, s well as anything else you've put in the hole. When that water

vapor hits the plastic, it will condense, running down the plastic and dripping into the container. You can

drink it out of the container by sucking on the hose or tubing.

Building a Bio-Filter

The Bio Filter is a simple filter that you can make at home, which will filter out about 99% of all bacteria,

as well as sediment in the water. While not perfect, it does a very good job and your autoimmune

system should be able to handle the few bacteria that are left.

A bio filter works in essentially the same way that a water treatment plant does, albeit simplified. It is

made out of naturally occurring materials, making it possible to make one either at home or on the run.

Developed for use in third-world countries, it does a good job of making water taken from streams and

ponds drinkable.

The bio filter uses three layers of materials to filter the water in successively more stringent stages.

These materials are:

Pea Gravel

Sand

Activated Charcoal

You can either make the bio-filter in one container, such as a five gallon bucket or three stacked

containers. I prefer three containers, as the more filter medium you can have the water pass through,

the better a job it will do of filtering impurities out of the water.

Some people add additional layers to their bio-filters, putting another layer of sand and gravel below the

layer of activated charcoal. As the charcoal is the most stringent filtering medium used in the filter,

adding those layers is a waste of time and resources. You're better off having thicker layers above the

charcoal.

The picture shows a bio-filter that I made and have co-located with one of my 750 liter water tanks. The

clear vertical tube on the water tank is a water level gauge that I made out of clear, flexible tubing. It is

backed up by a piece of PVC pipe that has been cut in half lengthwise, giving it stiffness. The two are

held together with wire ties.

Each of the buckets contains one of the filter mediums, as shown by the legend hand written on the side

of the bucket. These are food grade buckets, which you can buy at your local home improvement center.

The filtering medium needs to be rinsed thoroughly before the filter can be used. Gravel and sand will

contain some amount of dirt and dust, mixed in. Rinsing it several times, will remove this. Continue

rinsing until the water coming back out of the bucket is clear. Likewise, the activated charcoal will have

charcoal dust which needs to be rinsed out.

In order for the water to flow between the buckets, a hole has to be drilled in the bottom of one bucket

and in the lid of the bucket below. However, a simple hole is not enough, as that will allow the sand and

gravel to pass through as well. So, a fitting is put in the

hole, with screening over it.

The fittings shown are 3/4" PVC. The fitting above the

hole is a female coupler, threaded on one end and a slip

fitting, for gluing, on the other end. The bottom fitting is a

male to female adapter, with male threads on one end. It

threads through the bottom of the bucket into the other

fitting. An O-ring is placed between the two to act as a

seal.

As you can see in the picture, the upper end of the top

fitting has screening glued onto it with epoxy. This is to

prevent the sand and gravel from going through the fitting.

I did the same thing on the fitting in the bottom bucket, to keep the charcoal from passing out of the

bucket.

To protect the screen from the weight of the sand and gravel (50 pounds each), a small plastic cup is

glued in place, upside-down, over it. A few small holes are made around the rim of the cup for the water

to flow through.

This filter will process three gallons of water at a time, taking about 30 minutes for the water to

percolate through the layers and come out purified at the other end. From there, it is moved to the

storage tank for later use.

Harvesting Water at Home

Even though there are probably existing water sources around your home, you may still have problems

getting enough water. You have to remember that everyone else is going to need water as well, and

they aren't going to be as well prepared as you. Some may try to take over local water sources as their

own, especially if the water source abuts their property.

Your best solution is to have a water source on your own property, that can't be claimed by others. Even

if you have a stream on your property, others who are upstream of you may try to dam that stream. So,

you need something that is limited to your property and under your control.

Unfortunately, most of us don't have enough land to build a pond on our property and even if we did,

doing so opens us up to a lot of problems with the EPA. So don't do that, unless you are sure that you

have all the paperwork in order.

However, this doesn't mean that you can't harvest water on your own property. There are two means of

harvesting water on your property that you should take into consideration; collecting rainwater and

putting in a well.

Rainwater Collection System

Your home probably already has part of a rainwater collection system installed. If you have gutters and

downspouts on your home, you are already collecting rainwater. The only problem is that you are

dumping that collected rainwater on the ground. All you need is something to catch it in. This means

adding a tank or plastic barrel for the downspouts to dump the rainwater you capture into.

Most people use 55 gallon plastic drums for this. You can use the larger chemical shipping containers as

well or connect several 55 gallon plastic drums together. Either way, you want to make sure that the

interior of the container is free of any chemicals and cleaned out, before using it.

If you are using multiple barrels, you'll need to connect them together. This is best done at the bottom,

making the connections and the output valve as one assembly, as shown in the picture below.

In this setup, a two inch shower drain is installed in the bottom of each of two plastic barrels. They are

connected together at a "T", allowing for the installation of a smaller diameter 3/4" ball valve. This size

was selected to save money over a larger valve and because a standard garden hose connector would be

put at the output, so that the water collected could be used for the garden, if it wasn't going to be used

in the house.

Remember, that this water will not be purified water, even though it is rainwater. Birds use your roof for

their bathroom, so you will want to purify the water coming out of this system, before using it as

drinking water.

You will also want to install lids on your rain barrels, if they do not have them. This will help keep out

foreign objects, such as falling leaves, as well as keeping mosquitoes from laying eggs in your rain barrels.

Mosquitoes will lay eggs in all open water containers, so you need to protect your rain barrels from

them.

Putting in a Well

If you hire a professional well contractor to put in a well, it will probably cost you several thousand

dollars. However, in many parts of the country, you can put in your own well. You may have to get a

permit for it, depending upon local laws. Check your state laws for well drilling, before taking any action.

Let me tell you a secret about wells, before we go any farther. If you hire a well contractor, they'll tell

you that you need to put your well in 250 feet deep or some such. Part of that is because they get paid

by the foot and so they want to put in a deeper well. The other part is that the deeper the well, the

better the water quality. Since they want satisfied customers, they're of course going to go for a deep

well. But, and again I say but, you can often find water much shallower, as shallow as 20 feet below the

surface.

There are a lot of factors which will affect how shallow you can find water. The first of these is the

climate where you live. The more rain you have, the higher the water table will be. The water won't

have as much time to sink down through the layers of the ground, so you will be able to find it close to

the surface.

The second factor is your altitude; actually, your altitude above or below the nearest sizeable body of

water. If you are at sea level, the water table is going to be high. That's why homes built in places like

New Orleans don't have basements. If they did, the basements would be flooding all the time. Finally,

the underground strata of dirt, sand, rock and gravel will make a difference in where you can find water.

For a well, you have to find an underground strata of sand or permeable rock. Sand will have the highest

concentration of water in it of any type of ground you can find. When people talk about aquifers, that's

usually what they are referring to.

There are several different ways of putting in a well, but there are really only two practical ones. Digging

a well by hand, using a shovel may be possible, but I seriously doubt you want to do that, unless you

absolutely have to. That leaves driving a well or drilling a well as the only viable options to consider.

A driven well is actually the easiest type of well to put in. It is literally pounded into the ground, like a big

nail. To start, you'll need a well point, such as is pictured here. This is a galvanized iron pipe, which has

been cut so that it can act as a well screen. One end has a hardened point on it and the other end is

threaded for pipe.

To drive the well, a cap needs to be put on the threaded end, to protect the threads. The point is then

pounded into the ground, either with a sledge hammer or with a fence stake driving tool.

When the well point is almost all the way into the ground, the threaded cap is

removed, another section of iron pipe is added on and the cap is placed on that

section of pipe, so that it can be driven in. This continues until the well reaches the

desired depth. The maximum depth that a well can be driven is about 25 feet. This

limitation is created by the pump, as these types of wells use a surface mounted

pump.

The other limitation on driven wells is the type of soil you have to work with. Driven

wells work well with sandy loam, sand and earth. They do not work well with rock,

gravel or clay. These materials will stop you from driving the well, requiring that you

start all over in another spot. If you can't pull the drill point back out, you'll need a

new one for that second attempt.

While drill points are easy for a shallow well, the most common means of putting in

a well is drilling a well. Doing this requires having or renting a well drilling rig. The

rig consists of a motor on a frame, which drives the pipe down into the earth.

Regular iron pipe is used as the drill rod and an actual drill bit is required.

Drilled wells are larger in diameter than driven wells, so a 4" plastic well casing can

be installed and a deep well pump installed in the well. This allows the well to be drilled deeper,

allowing you to reach water in places where the water table is deeper, as well as reaching better quality

water.

Well drilling rigs vary considerably, with larger units available for drilling to deeper depth and for drilling

through rock. However, the larger the rig, the more expensive it is to rent or buy.

There is one company in Texas which sells a very inexpensive well drill, which is air powered. This has

been developed specifically for the do-it-yourselfer who wants to drill a well. Their kit consists of an air

motor that is modified and mounted into a piece of PVC pipe, a drill bit and many of the other tools you

will need to use with it. It comes with an instructional video, showing you how to drill with their system.

In addition to the kit, you will also have to buy some plastic pipe, rope and other materials to use along

with the drill. You will also need to rent a large air compressor that is able to supply 11 CFM of air to the

drill motor.

Overall, putting in a well with this system will cost about $1,000 and take a few days of work. That

makes it the cheapest option around for drilling your own well. This well drill kit can be found at:

www.howtodrillawell.com. I've used this kit and it works well in soil and sand, but does not work well in

clay or stone.

Regardless of the type of well you put in, you'll have to have electricity for the pump to operate. So,

check the electrical ratings of the pump you buy, looking for the most energy efficient pump possible.

We will be talking about ways to get off-the-grid electrical power later in this book.

Water Conservation in a Survival Situation

Finding and purifying water is only part of the battle; you also need to conserve water as well. I've

mentioned this briefly, but we need to talk about it more thoroughly. As I mentioned, the average family

of four uses about 400 gallons of water per day. Seventy percent of that is used indoors, divided into:

Toilet - 26.7%

Clothes washer - 21.7%

Shower - 16.8%

Kitchen and bathroom sinks - 15.7%

Leaks - 13.7% (this is mostly underground leaks)

Other uses - 5.3%

If we are shooting for using only five gallons per person per day, we're going to have to make some

major changes in the way that we use water. To start with, if the city water is down, then we probably

don't have city sewer either. Unless you are on a septic tank, you won't be able to use your home's

toilets. That means using an outhouse or making a bucket toilet.

If you have a septic tank, you can still use your toilet, but you should only use grey water for flushing it.

That will drastically reduce your water usage. Don't flush it every time you urinate, but only when you

defecate to save water.

Personal hygiene is an important part of avoiding infections and maintaining your health. So, you don't

want to avoid bathing or washing your clothes during a survival situation. However, you might want to

consider wearing your clothes a little longer between washings and bathing a little less frequently. In the

frontier days, people bathed once a week, and they didn't die from it.

Bathing can be done out of a bucket, like they do in third-world countries. Take a gallon of water in a

bucket into the tub or shower and sponge bathe with it. Take along a small plastic container, to use as a

scoop for rinsing yourself and washing your hair. When washing your hair, use the minimal water

possible to get it wet, shampoo and use the majority of the water for rinsing.

To avoid wasting water for conditioner, you can mix conditioner with water (1 part conditioner to 5

parts water) and put it in a spray bottle. Spray this in the hair as a detangler, after getting out of the tub.

Dishes can be washed in minimal water as well. Fill a basin with a couple of gallons of soapy water and

wash everything individually in it, without rinsing it. It's best to use an anti-bacterial soap, as you will be

using the same water for many dishes. If you don't have an anti-bacterial soap, add a capful of chlorine

bleach to the water.

Don't allow the soapy water to dry on the dishes, before rinsing them. Otherwise, you'll need to use

more water for rinsing. But if the dishes are clean, it takes very little water to rinse off the soap. A trickle

of water is actually enough.

The easiest way to wash clothing is to use a five-gallon bucket with a clean toilet plunger as an agitator.

If you drill a hole in the bucket's lid, slightly larger than the diameter of the plunger's handle, it will allow

you to keep from splashing the water all over. Put some soapy water in the bucket, along with a few

articles of clothing. Agitate it for a minute, then wring the water out of the clothes. Reuse the water for

more clothes. When you are done, the soapy water can be dumped out and clean water put in the

bucket for rinsing.

When washing clothing with minimal water like this, the order you wash things is important. Start with

whites, then pastels and then darks. Clothing that has a lot of dirt or mud on it should be saved for last,

as the water will have to be dumped after that.

Remember, every gallon of water that you use is a gallon that your family has to get from somewhere,

so you want to be careful not to waste any. While these methods may not seem like they will get your

bodies, clothes and dishes as clean as what you are used to, they will be clean. If you try to do things like

normal, you'll kill yourself trying to get enough water.

Chapter 4 - #3 Need – Food

Instant Storage Stockpile

Our next need is food. The average American consumes anywhere from 2,500 calories to 3,790 calories

per day, depending upon whose statistics you choose to believe. Compared to that, the US government

recommends that the average man eat 2,700 calories and the average woman eats 2,200 calories per

day. Activity levels, body mass and diet affect this, so keep in mind that these are merely averages.

If we eat less calories than we need, our body has to look elsewhere for the energy we need. So, it will

turn inwards, using the stored energy we have in fat cells. If there is no energy stored in the body, it will

start consuming itself, breaking down proteins into the simple sugars we need to burn for energy. At

that point, starvation has set in.

The average American has a long way to go before reaching the point of starvation. Once again,

depending upon whose statistics you believe, the average American can live anywhere from 30 to 100

days without food, without harm, due to the energy we have stored in our bodies.

Regardless of how much fat any of us are carrying, eventually we'll all reach a point where we run out of

energy for our bodies to consume. We'll run out of essential nutrients long before that, developing

health problems and possibly even attacking muscle in order to get the protein that we need. Before

that happens, we'll find ourselves without energy, struggling to do normal activities and losing our

ability to think clearly.

So, after an absolute maximum of 30 days, we need to have food to survive. In a typical survival

situation, it may actually be much less than that, as we'll be working harder and burning much more

energy than normal. So, any survival plan must include a goodly stockpile of food for ourselves and our

families to eat.

Building Your Food Stockpile

If you talk to the average person on the street, asking them about prepping, most people who aren't

preppers will talk about stockpiling food. When people start prepping, that's usually the first thing they

think about doing. There's nothing wrong with that idea, as you're going to need a lot of food to survive

for any length of time. For most preppers, the act of stockpiling food is something that never really ends;

they just keep adding more and more.

The big question here is "How much food do you need?" Unfortunately, that's a question without an

answer. Since none of us know what sort of emergency we're going to face, we don't know how long

we're going to have to survive off of that stockpile.

When hurricanes Katrina and Sandy struck it was days before the government was able to offer people

any help. It took well over a month to get electrical service back to everyone and it took a couple of

months to get the supply lines fully functional once again. Those were just regional disasters, what

would happen if we were struck by a major disaster that hit the whole country? How long would it take

for supply lines to be back in place again?

One of the worst possible scenarios we can face is an EMP. Experts say that if an EMP attack were made

on the United States, it would take two or more years to restore electrical service to the country.

Considering that 90 percent of the people would die in the first year, that sounds like it might never get

restored. In such a case, how much food is enough?

This is why preppers never really finish their food stockpile. No matter how much you have, a little more

might be a good idea. But many stop after a year, working under the assumption that they will have

some other means of harvesting food within that year.

I would suggest starting out by creating a one month supply and then adding a month at a time until you

reach a year's worth of food stocks. Once you get there, you can review the situation, as well as the

other things you are doing to ensure your family can continue eating, and decide whether you need to

keep adding to your stockpile or not.

So, how do you do that?

To start with, you need to figure out how much food your family needs to eat in a crisis situation. There

are several ways of doing this, but the easiest is to create a two or three week detailed menu for

everything your family would eat in a survival situation.

Here we run into our first problem. We have to assume that in a survival situation, we won't have

electrical power. So, the survival menu that we create must be based upon foods that we can store for a

long period of time, without electricity. In other words, no fresh fruit, no fresh vegetables and no frozen

meat. For that matter, we'd better not count on any of the frozen prepared foods we are used to eating.

For that matter, there's a lot of food that your family may be accustomed to eating, which you won't be

able to store for a survival situation. Much of the prepared food, junk food, snack food and breakfast

food we are used to eating all the time won't store for a prolonged period of time, no matter what you

do. You're going to have to go back to the basics and work from there.

I'll give you a list of foods that you can buy to store for a survival situation in a moment, but let's get

back to the menu. You're not only going to have to come up with the menu itself, but the recipes you

need for the foods you are going to store. Since you won't be able to buy or store much of what you're

family is used to eating, you're going to have to find other things to eat, which will not only provide the

necessary nutrition, but be something your family will be willing to eat with minimal complaints.

Based upon your menu and those recipes, the next step is to create a list of everything you'll need to

have, in order to make that two or three weeks worth of food. You'll have to bake your own bread, so

you'll need to include the ingredients for that. In fact, you'll basically have to make everything yourself,

so you have to break everything down to the most basic ingredients. Don't miss any of them.

Simply multiplying that list by the number of weeks you're trying to build a stockpile for will give you a

pretty good idea of how much of everything you need, in order to have enough food to feed your family

through a crisis.

So, since we have to avoid fresh and frozen foods, as well as our favorite prepared foods and junk food,

what types of foods should we plan on buying?

Proteins:

Canned meat - There are a number of types of canned meat available, including canned tuna,

SPAM, canned chicken, canned beef and salmon. While not as good as fresh, you can make

great soups, casseroles and stir-fry out of canned meat.

Textured vegetable protein (TVP) - Granted, it's not as good as meat, but it's better than nothing.

I wouldn't recommend eating it as it is, but once again, it works out great in soups, casseroles

and stir-fry.

Dried meat (jerky) - Meat dries well as jerky, which will keep for a long time, if properly made

and packaged. It can be rehydrated for cooking with.

Summer sausage - Cured meats, which is what lunchmeat was originally called, are preserved

for long-term storage. You have to be careful about this, as not all will store for a prolonged

period of time.

Nuts - A great source of protein and useful for baking or just eating.

Peanut butter - Not only a great source of protein, but a great comfort food as well, especially

for kids.

Beans - For much of the world, beans are a prime source of protein. While we Americans aren't

used to using it for protein, it can make a great addition to a survival diet.

Cheese - Another great source of protein, although a bit hard to store. To store cheese, triple dip

it in paraffin, allowing it to cool each time. One nice thing about cheese is that when it turns

moldy, it's only on the surface, you can cut the surface off and the cheese inside is perfectly

good to eat.

Carbohydrates:

Grains - You'll need flour for baking. Ground white flour doesn't store well, but if you buy

unground whole grains, it stores much better. You'll need to have a mill as well, so that you can

grind the grains to flour in order to use it.

Pasta - Pastas can be used in a large variety of ways and store well for a prolonged period of

time. I'd recommend storing a variety of different forms, for use in soups, casseroles and Italian

dishes.

Rice - A common source of carbohydrates around the world. Brown rice stores better than white

rice, but both are usable.

Granola - Granola stores well and is an excellent breakfast food. It can also be used for making

your own trail mix by adding dried fruit and nuts.

Breakfast cereal - Breakfast cereal really doesn't store all that good and is bulky. However, the

simpler cereals will store. Remember though, the only milk you're going to have to eat it with is

powdered milk.

Fruit and Vegetables:

Canned vegetables - For the long term, you're going to want to get a vegetable garden growing;

but in the short term, canned vegetables are your best possible selection. The nice thing about

canned foods is that you can basically ignore the expiration date.

Canned fruit - A great source of carbohydrates, as well as vitamins.

Dried fruit - Good for baking and snacking, dried fruit keeps well if it is properly packaged.

Spaghetti sauce - I'd recommend stocking up on a lot of spaghetti sauce, especially if your family

likes Italian food. It covers most other flavors, so can be used to get your family to eat squash

and other things they may not be used to eating.

Cooking Essentials:

Bullion - I'd recommend stocking quite a bit of beef and chicken bouillon, as it can be used to

make soup stock. This will allow you to use a wide variety of foods to make soups. You can buy

bouillon in bulk or restaurant packaging, saving considerably on the cost.

Mushroom soup - If your family likes casseroles with mushroom soup on them, then I'd stock up

on this as well. Like the spaghetti sauce, it's great for hiding unusual flavors.

Dry milk - Nobody likes dried milk, but you'll need to use it for baking.

Powdered eggs -Like the dry milk, not a favorite, but necessary for baking.

Salt - Salt is the most basic spice, as well as a necessary ingredient for preserving foods. If you

buy it in bulk, it's much cheaper.

Spices - The right spices allow you to make one thing taste like another, at least to some extent.

This might just be the saving grace to get your family to eat things they are not used to eating.

Even basics like rice and beans can be made to taste better if spiced well.

Sugar and Honey - Both sugar and honey keep virtually forever. Sugar often becomes the first

food staple that people start looking for. Like salt, sugar is used in preserving foods, although

just for fruit.

Cooking oil & vegetable shortening - Necessary for baking and cooking. Fats can be hard to come

up with in a survival situation, so stock plenty.

Baking essentials - Baking powder, baking soda and yeast will be needed for baking breads and

other goods. Remember, you'll be baking much more than you're used to, so you'll use much

more than what you normally would.

Final Ingredients:

Coffee - This might be your most important survival food, especially if you have family members

that are not human until they've had their second cup. It could help prevent many an argument.

Hard candies - Useful for extra energy, a pick me up and a reward for kids. Most candies won't

keep well over a long period of time, but hard candies will, if moisture is kept away from them.

That list may seem rather extensive, but it leaves a lot of things out that we're used to eating. If there's

something your family wants, that I've left off the list, see if you can manage to package it in some way

that allows you to store it for a prolonged period of time. The problem is, those things probably won't

keep for an extended period of time, no matter what we do to try and preserve them.

One way around this problem is to rotate food stocks. If there's something your family may want to eat,

which won't stay good for 20 years, no matter how you package it, but will last a year, then buy a year's

worth. Then, every time you go grocery shopping, buy some of that item, put it in the back of your stock

and grab an equal amount off the front. That way, you get to use it as part of your survival stock,

because your stock of it never goes bad.

Packaging Food for Long-Term Storage

Pretty much all the food you buy in the supermarket is only packaged for short-term storage. The

manufacturers assume that you are going to use their products within a few months, and package them

accordingly. Unfortunately, that means that those same food products won't last long enough when

stockpiled for a long-term survival situation.

Even foods which are vacuum sealed in plastic won't last for a long period of time, as air can actually

migrate through most plastics, albeit slowly. We had bought a bunch of summer sausage on sale one

year after Christmas, expecting to put it in our survival stockpile for meat. It lasted for about two years

and then it went bad, even though the summer sausage was preserved meat.

The one exception to this is canned goods. Regardless of what the expiration date says on canned goods,

they will last 20 years or more. So, if you buy canned goods or can your own food, you have food that

you can store more or less indefinitely. The one exception is if it canned in a plastic jar. We find that

apple sauce canned in plastic jars, is only good for about a year. So, like some other foods, we are forced

to rotate our stock of apple sauce.

Okay, so canning will take care of all wet foods, but that's it; you really can't can dry foods. Although

there is a "dry canning" method that is done in the oven, rather than in a canning pot, there isn't much

history with it, so nobody is sure yet whether it will store foods for a long period of time, without the

risk of them going bad.

Nevertheless, there is a method of packaging dry foods which has been developed, which will store

them for a prolonged period of time. For most dry foods, you can count on them lasting 20 years, if you

follow this method. You will need:

Food grade five gallon buckets

Six gallon aluminized Mylar storage bags

Hair straightener or clothes iron

Canister vacuum cleaner or an upright with a removable hose

Oxygen absorbers

Rubber mallet

Permanent magic marker

As you can tell from the short list of supplies, this isn't a complicated method to use. The basic idea is to

vacuum pack the food in the aluminized Mylar bags and seal them in the buckets. Oxygen absorbers are

added inside the bag, with the food, to draw out the oxygen, so that nothing can live in the bag. The five

gallon bucket is strong enough that insects and rodents can't chew through it.

Aluminized Mylar is about the most air-proof plastic bag that you can get. This is the same material that

the fancy Mylar balloons with printing on them are made out of. Whereas helium will pass through the

walls of a normal balloon within a day, it stays in the Mylar balloons for several weeks. Oxygen

molecules are much larger than helium ones are, so if they hold helium in that well, you can imagine

how well they hold oxygen out.

Oxygen absorbers, as well as the aluminized Mylar bags can be purchased from a number of online

suppliers. You can buy food grade plastic buckets from your local building materials center. They are

white, to distinguish them from those that aren't safe for storing food.

You have to be careful working with oxygen absorbers, as they are very fast acting. They are packaged

with an indicator in the package. This indicator, which is a colored tablet, changes color when enough

oxygen has seeped into the package to render the oxygen absorbers useless.

Because they are fast acting, you can't just leave a package of oxygen absorbers open on the table, while

you are working with them. You literally have to work as fast as you can, so that they don't just absorb

the oxygen out of the air and become saturated. Ideally, you should have one person on your packaging

team whose whole job is to work with the oxygen absorbers, so that they can put them in the buckets

and reseal the package while waiting until the next one is needed.

Since we're talking about storing food in five gallon buckets, we're obviously talking about storing it in

bulk. You'll want to have plenty of food to work with, before we start this project. I typically try to do ten

or more five gallon buckets at a time, and only order the oxygen absorbers I need for those buckets.

1. Start by opening the aluminized Mylar bags and putting them inside the buckets. Fill them with

food, to about one inch below the top edge of the bucket. Fill all the buckets before going on to

sealing them.

2. You might want to mark the sides of the buckets at this time, showing their contents. Don't wait,

or you'll probably have trouble remembering what's in each of the buckets.

3. With the hair straightener or clothes iron, heat seal the top of the bags, leaving a hole open

that's just big enough for the vacuum cleaner hose to fit into. Although there will be about ten

inches of material sticking up over the top of the bucket, you only need to seal a strip of about

two inches. Leave the rest so that you can reseal the bag, once you remove some of the content.

4. Put an oxygen absorber in each bag. The person who handles the oxygen absorber should reseal

the bag of oxygen absorbers immediately. Please note that from this point until you have the

bag sealed, you need to work as fast as possible.

5. Put the end of the vacuum cleaner hose into the opening left in the top of the bag and suck out

as much air as possible. You don't want to push the hose down in far enough that it sucks out

some of the food, just enough to get past the seal.

6. Once as much air as possible is sucked out of the bag, pull the hose out of the bag. Using the

hair straightener or clothes iron, heat seal the opening, so that the whole bag is sealed.

7. Breathe a sigh of relief that you did that fast enough.

8. Fold the top of the bag down into the bucket and put the lid on. Use the rubber mallet to drive

the lid down onto the rim of the bucket. You will be able to hear the difference when the rim of

the bucket encounters the rubber seal on the lid.

There is an actual lid removal tool available for removing the lids off of five gallon buckets. While not

absolutely necessary, using it is much easier on your hands, than removing the sealed lids without it.

You may want to consider buying one of these tools.

Your finished buckets of food need to be identified, if you haven't already done so. It is a good idea to

mark them on several sides, as well as the top, so that you can see what's in it no matter what angle

you're looking at it.

Store your sealed food in a cool, dry place. Basements are ideal, as they are usually cool and unless you

have a flood, they should remain dry. Of course, food stored in this manner will float if your basement

floods, so you won't lose it. Keep an inventory of what food you have stored, as well as where you have

it stored, so that you can find it easily in the midst of a disaster.

A Bit More on Food Preservation Techniques

The method we just talked about works fine for dry foods, such as grains, dried beans and pasta, but you

can't use it for all your foods. You will actually need to use a combination of different storage methods,

to be able to stockpile all the foods you need.

Salt and Sugar, the Magical Preservatives

Before we get into talking about specific food storage techniques, I want to take a moment to talk about

salt and to a lesser extent sugar. These are nature's preservatives and when used properly, will protect

just about any food from the danger of bacterial eating it and making it unfit for human consumption.

The secret that makes salt work for preserving food is something called osmosis. When salt is

concentrated in an area, it causes water to pass across membranes in order to equalize the salt level.

Since all living matter is made out of cells, which are surrounded by cell membranes, that means that

the salt draws the moisture out of the food.

This is a key component of many methods of food preservation. Salt fish, for example, is packed in salt

to dry it. Once the salt has drawn most of the moisture out of the fish, it is sun dried to finish the

process. By then, the fish has absorbed enough salt that bacteria can't survive on or in it.

When bacteria come into contact with salt or with food which has been preserved with salt, the salt

does the same thing to the water in the bacteria cells that it does to the meat cells, drawing the water

out. Once enough water is drawn out of the bacteria, the bacteria dies. So, any type of food preserved

with salt will kill bacteria, preventing the bacterial from making the food spoil.

The exact same thing that happens with salt also happens with sugar. That's why some types of dried

fruit seem to be encrusted in sugar. The sugar is protecting the fruit from bacteria, killing any that come

into contact with it. Although the natural sugar in the fruit isn't enough to kill the bacteria, the added

sugar is.

Please note that the salt and sugar will only protect the food from bacteria, not from insects and rodents,

although salt will prevent some insects, such as ants, from eating foods. In addition to the preservation

techniques used, proper packaging to protect from insects and rodents is required.

Dehydrating Food

Many types of foods can be preserved by dehydrating them. Meats, fish, fruit, vegetables and even

herbs can be dehydrated to preserve them. In the case of meats, fish and fruit, salt or sugar is used in

the dehydration process, in order to protect the dried food from bacteria.

Dehydration is an old food storage technique, old enough that we really aren't sure when it started. The

oldest known drying of meat (actually fish) goes back over 500 years in northern Europe. Nobody knows

when the American Indians started making Jerky, but it was long before the white man ever stepped

foot upon the New World. Dried grains and other foods have been found in tombs over 2,000 years old.

Foods can be air or sun dried, but you'll do better in buying a dehydrator or making a solar dehydrator.

Either one will work about the same. The main difference is where the energy for the heat is coming

from.

If you buy an electric dehydrator, spend the extra money for a quality one. The main things you need to

look for are adjustable temperature and a blower fan. These will help ensure that the food you are

dehydrating is warmed evenly, so that it dries evenly.

My wife and I used a cheap dehydrator for years that didn't have a temperature control or a blower fan.

It merely had a heating coil in the bottom, with several round trays that stacked above it. While that

dehydrator worked, we had to rotate the trays through the stack during the day, in order to get the

drying action even. When we finally broke down and bought an Excalibur dehydrator, we found that not

only could we dehydrate foods faster, but that it came out better.

Before dehydrating anything, check a recipe book for dehydrating. Some foods will need special

treatment, before drying. Fruits, vegetables and herbs can usually be dried by simply cutting them and

arranging them on the trays in the dehydrator. Turn it on and allow the heat to wash over the food for

the recommended time, until the food is finished drying.

Meats and fish are more complicated to dehydrate than fruits and vegetables, but not real bad. The first

stage in the process is to trim off all fat, as the fat can turn rancid. Once that is done, you want to

marinate the meat or use a rub on it. In either case, you are applying a combination of salt and

flavorings to the meat, as part of the preparation process. Obviously, the salt is the more important part

of this step. Make sure that if you use a rub or marinate that you do so consistently throughout the

whole batch of meat. You'll need to turn the meat several times as it marinates, in order to ensure that

all surfaces come into contact with the liquid.

Meat that does not receive enough salt during the marinating or rub stage will not last, even if it is dried

properly. The meat needs the presence of the salt, to kill any bacteria that come into contact with it.

Dehydrated meats can be kept for a fairly long time, if they are stored properly. The method mentioned

for storing dried foods can also be used for storing meats, once they have been dehydrated. They won't

last as long as other foods, but they can last a couple of years.

The easiest way to store dehydrated meats for a long period of time is to freeze them. Frozen dried

meats will store indefinitely. Then, once a disaster happens and power is lost, the will still last for a

couple of years, based purely upon the drying process of turning them into jerky. Just make sure they

are stored in airtight containers when removed from the freezer.

Canning Food

Canning is the proven method of storing all wet foods, especially fruits and vegetables. You can use

canning to preserve meats as well, but they must be canned at a higher temperature than fruits and

vegetables. So to can meats, a pressure canner is required.

The idea of canning is to create an environment in which anything that can damage the food is killed and

seal the food into that environment. Bacteria and protozoa die at 158 degrees Fahrenheit, so raising the

temperature of the food above 158 degrees will eliminate any bacteria and protozoa in it. At the same

time, that will kill insects, insect larva and insect eggs, ensuring that they can't grow in the food. The

food is canned in a glass jar with a metal lid, so it is protected from any rodents or insects eating their

way through the container and the food is underwater, preventing it from oxidizing. Finally, the jar is

vacuum sealed to maintain that safe environment.

Canning is so well established that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has done extensive

experimentation on it and developed extensive data for use in developing recipes. Essentially all canning

recipes are based upon that experimentation, ensuring that all canning recipes are safe.

The most important part of canning, besides ensuring that everything is clean, is heating the jars of food

being canned. It isn't enough that the water bath reach 160 degrees, the contents of the cans must

reach that temperature. To ensure that, the jars are left in the hot bath for a minimum of 20 minutes.

This allows the heat from the water bath to heat the contents. When the jars cool, the lids are naturally

vacuum sealed on.

To can meats, a higher temperature is used to ensure killing any bacteria or other pathogens in the meat.

Since water boils at 212oF and won't rise above this temperature, a pressure canner is used. By putting

the contents under pressure, the water actually boils at a higher temperature. As long as you follow the

directions in the recipe, the canned meat will be safe.

Pickling is used in conjunction with canning at times. In pickling, the food is allowed to sit in an acidic

bath, along with herbs. For acid, vinegar is most commonly used. The acid and herbs affect the flavor of

the food, changing it. "Dill pickles" as we know them, are actually pickled cucumbers. Some melons can

be pickled as well as meat. Corned Beef is actually pickled beef.

Smoking Meats

Smoking can be used to preserve meats, cheeses, poultry and fish. Today, most smoking is cold smoking,

used only to flavor the meat; however, in times past, they would hot smoke, preserving the meat as well

as flavoring it.

Let me be clear here, cold smoking will not preserve meat, only hot smoking will. It is important to

understand this difference. Not only does the meat have to be hot smoked, but it also has to be

marinated in brine first, so that it is saturated with salt, before it is smoked. Otherwise, it will not keep.

This process of soaking the meat in brine is called "curing" it.

The first step in smoking meat is always to marinate it in brine for at least 24 hours. Some recipes

actually require injecting brine into the meat as well, because soaking it in brine only gets the outer

layer of the meat saturated with salt. For smoked and cured meats (cold cuts) salt is mixed throughout

the cut up meat, before it is stuffed into the casing, to ensure that bacteria can't survive, even without

the smoking.

Like with dehydrating meats, it is necessary to remove all the fat from meats that are going to be

smoked in most cases. There are exceptions, such as bacon, ham and some cured meats; but in most

cases if the fat is left on the meat, it can become rancid. Smoked fat will not become rancid, so leaving it

in place is no problem, if the fat is properly smoked.

The first stage of the smoking process is always cold smoking. This is accomplished at a temperature of

68 to 86oF (20 to 30oC). In this stage, the smoke flavor is imparted into the meat. Proteins on the surface

of the meat react with the smoke, forming a skin of pure protein, which is impervious to bacteria. This

cold smoking stage takes about an hour to an hour and a half per pound of meat in each chunk (not total

meat weight); it will vary slightly, depending upon the type of meat being smoked.

Once the meat is cold smoked the temperature is raised for the hot smoking portion of the process. Hot

smoking occurs at 200 to 225oF. This is hot enough to actually cook the meat, as well as kill any bacteria

or other pathogens inside the meat.

The actual time for the hot smoking potion will depend upon the type of meat and the weight of the

chunks. It is necessary to raise the internal temperature of the meat to one high enough to cook the

meat to the center, killing the pathogens. You can't use a meat thermometer to check it either, as

puncturing the protein skin of the smoked meat will allow bacteria access to the meat inside.

Smoking is a slow-cooking process, like cooking in a crockpot. That explains why smoked meats are so

tender. The higher the internal temperature of the meat, the more tender it will be.

As with canning, there are a wide range of time-tested recipes for smoking meats. If you decide to

smoke your own meats, be sure to find a good recipe which has been used successfully before and is in

agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's guidelines. You can check for minimum times and

temperatures at the Dept. of Agriculture's website: www.foodsafety.gov.

Refrigeration, without Electrical Power

It's a good idea to assume that electrical power will be lost in any disaster situation. Of the infrastructure

we depend upon, the electrical grid is the most delicate and the most easily damaged. So there's a very

real chance that electrical power will not be available. One of the things that will cause us to lose is our

refrigeration. However, refrigeration existed long before electrical power in homes did and we can go

back to some of the methods that our forefathers used.

Granted, those methods weren't as good as modern electrical refrigeration. Nevertheless, they did work.

They allowed our ancestors to store fresh foods for longer than they would have been able to if they just

left the foods out, just as our refrigeration allows us to do.

Before electrical refrigeration became popular, most people in developed countries used ice boxes.

These insulated cabinets were powered by ice, making them essentially the furniture version of the ice

chests that we might take to the beach or on a picnic. Ice was harvested from lakes and rivers in the

wintertime and kept in ice houses. During the warmer parts of the year, that ice was delivered to people

for use in their ice boxes.

Unless you happen to have an ice house full of ice handy, that's not going to work for you and I. So, we

need to go back even farther in history, to the time when people didn't use ice boxes. During that time,

they would try to keep their fresh produce and dairy products underground, where it was cooler. If they

had a cave on their property, they would use that for cold storage, if not, they might use a well.

The Root Cellar

People who didn't have a conveniently located cave on their property could still have natural

refrigeration by digging a root cellar. This is nothing more than a man-made cave, intended for use in

storing produce, so that it lasts longer.

The root cellar works under a very simple principle of thermodynamics. That is, that heat rises and cold

goes down. That means that anything underground is going to be cooler than things that are above

ground, unless it is so far underground that it reaches a geothermal layer; not a problem with a root

cellar.

The root cellar would be cooled by the cooler night air, the coolest of which would go down into the

cellar, following the laws of physics. Once there it was trapped and would stay. When the sun arose and

heated the ground around the root cellar, the ground itself acted as an insulator, helping to keep the

cellar cool. Even if the door of the cellar was opened, the cooler air would stay in the root cellar, keeping

the food stored there cool.

Root cellars still work for those who want to invest the effort in making one. A simple root cellar can be

made by digging a hole in the ground and putting a plastic storage bin in it. Produce can be put in the bin

and the bin covered with straw to act as an insulator. A piece of plywood or an old door can be placed

above it, to protect the root cellar from scavenging animals.

A variation of this is to use an old refrigerator, burying it, laying on its back, with the door facing up. That

gives you an insulated root cellar, which is protected from bugs and rodents getting into it and with an

insulated door at ground level.

While this sort of simple root cellar will work, it doesn't provide a lot of room for storing food. Digging

an actual root cellar into the ground would be better, providing more space for more produce. If you are

going to grow a vegetable garden to supplement the food that you are stockpiling, a good root cellar

would be a wise investment.

A typical root cellar is somewhere between six foot and ten foot square. It can either be dug into the

ground, or if you live in a hilly area, you could find a spot where you could build it into the side of the hill.

Remember, the lower down it is, the cooler it will stay.

You will need to shore up the walls of the root cellar with something to give it strength. Cement blocks

are the least expensive way of doing this. Of course, a lot depends upon how much you want to spend

on your root cellar. To build a good one, dig a hole large enough for the cellar and pour a cement floor.

Build the walls out of cement blocks and then pour a cement roof. Cover it all over with dirt, leaving an

access for the stairway.

If you build a root cellar by digging a hole in the ground, you'll need some way of pumping water out of

it. Water tends to fill holes in the ground and will destroy your produce if not pumped out. It would

actually be better to have a layer of gravel under the floor slab and pump the water out of it, rather than

allowing the water into the root cellar itself. However, a root cellar built into the side of a hill won't have

a problem with this, as the water will flow down the hill.

Designs of root cellars can vary greatly, depending upon the room available. Another easy way to make

a root cellar is to close off a corner of your basement, turning it into one. You'll need to provide access

for the cool night air to make it inside the root cellar from outside, as well as insulation from any indoor

heating that might reach your basement.

The Zeer Pot

A simple refrigerator can be made that uses evaporation for cooling. These have been in use in Africa for

centuries and are extremely easy to make. On an average, they will keep produce fresh for three to four

times longer than if the same produce is left out on a table, where it is exposed to the ambient

temperature.

To make a zeer pot, all that's needed is two unglazed ceramic pots, with one being sufficiently larger

than the other that the smaller can nest inside the larger. The space between the two pots is filled with

sand, leaving the top of the inner pot level with the top of the outer pot. The sand should stop about a

half inch to an inch below the level of the two pots rims. If either of the pots have holes in the bottom,

as is common for flower pots, the holes need to be plugged.

The pots can be of any size, just as long as they will nest together. Typically, pots are used which allow

for a layer of sand between them of one to two inches. Any more is unnecessary. A zeer pot will keep

the produce inside 20 to 30 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature.

To use the zeer pot to keep food cool, water is poured into the sand, filling it entirely. This water will

seep out through the outer pot, making the clay wet. The water will then evaporate off the outer

surface of the pot, absorbing heat from the pot to do so. This will drop the temperature of the pot and

its contents, cooling whatever food is placed within it. This is especially effective if there is a breeze

blowing.

It is necessary to add water to the sand regularly, so as to keep the sand saturated in water. If it dries,

the pot stops cooling. Covering the top of the pot with a thick wet cloth, such as a washcloth, helps it to

stay cool, blocking the hot air from getting to the produce inside the pot.

There is actually a company in India which has taken this idea a step further, making small refrigerators

that work by evaporation. The space between the inner and outer

wall of the refrigerator does not have sand in it, but is left open, to be

filled with clean drinking water. That way, the refrigerator provides

not only a means of keeping produce cool, but is also a water cooler,

providing the family with chilled water to drink.

Alternate Cooking Methods when the Grid is Down

Not only will we lose refrigeration when the electrical grid goes down,

but also our normal means of cooking. People who have a gas range

in their kitchen may be able to cook for a while, until the pressure in

the gas lines drops, but people with electric ranges won't be able to

cook at all... at least, not in the same way they are used to.

Cooking is essential, as many of the foods we eat are not in an edible form unless they are cooked. In

addition, cooking kills microscopic pathogens that might be in the food. Food poisoning comes about

when people eat food that has not been properly cooked, leaving alive dangerous pathogens.

Although our stove may be down due to a loss of electricity, that doesn't mean that we are without any

way of cooking. Most American households have a barbecue grille, which makes an excellent emergency

stove when the power is out. You can use pots and pans on a grille, just like you can on a stove, although

the open fire may damage the finish on the outside of the pots, if they have an enameled finish.

The problem with using a barbecue grille is that of fuel. Most people don't stockpile a large amount of

charcoal in their homes, as it takes up a lot of room and must be protected from getting wet. Likewise,

few people have more than one canister of propane for a propane grille. However, both propane and

charcoal grilles can also be used for cooking with wood. Cooking with wood may damage the gas

injector element in a propane grille, but these can be removed and replaced.

Wood - the Easiest Option

The easiest long-term cooking option is to cook on wood. As a fuel, wood is plentiful in most parts of the

country, is relatively easy to harvest and is sustainable. If you are going to be heating your home with

wood, cooking with wood is a logical step to take. There are several ways of going about cooking with

wood:

Fireplace - If you are heating your home with a fireplace, then it makes sense to also use the

fireplace for cooking your food, as this eliminates the need for a separate cooking fire. In olden

times, they usually had larger fireplaces, so that they had room for cooking. Nevertheless, you

can still cook in most modern fireplaces. Adding a crane to the side of the fireplace, provides a

hook for you to hang a pot on for cooking.

Wood-burning stove - In olden times, when people had a wood-burning stove, they cooked on it

as well. The stove had a flat top, with actual burners set into it. That allowed access to the inside

from the top, as well as from the door in the side. Modern wood burning stove are more

intended for use as a heater and may not work as well for cooking. If the top of the stove is

insulated, the top may not get hot enough for cooking.

Of course, there are wood-burning cooking stoves that are still available on the market, but

these are rather expensive. Unless you are building a home out in the country, where fuel is a

problem and you are likely to cook over wood, this might be too much of an expense to consider.

Fire pit - The modern fire pit is a rebirth of the old fire pit that was used before fireplaces. It is

essentially a fireproof basin that you can place a fire in. Today they are usually used outside on a

patio or deck, but in ancient times they were placed in the middle of a room, with a hole in the

roof to act as a chimney.

You can buy commercially made fire pits that are made of metal or make your own out of

landscaping stones. If you make your own, you'll need a bed of gravel or cement first, to keep

the fire off the ground. Then, build a ring of stones to contain the fire. In this, it is much like

building a fire pit for camping in the woods. The pit should be at least 12" deep, to keep the fire

in. Buy a metal grille to put over the top so that you can cook on it.

Of course, with any means of cooking over wood, you'll need a goodly supply of firewood or charcoal

that you can use. In parts of the world where they still cook over wood, it is common to keep the fire

going all day, so that it doesn't need to be lit for the preparation of each meal.

Making Charcoal

It's fairly easy to make your own charcoal, if you prefer cooking over that. Actually, even when cooking

over wood, what is typically done is to allow the wood to burn down to coals and cook over the hot

coals. By making charcoal, you actually save time in the cooking process.

To make charcoal, you'll need a closed metal container. The decorated containers that are used for

selling flavored popcorn at Christmastime work well. Make a small hole in the center of the lid, about

1/16" in diameter.

Fill the container with loosely packed chunks of wood and put the lid on it. Set it in a fire that you have

already burning and leave it there. The hydrocarbons from the wood will start passing through the hole

in the lid and will likely catch fire. This is good, as it gives you a gauge that you can use. When the gases

stop passing through the hole (the fire goes out) the charcoal should be ready. Remove the container

and open it to dump out the completed charcoal.

Another Cooking Option

Another very effective option for cooking during a time of crisis is to use a camp stove. Most of the

camp stoves today run off of propane, which brings us back to the same old problem of storing enough

fuel. Unless you're going to have a stockpile of little propane bottles, those stoves will only last so long.

However, Coleman still makes what they call their "dual fuel" camp stove. This two-burner stove model

hasn't changed in 40 years or more. It's called dual fuel because it will burn either Coleman fuel or

unleaded gasoline. While gasoline may be hard to come by, it will probably be the easiest fuel to find.

You may even be able to siphon it out of abandoned vehicles.

This is the type of stove where you have to pump up the fuel tank, like on the old Coleman lanterns,

pressurizing the tank. While the pressure valve lasts for a long time, make sure that you have a spare

one or two, in case yours goes bad.

Baking without Electricity

Baking is usually harder to accomplish than frying or boiling. The major difference with baking is that the

oven heats the food on all sides, not just on the bottom. You can't readily do that on a camp stove or

barbecue grille. However, you can still bake quite well, with a couple of more primitive types of ovens.

Clay oven - The clay oven looks like a clay dome with two openings in it, separated by a shelf.

The bottom opening is the firebox and the top one is the oven itself. There is usually some sort

of door for the oven, made out of wood, to help keep the heat in.

To make a clay oven, you start by making a mold of the firebox. Build up clay or clay and brick to

surround the mold, with the exception of the door. Make sure you use good quality clay and

that you get the air bubbles out of it. If air bubbles are left in it, they may cause the oven to

break. You also want to make sure that you use firebrick, rather than regular bricks. Do the same

for the shelf, trying to keep it thin (2" to 4" maximum). Once that is fairly hard, make another

mold for the oven itself, on the shelf. Then, you can add the clay layer, packing three to four

inches of it all around the mold, but leaving the doorway open. When done the whole clay oven

needs to be left to dry thoroughly.

The dirt mold can be scooped out of the finished and dry oven. Check to make sure that the

inside is dry as well. If it is not totally dried, allow it to dry thoroughly before lighting a fire in it.

You'll need to fire the clay, at least somewhat, by lighting a fire in it and allowing it to bake the

oven. This won't be perfect, as you don't have a kiln, but it will have to do.

To use the clay oven, start a fire in both the bottom and the oven, allowing the fire in the top

oven to heat up the oven. Once the oven is heated well and the bottom fire is burning well, the

fire can be removed from the top oven and added to the firebox. By preheating the oven in this

manner, the fire will only have to keep the oven warm, not have to heat it.

Dutch Oven - The Dutch oven is what was used for baking in the home during the Colonial and

Pioneering eras of our country, leaving the clay oven for use by commercial bakeries. This type

of Dutch oven was a bit different than what most look like today. The modern iteration of the

Dutch oven is nothing more than a five to seven quart pot. But the old version was made of cast

iron, had a lip around the lid and feet cast to the bottom so that it could stand in the coals.

You can still buy this type of Dutch oven today, although they are not common. They are

available in various sizes, up to about seven or eight quarts. Not only are they great as an oven,

but they can also be used as a soup or stew pot. It's a good idea to have one on hand, for use

whenever cooking over a fire.

To use this type of Dutch oven, one puts the dough inside the oven and sets it in the coals of the

fire, being sure to keep it level. The top is put on it and more coals are shoveled onto the top,

making it so that there is heat both above and below the food being cooked.

Cooking with the Power of the Sun

Another totally different way of cooking in a grid-down situation is by using the power of the sun. If you

were anything like I was as a kid, you enjoyed using a magnifying glass to start fires and hassle ants. Well,

that same power that we used back then for not such great purposes, can easily be harnessed for

cooking real food, when needed.

The key to cooking with solar power is to have a lot of sunlight available. If you live in an area where you

have a lot of rainy and overcast days, you're probably not going to be able to cook with solar power. In

addition to a lot of sunshine, all that's needed is some way of focusing the sun's beams on your cooking

pot, so that it will heat up enough to cook the food inside.

There are three basic types of solar cookers which you can use. Two of them are reflective, reflecting the

sun's light onto the cooking pot, thereby increasing its intensity. The third uses a large magnifying glass

to focus the sun's beams. This third one can actually get hot enough to melt some soft metals.

The two reflective cookers are also able to be purchased commercially if you desire. However, they are

simple enough to build, that you may want to make your own and save that money for something else.

As the sun moves throughout the day, you will need to adjust the position of your cooker every once in

a while. Otherwise, the focal point for the sunlight will move off of your pot and it will not heat. Check it

every 30 minutes throughout the cooking cycle and adjust as necessary. Using a black colored pot, such

as cast iron, will increase the absorption of the light and its subsequent conversion to heat.

Solar Box Oven

The solar box oven is the simplest solar cooker you can build. It consists of a cardboard box and some

aluminum foil. The foil, when glued to the inside of the box and to the box flaps, acts as a reflector,

focusing the sun's rays into the box. Adding larger flaps or additional flaps to the box can increase the

amount of sunlight, thereby increasing the efficiency of the cooker.

To make the solar box oven, start out with a box which is big enough to put your cooking pot in, with

ample space left over. This extra space will help ensure that the light can reflect inside the box. Glue

aluminum foil, shiny side up, onto the inside of the box and the box flaps. It is important to have as

smooth a finish as possible, without wrinkling the foil. This is easier to do if you deconstruct the box,

separating the seam where it is glued together.

Once the box is coated with aluminum foil, it can be reconstructed simply enough by using a hot melt

glue gun to reattach the seam that you had taken apart.

To use the solar box oven, the box is placed, facing into the sun. That means having to prop up the edge

of the box, so that it is pointed directly towards the sun. Setting the front edge on a brick or rock can

accomplish this easily. Place the pot inside, centered in the box and propped up so that it is level and so

that the reflected sunlight can hit it. The box flaps will need to be held in place as well, so that they can

point the sunlight into the box. This can easily be done with sticks or dowel rods.

This type of solar oven is a slow cooker, much like cooking with a Crockpot. It will take several hours to

cook whatever you put in it, so be sure to check it regularly. Putting the pot in an oven roasting bag can

help keep the heat in and make the food cook faster.

Parabolic Solar Oven

The parabolic solar oven improves the operation of the simple box oven that we just looked at, by

increasing the amount of sunlight that is directed to the pot where the food is located. It is also easier to

adjust as the sun moves across the sky, as the reflective surface is one continuous piece, rather than

several pieces. For this reason, I prefer it.

To make your own parabolic solar oven, you need a parabolic television antenna. Not one of the modern

ones that we use, which are less than two feet across; you need one of the old ones that were about six

feet across. The larger size provides a lot of reflective area for the sun.

The way that a parabolic antenna works, is that the parabolic dish (the curved dish) is a reflector for

radio waves. The actual antenna is a small device that sits in front of the antenna, usually on a post that

places it in the exact focal point of the antenna. Any and all radio waves that hit the reflector are sent to

the antenna for capture.

The position of the antenna portion is important, as that is the place where you want to put your

cooking pot. It has to be positioned there, as that is the focal point of the antenna. Just as the radio

waves are reflected to that point, so will the sun's rays be focused to that point, where they will be able

to cook your food.

Like with the simple box oven, we're going to make the parabolic cooker reflect the sun's rays by using

aluminum foil. Since the surface is curved, the foil needs to be applied in small pieces, two to three

inches square, or it will wrinkle as it is being applied. Cover the entire inside surface of the parabolic

reflector with the aluminum foil, gluing it shiny side out. The holder for the antenna can be converted to

a holder for the pot, putting it at the focal point.

Fresnel Solar Cooker

A Fresnel lens is a plastic sheet magnifier. You've probably seen them. You can buy them in office supply

stores and dollar stores. They look like a sheet of clear plastic, with circular ridges molded onto the

backside. People who have trouble reading the phone book use them to magnify the small lettering.

Those smaller Fresnel lenses aren't big enough to make a cooker out of, but the ones used in the old-

style big screen televisions are. Before they came out with our modern, flat television sets, a big screen

television took up the entire corner of a living room and was housed in a large cabinet. Like any other

CRT (cathode-ray tube) they projected the image onto the back of the screen. In order to do this, they

had a large Fresnel lens mounted behind the screen.

You can scavenge these Fresnel lenses out of these old big screen televisions. Generally speaking, when

people want to dispose of them, they'll put them on the curb with a "Free" sign on them. Take it home,

take the screen apart and find the Fresnel lens hidden behind it.

You can also buy these scavenged lenses on eBay at times. Obviously, the larger they are, the better.

The one I have built up in the picture is about two feet by three feet, although you can get them larger. I

recently harvested one that was 30 inches by 40 inches.

The Fresnel lens needs to be mounted into a frame and then the frame mounted into a stand. It is

important that the angle of the frame be adjustable in the stand, so that the sun's rays can be properly

focused on the food to be cooked. You also need some sort of a stand for the pot or pan of food, so that

it can be held in the ideal position.

The focal point will be about two feet from the lens. To check the focal point, direct the lens at the sun

and put a piece of cardboard behind it, moving it until the sun's light is making as small a spot as

possible. Measure the distance between the cardboard and the lens and you'll know the focal length. If

you don't work quickly, you'll need to be ready to put out a fire, as the cardboard will catch on fire.

To use the Fresnel solar cooker, set the lens in its frame up, pointing directly at the sun. Then place the

pot of food to be cooked on the stand, directly in the focal point of the lens. Please note that this cooker

will work much faster than the others, so you'll need to check the food regularly. I've seen a cooker of

this type fry an egg in less than a minute. I've also seen it melt pennies in about two minutes. So, it will

generate quite a bit of heat.

Chapter 5 - #4 Need - Home Defense

Household Homeland Secuirty

No matter how much you do to stockpile and prepare for a disaster, it's not going to do you the least bit

of good if someone else comes along and takes it from you. While that may not happen to you, your

security is not an assumption you can afford to make. There are plenty of people around who live off of

others and when things fall apart, you'll see them coming out of the woodwork.

We can see this happen pretty much any time there is a natural disaster. Looters and others try to take

advantage of the situation, stealing what they can. How much worse would that be if those looters

didn't have any food to eat and the only food available was what you have?

The thing is that we really don't know what's coming down the pike. Desperate people do desperate

things; and if a scenario arises that cuts off food supplies, you can count on at least some of those

desperate people doing just about anything they can to survive. For some, that will mean begging.

Others may turn to cannibalism if things get bad enough. Typically there are women who will sell their

bodies for food. But amongst all the other actions that desperation causes, there are those who turn to

violence to get what they need.

There are a number of different scenarios which are likely to cause a breakdown of society, such as

widespread epidemic, biological warfare or an EMP. In those cases, we can't count on the police being

there to take care of us. Oh, there may be some police around, but the number of violent gangs will

probably overwhelm the police forces. Those that practice evil see the police as an enemy. In a survival

situation, that would make the police prime targets for these people.

The only one you can count on being there to protect your home is yourself. Actually, better than just

depending on yourself, your chances of survival will be better if you have a survival team. That team can

consist of just your family, but to do so, your family members will need to be able to participate in

survival tasks, such as the defense of your home.

Defenses are broken down into two groups; passive defenses and active defenses. Passive defenses are

the things you put into place, in order to make it harder for the bad guys to break into your home. A

locked door is a passive defense; albeit not a very good one. But it's better than leaving a hole in the

wall. Passive defenses won't ever stop a determined attacker. All they can do is to slow that attacker

down a bit, giving you time to get ready to defend your home.

That's where active defenses come into play. Those are the things that you do yourself to battle the bad

guys. In other words, taking up arms to defend your home and family. That's what's going to stop them

and keep your family safe.

Before going any farther, let me say something important here. Guns are the great equalizer. If you are

caught having to defend your home, you don't want to have to depend on martial arts tactics or pepper

spray. Those are only useful when protecting yourself from people armed at the same level. While you

might survive an attack by a knife-wielding thug with your pepper spray, you probably won't survive an

attack by the same thug when he has a gun in his hand.

Defensive Tactics

Defending your home means more than just having a gun and knowing how to pull the trigger. Yes, you

should have a gun; better yet, have several guns. But you need more than that; you need to prepare

your home and your survival team to ward off a determined attack by a hungry gang. That requires using

some basic defensive tactics.

Tactics are simply the concepts that we use to defend ourselves. They are the same concepts that the

military uses, simply because they work. Your challenge will be in applying these basic tactics to your

home or neighborhood.

Cover and Concealment

These two words are often confused, but both are important. Cover means something you can hide

behind, while shooting, to prevent the bad guys from being able to shoot you. It has to be strong

enough to stop a bullet. Concealment is just something you can hide behind to keep the bad guys from

finding you. It isn't strong enough to stop a bullet. Obviously, cover is better than concealment.

Defense in Depth

The concept of defense in depth is to use whatever space you have to your advantage. If you live in the

city, this may be a hard concept to put into practice, but if you have some acreage outside of town, it

will work well for you. In town, you would have to work together with your neighborhood, in order to

create a true defense in depth.

The idea is to trade space for time; but to do so on your terms. As an enemy attacks, you make a

number of hit and run attacks or guerilla warfare attacks on them, trimming down their numbers,

without allowing them to trim down yours. This is best accomplished by using a series of ambushes.

By the time the enemy reaches the point where a decisive engagement has to be made, there will be

two results from your hit and run tactics, both of which will help you. First of all, you'll have trimmed

down their numbers somewhat. Secondly, they will have spread out, allowing you to engage part of

their force at a time, maximizing the effectiveness of whatever firepower you have.

In an urban situation, you can do this by blocking off your street, setting up a series of roadblocks. As the

bad guys reach each roadblock, they come under attack. Before they can break through and get to a

good attack position, they will put themselves into a good ambush position, allowing you and your

neighbors the advantage.

Layered Defense

Many people confuse a layered defense and a defense in depth, thinking they are one in the same.

While there is a lot of similarity between the two, they are in fact different. The confusion comes from

the fact that the two concepts are often used together. A layered defense means that you have several

different defensive positions to use, each of which allows you to attack the enemy again, as you slowly

retreat along a pre-chosen path.

When I was talking about a series of roadblocks for a defense in depth in an urban environment, I was

actually talking about a combination of the defense in depth and a layered defense. Each roadblock

became a separate layer, which the enemy has to conquer before they can move on.

You should have a layered defense on your own property, even if you are living in suburbia. Besides

anything that you do as a neighborhood, your outer defensive layer is your property line. Create a

perimeter there that they have to breach. This will prove their hostile intent, helping you to maintain

the legal and moral high ground. Your second layer is the exterior of your home, which should be

hardened to make it difficult to break in. Finally, you should have a room in your home which you have

prepared for making your last stand before escaping. That's your last layer.

Deter and Delay

The people who are coming to attack you are probably not rocket scientists. In fact, if they are criminals,

there's a good chance that they aren't all that well educated at all. They are also probably a bit on the

lazy side; that's why they are attacking you to take what you have, rather than working to get what they

need on their own. While some may just be desperate, especially in the aftermath of a disaster, true

criminals tend to be lazy.

Anything you can do to deter them, making it harder for them to get into your home and get what you

have, will work to your benefit. Every minute longer it takes them to defeat you or to break into your

home, is one more minute in which they can give up. Take advantage of that, building things to make it

hard enough for them to break in, that it will cause them to turn around and go elsewhere.

Many of the things I am going to recommend in this chapter are done with this goal in mind. I want you

to make your home hard enough to break into, that it ends up taking away their steam and makes

breaking into some other home seem like a better idea. At the same time, I want you to be well enough

prepared to defend your home, that they will see that you're not going to be intimidated by their guns

and are in fact ready to fight them. Between the two, you will hopefully be able to deter them enough

so that you come out victorious.

The Prepared Ambush

Of all the military tactics there is, the prepared ambush is one of the most deadly. What I mean by a

prepared ambush is one in which the ambushers place themselves in such a way as to be able to all fire

on their enemies at once and with surprise. When the enemies move into position, a signal is given and

massive firepower is focused upon them, killing as many as possible in as little time as possible.

Ambushes of this type can be used either offensively or defensively. On the offense, they are placed

alongside a road, path or trail that the enemy has to come along. When the enemy is in the "kill zone"

everyone opens fire. Defensively, the defenders set themselves up so that they are ready to fire upon a

point or area where the enemies have to cross to attack and all open fire once they do.

The great advantage of the ambush is surprise. Because the attack happens with surprise, the attackers

have a few seconds to kill with abandon, before the training of their enemies can kick in. Those few

seconds is when most of the killing happens. Once that initial advantage is lost, most attackers break off

and leave, rather than allowing the other side time to organize a counter-attack.

A Word About the Law

Before we go any farther in our discussion of home defense, it's important that we take a moment out

to make sure we're aware of what the law allows. Some people act like the law will suddenly disappear

after a disaster, so there won't be any need to worry about it. While that may in fact happen, we can't

assume that it will. To do so might put us in the position of being the recipient of a necktie party.

Basically, the law recognizes our rights to self-defense. In most states, this is extended to include

defense of others and even defense of property. The much argued "castle doctrine" basically states that

you don't have to retreat, but can stand your ground and defend your home.

The legal term that's used is "imminent danger," specifically imminent danger of loss of life or of serious

injury, as justification for the use of deadly force. In other words, you feel threatened that if you don't

kill some intruder, they're going to kill you. Those feelings have to be based upon something tangible,

such as them holding a weapon, they've made threats, they are considerably stronger than you or that

you know they have a criminal record of violence.

Here's the kicker though; the courts have to determine after the fact that your actions were truly in self-

defense. In other words, you have a split second to decide if your life is in danger and the courts can

take days or even weeks to decide if you were right. If they decide you weren't, you could face jail time

for defending yourself.

I realize that doesn't seem at all fair, but it's the best system they've come up with, so far. So, before

pulling the trigger, you need to make sure that it is necessary. On the flip side of that coin, the bad guys

might not be so reflective on the law, so they might not hesitate. Obviously if you hesitate too long, you

won't need to worry about the court's decision; they never decide against a corpse.

In a post-disaster scenario, where law enforcement officers are overloaded in dealing with the situation

and some may have abandoned their posts, I imagine there will be plenty of "holes" in police coverage

that the criminal element will be quick to take advantage of. They'll know what they can get away with,

as well as how busy the police are. They won't pull any punches, instead taking full advantage of the

situation.

However, there will always be an "after" to any post-disaster scenario. That's when the lace panty crowd

will start reviewing the actions of law-abiding citizens, trying to find an excuse for calling their act of self-

defense something else. So, while the bad guys may act without restraint, you still need to exercise it.

It may seem crazy, but if possible, have a family member film any encounter you have with the bad guys.

That will provide you with a defense, showing why you had to kill ten of them, because they stormed

your house.

Preparing Your Home - the Perimeter

There are those who think that if they can fortify their perimeter enough, they'll stop any enemy.

Unfortunately, history has more than disproven that theory, time and time again. There have been

countless times when seemingly impenetrable fortifications have been overrun by an enemy. In those

cases, the fortifications may have made the victory more expensive for the victors, but they didn't stop

them.

In our case, we have an additional complication; that of the law. If you were to fortify the perimeter of

your property, say by putting up a ten foot wall, and then killed people who were storming that wall,

you might have a hard time in proving that your life was in imminent danger. Until they get on your

property or at least shoot onto your property multiple times, you can't prove that they are attacking you.

So, the ten foot high wall will probably have to be out. But that doesn't mean that you should ignore

your perimeter all together. As far as I'm concerned, the perimeter of my property is like a trip wire. If

anyone crosses it under arms that I don't know to be a friend, I'd have to conclude that they're an

enemy bent on attacking.

With that in mind, I want my perimeter to help me in the coming attack. Since I can't fortify it to the

point where they won't come in, I have to limit myself to using the perimeter to shape the battle to

come. In other words, I'm going to use it to help set up an ambush for any attackers.

Let me tell you a little secret here about how people think. This will make a huge difference in how we

look at the perimeter. That is, when faced by an obstacle, the vast majority of people will choose the

easiest way to go. When faced with two equally difficult choices, they will chose to go to the right. So,

obstacles that may not be able to stop people, can help ensure that they go the way you want them to.

In order to establish an ambush, you have to start out by defining the kill zone. That's the place where

you want the enemy to go, where your entire defensive team can fire on them all at once. For most

homes, the best place for the kill zone is the front walkway, between the perimeter and the front door.

In that area, they are already on the property, so they are showing hostile intent and they are in a place

where they can be shot at from all the windows of the home.

Creating obstacles along the perimeter, while leaving the front walkway open, will help to steer the

attackers into this ambush zone. However, for the obstacles to work, they must be consistent and

unbroken. If you place several separate obstacles, but leave space open between them, the attackers

will use that space.

The easiest way to do this is to build a fence around the front yard, leaving the front gate open. As long

as the fence is substantial enough that they can't just place a hand on it and vault it, it will direct them

to the gateway.

As an alternative to a fence, you could grow a hedge. The advantage of a hedge is that it doesn't look

like it is part of your defenses. Allowing it to grow 3-1/2 or 4 feet tall, with the branches intertwined will

make it a fairly formable barrier, especially if it has some nice long thorns on it. Of course, you could use

cactus for your hedge too, but that may not look right with some architecture.

If you have a sizable piece of property, you can use a ditch, rather than a hedge or fence. A ditch can

become a difficult barrier to cross, especially if the sides are steep or it has a lot of weeds growing in it.

Plant bushes in it, making a natural looking hedge and you create a formidable barrier.

Once they get through the perimeter, it would seem like smooth sailing from there to the front door.

But we don't want to make their lives easy. That's why you want your front yard to be strewn with traps.

You can use tripwires or dig holes for them to step in, covering them up with straw. Broken glass can be

placed in strategic places, as well as caltrops.

Caltrops are one of my favorite traps. They are metal devices, with four points, made so that one point is

always sticking up. Invented during the Middle Ages, they were used to break up cavalry charges. A

horse stepping on one became instantly lame. The same would happen to a person stepping on one,

unless they had steel shanks in the sole of their boot.

You can make caltrops out of two 16 penny nails. Simply cut the heads off the nails and sharpen the cut

off end to a point, making each nail into a piece of wire with two points. Then, bend the nails in the

middle, forming a 130 degree angle in them. Two nails put together, with the open angles together,

form one caltrop. Weld the two nails together and it's ready to go.

Ideally, you want to spread your caltrops where the bad guys won't expect to encounter them. If they

can be hidden by the grass, that's ideal. Like the fence or hedge, place them so that they will steer the

bad guys into the area where you want. So, putting them on either side of the walkway would work.

Then, if they step too far off the walkway, they'll step into them. Another good place is just inside the

fence or hedge, so that if they go over it, they end up in the caltrops. If you have windows that are

inviting, put some on the ground under the windows, so that they'll step in them while trying to get the

window open.

You need a lot of caltrops for it to be effective. Ideally, you want them just a couple of inches apart. That

way, the chances of them stepping into the caltrops and getting hurt is increased. If there is anyplace

where they are likely to fall or to dive to the ground when you start shooting, such as behind anything

that could provide them with cover, give them a nice soft bed of caltrops to land on.

If you are going to use caltrops as part of your perimeter, start making them now. Fill up a barrel with

them, so that when the time comes, you're ready to spread them around. I wouldn't leave them out,

unless a disaster happens, as you will be legally liable for any neighbor kids who fall in them and are hurt.

The law doesn't look favorably on booby-trapping your property.

Warning Systems

The other thing your perimeter needs to do for you is to warn you that you are about to be attacked.

Unless your attackers are incredibly stupid, they're going to try to catch you off guard. To do so, they

may scout your home and try to establish your schedule. That would give you the opportunity to see the

scouts and know something is coming. But they may just make some assumptions and try to catch you

when you will be busy or sleeping.

Your perimeter needs to warn you that your home is about to be attacked. That means putting in some

sort of alarm system, so that you know when people cross the line and have breached your perimeter.

There are a number of ways you can do this, such as putting in laser alarm systems or just using a trip

wire. Whatever system you choose to use, make sure that it is redundant.

The other excellent alarm system you can use is animals. Dogs are especially good at letting you know

when someone is coming; but they aren't the only animals that can. One of my favorite is guinea hens;

they put up a racket anytime anyone comes around. That may not go over too well with your neighbors,

but it will provide you with a good alarm system.

Another option to consider, assuming you have a big enough survival team to do so, is keeping a guard

posted 24/7. They would need a location where they could see all around the perimeter of the property,

as well as a good pair of binoculars and a powerful flashlight. Better yet, give them some night vision

goggles, if you have them. In the case of a pending attack, they could give the warning, giving everyone

time to get to their defensive positions.

Let me say something here about false alarms. I'm sure you've heard the story about the boy who cried

wolf. In a survival situation, you're better off getting false alarms, than you are not getting alarms that

you need. I'd rather have my dogs waking me up in the middle of the night, because some neighborhood

kid took a shortcut across my yard, than not have them raise the alarm when needed. When it all comes

down to it, that jumpy alarm system, whether human, animal or mechanical, will most likely give you

the warning you need to keep you alive.

Hardening Your Home

I said that you can't fortify the perimeter of your property effectively, but that doesn't mean that you

can't fortify the perimeter of your home. The trick is to fortify it, without making it look like that's what

you're doing. While you need to let them onto your property so that you can prove that you are in

imminent danger, you don't need to let them into your home.

Proving that one bad guy standing on your front walkway is a danger may be difficult before he shoots,

but proving the same for a gang of ten or twenty who show up on your walkway with weapons in their

hands is easy. All it takes is one photo. The numbers make all the difference.

Of course, if that ten or twenty manage to breach your door and get into your home, your chances of

survival are greatly diminished. So, it's imperative to stop them before that. Part of that is hardening

your home so that they can't break in easily, while another is ambushing them in the front yard, so that

you have the advantage and can hopefully convince them to leave before getting into your home.

The Front Door

The most common entryway for criminals to use is the front door, so we'll start there. The typical

deadbolted entry door can be kicked open with a boot. The weak part of the system is not the door or

the deadbolt, but the door frame. Made of 3/4 inch thick pine, this is what the deadbolt goes into. When

the door is kicked, the deadbolt breaks through the frame.

There are a number of things that can be done to strengthen an entry door. Taken together, they make

it much harder for any criminals to get that door open.

To start with, replace all the screws in the door hinges and striker plates with 3 1/2" long hardened

screws. The wood door frame is backed up by dual 2"x 4" studs. These longer screws will go well into

those studs, more or less eliminating the ability of breaking out the door frame. At the same time, we're

going to put those new screws through some new hardware, which will increase the effectiveness of

using them.

You can replace the normal door hinges with security hinges. These have a tab on one leaf, which fits

into a corresponding hole on the opposite leaf when the hinge is closed. This acts like a mini-deadbolt

on the hinge side of the door. Considering that there are three of them on the same side of the door,

that adds a lot of strength.

To strengthen the lock side of the door, a security striker plate should be

installed to replace the standard striker plate. The commercially available

security striker plates are about a foot long and provide a striker plate for both

the door lock and the deadbolt, with mounting screws above, below and

between them.

I prefer making my own security striker plates out of 1 1/2" wide by 1/8" thick

steel strap. A three foot long piece makes a great striker plate, spreading the

force of any kick over a wide area. All it takes to make it is to drill holes for the

deadbolt, the door lock and the screws. The ones for the screws should be

countersunk so that flat head screws can be used and the heads will be below

the level of the plate.

If you are going to make your own security striker plates and you haven't

already installed your deadbolt, you can mount the deadbolt higher up on the

door, creating a greater space between it and the door lock. That way, if anyone

tries to kick the door, the force will be spread across a longer area.

Some criminals try to cut through the door, if they can't kick it open. This is

easily solved by putting some metal rods into the edge of the door. The idea is

to give them something to run into, that won't be easy to cut. To do so, buy

some 3/8" thick steel rod and cut it to lengths that will fit inside the door,

without showing up in any of the molding. You'll also need a 3/8" drill bit that's

longer than the rods. They are hard to find, but you can buy 12" drill bits.

Drill holes into the edge of the door, above, below and between the door lock

and the deadbolt. Be careful to keep the drill straight, so that it doesn't come

out either face of the door. That's the biggest risk with this installation. Once the holes are drilled, the

rods can be driven into the holes and the ends sealed with wood putty. When the putty dries, sand and

paint it, and nobody will be able to tell it's there.

One final thing that can be done to strengthen a front door is to add a door club. This is a device that

attaches to the bottom of the door and attaches it to the floor when you lock up. A socket mounts into

the floor, giving the door club its strength. When the club is not in use, it can be hung on a bracket on

the inside of the door. Even if a criminal breaks the glass out for the door, they won't see the club or be

able to reach it.

Windows

Windows are hard to secure, as they are made of glass, a fragile material. All it takes is a rock or hammer

to get through most of them. Locking the window is a joke, as the window can still be broken. However,

there are two different things that can be done to secure windows. Either one will work to make it

harder for the bad guys to get in that way.

The first, and least intrusive, is to install security window film. This is different than tinted film in that it

is clear, as well as being thicker than window tint. Security films run from 2 mils thick to 12 mils thick,

with the thicker films providing for greater security.

Security window film attaches to the inside of the window pane, much like tinting film. To install,

window cleaner is sprayed on the glass and the film positioned, adhesive side against the window. A

squeegee is used to push out all the air bubbles and liquid and the film is trimmed to fit. After a final rub

down to get all the air bubbles out, the inner protective film is removed. It takes two weeks for the

adhesive to fully adhere to the window glass.

The way that security window film works is much like the safety glass in a car windshield. If that glass

breaks in an accident, the plastic interlayer will hold it in place. Likewise, the security window film holds

the glass shards in place if someone tries to break into a window. That means that to gain access, they

have to break every bit of the glass out of the window; a time consuming task.

The other thing that can be done to secure windows is the addition of burglar bars. These are usually

custom made in a welding shop, although there are some standard sizes available from the larger home

improvement centers. In both cases, the bars are attached to the wall, either inside or outside the

window; covering the glass. Even if they manage to break the glass, they still can't get in, because the

bars are blocking access.

Don't forget to put security window film or burglar bars on the windows inset in your front door and in

the sidelights if you have any. A favorite trick of the bad guys, if they can't kick the door open, is to break

out the glass, reach inside and unlatch the deadbolt and door lock manually. You want to make sure that

even if they break the glass, they won't be able to reach those and open the door.

Obviously, burglar bars are much more secure than security window film. However, the bars are visible

and some people don't like how they look. For those people, the film at least gives them an option.

Sliding Glass Patio Doors

Sliding glass doors are probably the worst nightmare in home security ever invented. There is nothing

more inviting to a bad guy than a big piece of glass that he can bust out and walk through. While few

criminals do that, simply to avoid attracting attention, in a post-crisis world, they will be much less

circumspect.

Conventional wisdom for sliding glass doors assumes that the criminal won't want to break the glass. All

it does is prevent the door from being taken off the tracks. That's not enough. As long as that big piece

of glass is there, it can be broken, giving access to the house.

The best way of dealing with a sliding glass door is to remove it and replace it will a normal door, which

can be secured in the same way we talked about securing the front door. Barring that, the next

possibility is to treat it as a big window and secure it that way; installing either security window film or

burglar bars. The same welding shops that make burglar bars for the windows can make sliding or

swinging doors to go over your sliding glass door.

Garage Doors

Garage doors are not as strong as they look. Nevertheless, they are rarely broken through, simply

because it is difficult to maneuver through a broken down garage door. However, the bad guys might try

to get the door open, thereby gaining entry to the house.

If a garage door has an automatic opener on it, it is extremely easy to break in. Garage door openers

always have an emergency disconnect on them, so that you can open the door when there is no power.

This disconnect is attached to a cord, with a T handle on the end. All a criminal has to do to get in is to

reach in through the space above the garage door and hook that release cord with a piece of wire. A

quick pull and the door is unlatched from the automatic opener. Then, they just need to lift the door.

To prevent this, all you have to do is to remove the T handle from the disconnect cord, leaving the cord

there. It doesn't take much effort to actuate the disconnect, so you really don't need the handle. Just

pull the cord with your hand. But the bad guys won't be able to pull it, because they won't be able to

hook it.

For extra security, take a bike padlock (the long kind) and loop it through one of the holes in the track,

preferably placing it just above one of the wheels in the track. That will effectively stop the door from

moving, even if they manage to get it unlatched.

Side or back doors in the garage should be treated just like the front door, with the same security

measures applied.

The Safe Room

Some people like the idea of having a safe room in the house. This is a room which has been built out of

ballistic materials as a sanctuary. The room gives the family a place to retreat to, so that they can hide

from the bad guys in the case of a home invasion.

There's just one problem with a safe room. That is, the whole concept is based upon the assumption

that the cavalry is going to come and rescue the family from their dungeon. But in the case of a disaster,

the cavalry, otherwise known as the police department, may not be able to come. You may not even be

able to contact them. So, you might end up stuck in the safe room, while the bad guys sit around outside,

waiting for you to come out. Even worse, they may set the house afire around you.

I believe in a slightly different type of safe room. That is, a room where the family gathers to make their

last stand, before abandoning the home and bugging out. To be this, it has to be somewhere that

everyone in the family can get to from their defensive positions; it has to be hard for the bad guys to get

to and it has to have an escape route.

Ideally, this room needs to be located in such a way that the bad guys have to come down a hallway to

get to it. That puts them in a shooting gallery for you to make one last stand, while you prepare to leave.

Then, once you've beaten off that attack, you bug out while they are regrouping.

My safe room is my family room. To get to it, the bad guys have to transit the kitchen, which is 19 feet

long. That gives me a great opportunity to take them out, while I hide under cover. Meanwhile, my

family can open a hidden door behind a bookcase, which opens into our garage, where our bug out bags

are stored. From there, we can escape out the back of the house.

In order to make the safe room more effective, it's a good idea to use some ballistic materials in the

walls and door. That way, you have some cover from their fire, not just concealment. Since ballistic wall

panels are extremely expensive, I had to develop my own system.

For this system, I turned to something the military has used for well over 100 years; the sand bag.

Actually, I don't have any bags, just the sand. I've turned the lower part of the walls leading into my

family room into sandbags.

To do this requires removing the drywall and replacing it with 1/2" plywood. Drywall isn't strong enough

to support the weight of the sand. When mounting the plywood, it's important to use long screws to

hold it in place. Nails or short screws will eventually pull out. The space between the two sheets of

plywood is filled with sand, except where the studs are located.

Finishing plywood to look like drywall is a little tricky. It helps to start by smoothing a thin layer of

drywall mud onto the plywood, before taping it, and sanding it smooth. Prime this layer with a good

sealing primer. Then you're ready to tape, texture and finish the wall just like it was drywall. The first

layer of drywall mud and sealer provide you with a surface that is similar to that of the drywall, making it

possible to finish it like it is.

This thin a layer of sand, between two layers of plywood isn't enough to stop high powered rifle bullets,

but it will do a good job stopping pistol bullets. You will have a fairly safe place to fight from, as you

make that last stand. Don't get so confident in it that you stay to continue the fight. If the bad guys have

gotten you to this position, it is truly time to get out. Remember, he who fights and runs away, will live

to fight another day. If you escape, you can always come back to take your home back. You can't do that

from the grave.

Your Active Defenses

Everything we've talked about up to this point in this chapter is about passive defenses; things you do to

your home to make it harder for the bad guys to get in. It would be nice if that was enough, but chances

are that it won't be. At some point in time, you're going to have desperate people trying to get into your

home, simply because they think you have food.

Unfortunately, there's really no way that you can provide food for everyone who comes and asks. So,

you'd better decide now that you're going to take care of your family, no matter what. That means that

you're going to have to be ready to defend home and family, when you are attacked. Actually, I hope

that you never have to; but we can't count on that.

That's where active defenses come in; active defenses means taking up arms in the defense of your

home. One of the purposes of your passive defenses is to give you time to grab your weapons and

"prepare to repel boarders" as they used to say in the days of sailing ships. At the same time, we've

talked about designing your passive defenses in such a way that they will lead any attackers into the

ambush kill zone, so that you can defend your home the most effectively.

Let's Talk Weapons

Obviously, if you're going to take up arms, you're going to need some arms to take up. Many people

have talked about all types of arms which could be used in such a situation. Unless they're talking about

firearms, they're probably not thinking things through all the way. Your attackers will probably have

firearms, so to respond to them with anything less would be suicidal.

I don't care how good a martial arts expert you are, taking on a man with a gun, using only your martial

arts moves, probably isn't going to work out all that well for you. They can shoot you, long before you

can get within striking range of them.

That's not to say that you want to throw out all your training and alternate weapons. You might actually

have a time when they are useful. However, don't depend upon them to the exclusion of firearms. Guns

are the great equalizer and you want to meet guns with guns... preferably with bigger, more powerful

guns and superior training in their use.

The question then becomes, what sorts of guns should you buy? There are a lot of opinions about that,

with one person advocating certain guns while another advocates something else. I'm going to take my

best shot at giving you the best advice available, while giving you the reasoning behind avoiding some of

the other options.

Let's start out with fully-automatic weapons, what are known as "assault rifles." By definition, an assault

rifle is a rifle that has the capability of firing on full auto. This is different than what the media is calling

an assault rifle, as they are including anything that even looks remotely military in the category of

assault rifles. By doing so, they are demonstrating their ignorance.

The problem with full automatic fire is that you can't control the weapon. Firearms all have recoil and

when you are in full automatic fire, the recoil causes the shots to climb. In other words, after the first

shot, you're not shooting at the target. That's dangerous. If your bullet doesn't go where you want,

there's a good chance that it will go where you don't want. You could very easily end up killing the old

lady that lives across the street or the neighbor's child playing in their yard.

For this reason, I'm not in favor of fully automatic firearms for home defense. In the military they have

an application, as fully automatic fire is used on the battlefield for suppressive fire. It can also be used to

rake across an area where enemies are thought to be hidden. But that's a combat zone, not a home.

That leaves us with three categories of firearms to consider: pistols, rifles and shotguns.

Pistols or handguns are the easiest type of gun to use in a home, as their short length makes

maneuvering easy. However, as we already discussed, you want to try to engage the bad guys before

they get into your home. At the greater distance, unless you're a really good pistol shot, you're likely to

miss them.

Nevertheless, I firmly believe that every member of your family who is old enough to shoot or every

member of your survival team should carry a pistol at all times. As one firearms instructor put it, "You

carry a pistol so that you have something to shoot, while you're making your way to your long gun."

Pistols can be broken down into two general categories; revolvers and semi-automatic (erroneously

called automatic by the media). Many people like revolvers for their simplicity, but the revolver has one

problem, it is limited in the number of rounds it can carry. Reloading takes time, during which you are

essentially unarmed. For this reason, I prefer a semi-automatic pistol, where you can change out a

magazine and keep shooting.

1

Pistol caliber is another highly debated issue. Some prefer larger calibers for their greater power, while

others prefer smaller calibers, citing the penetration power of the 9mm. Basically, you should carry the

largest caliber pistol that you are comfortable shooting. That's key. If you aren't comfortable shooting it

because it beats up your hand or it's too loud, you're not going to use it correctly.

This is especially important for women. I carry a .45 caliber pistol as my personal defense weapon, but

my wife can't shoot it. Her hands aren't strong enough to allow her to rack the slide. So, I bought her

a .380 caliber Sig Sauer, which has the reputation of being the easiest semi-automatic pistol there is to

rack the slide. While she doesn't have as much firepower with her gun, she has a gun that she's

comfortable shooting.

When we talk about rifles, we're either talking about hunting rifles or sporting rifles that are modeled

after military rifles. Either one will work for shooting at bad guys in your front yard. But if they breach

your home's exterior, the military rifles are shorter and easier to use indoors.

The biggest problem with most rifles is that they are actually designed for use at a longer range than

what you're going to be shooting. That's okay, as it will still work fine at close ranges. But you might

want to check out how well your scope works at short range. If you don't have an adjustable

magnification on the scope, you might want to make sure that your scope mounts allow you to see the

iron sights on your rifle. Of course, if you don't have a scope, this isn't an issue.

1 Glock 17, 9mm with 17 round magazine. It has Crimson Trace laser sight and tactical light mounted to it; both of which have pressure sensitive switches that allow them to turn on when the gun is drawn. The pistol also has tritium sights for use in low light situations, so that the tactical light does not need to be used.

2

The other big difference between hunting rifles and military-style sporting rifles is the magazine capacity.

A lot has been said about "high capacity" magazines in the press and by liberal politicians. But in fact,

what they are calling high capacity is normal capacity. It's just that it's higher than what they think

people should be allowed to have. An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle will have a 30 round magazine, while a

hunting rifle will usually have 10 or less.

The other type of long gun to consider is a shotgun. Here again, length is an issue for maneuvering

indoors. However, if you buy a tactical shotgun, or one of the newer bulpup designs, they are

considerably shorter.

Many experts say that the shotgun is the ideal home defense weapon. One of the big reasons for this is

its flexibility. There are more types of ammunition made for the 12 gauge shotgun, than there are for

any other firearm you can buy. Not only can you buy a number of different shot sizes, but also slugs,

flares, beanbags (less than lethal), rubber slugs (also less than lethal) and flechette rounds (extremely

lethal).

Typically, a tactical shotgun is loaded with alternating 00 Buckshot and Slugs. This provides a round that

has a bit of dispersion, followed by one that is solid for maximum knockdown power. While the

dispersion of the shot inside a home won't be enough to matter, shooting outside the home will provide

some dispersion. For longer shots, out to 100 yards, the slugs work well. Slugs are also useful for

shooting cars to disable the engine.

Shotguns are normally considered "point and shoot" weapons, as for hunting you don't really aim them,

just point them at the bird. Most experts agree that when used for home defense or tactical situations,

they should be used the same. I disagree, for the same reason I disagree with using fully automatic rifles;

2 Custom built AR-15 sporting rifle. Has a short quad rail mounted on it, with a front vertical rail grip. The grip has a tactical light and laser sight built into it, both on momentary switches. A piston is used instead of gas impingement for cycling the action and loading another round. ATI adjustable stock and grip with Scorpion recoil system. A Bushnell 1 - 4 power scope is mounted on it as well.

you don't know who you'll hit, if you don't aim carefully.

3

I have a red dot sight mounted on my personal shotgun. This allows me to fire it with some degree of

accuracy. I say "some degree" because the ballistics of a shotgun aren't as good as they are for a rifle.

The lack of rifling to put a spin on the pellets coming out of the shotgun reduce its accuracy.

Nevertheless, a shotgun with a red dot sight is much more accurate than one with just a bead to sight

with.

Okay, so how should you arm your team? First of all, I'd recommend that everyone have a pistol as a

sidearm. This should be on their body at all times, from the time they wake up in the morning, to the

time they go to bed at night. Since we aren't in a survival mode right now, you might want to consider

getting a concealed weapons license, so that you can start carrying it.

In addition, I would recommend that every team member be armed with a long gun. These should vary,

with a good mix of shotguns and rifles. Keep in mind the limitations of how far you are shooting and buy

accordingly. I seriously doubt you're going to have many opportunities to use a sniper rifle and if you did,

you would have a hard time proving imminent danger, unless you are shooting at t sniper that's

shooting at you.

Firearms Training

Hollywood has done a great job of showing how easy guns are to use. After all, they've got lots of actors

who pick up a gun for the first time, hold it the wrong way, don't even use the sights and still manage to

hit a target that's out of range. Man, I wish I was that good.

In reality, shooting accurately is much harder than it looks. The basic fundamentals of shooting aren't all

that hard to learn, but learning how to apply them regularly and consistently, without having to think

about it, takes a lot of time on the shooting range, practicing. Even so, learning how to use firearms

accurately is still a lot easier than just about any other weapon you can think of.

3 Mossburg 500, 12 Gauge shotgun. The forestock has been replaced with a triple rail that has a tactical light on one side and an angled foregrip mounted below it. The light is on a pressure switch for momentary use. ATI adjustable folding stock and grip have been installed in lieu of the original. A 'red dot' sight is mounted on a rail above the action.

If you're going to use guns to defend your home, you're going to have to learn how to use them well. It's

best to learn on a pistol, as they are harder to shoot. The lessons you learn on a pistol will more easily

translate to a rifle or shotgun, than trying to start with a long gun and then go to a pistol. So, to start,

you need to learn how to shoot. Get a good book on shooting fundamentals or take a class at your local

range. That will get you started. Then, once you learn that, make it a regular habit to go to the shooting

range and practice.

You don't want to do a lot of shooting each time you go to the range. If you're shooting a .22 caliber

pistol, you can shoot up about 100 rounds in a session. If you're shooting a larger caliber, limit yourself

to 50 rounds. That way, your hands won't get too tired and throw off your shooting.

Concentrate on improving the size of your group. Group size is determined by measuring the centers of

the two holes in the target that are the farthest apart. You want to bring this size down as much as

possible. A four inch group is fairly good for moving on to the next stage of your training, but a one inch

group is better.

This target, one of mine, shows a 7/8" group. I don't always get that good a group, so it always brings a

smile to my face when I do. This was shot with the Glock pistol a couple of pages back.

Once you get to the point where you have a fairly good group size, it's time to start some tactical

shooting. Many shooting ranges offer tactical shooting events one night per week. In them, you are

faced with a scenario that you have to work your way through, alone, as if you are in a true life-fire

situation. The event is shot against the clock, which adds to the pressure, making it more realistic. Some

of the elements you will find incorporated in a tactical shooting scenario include:

Shooting at multiple targets - Bad guys, like coyotes, run in packs

Shooting at multiple ranges - No, the bad guys aren't all going to line up at the distance you're

used to shooting

Shooting at moving targets - Bad guys may not be all that smart, but they're smart enough to try

and get out of your line of fire

Shooting while moving - Assuming you're at least as smart as the bad guys, you shouldn't stand

there and make a good target out of yourself either

Shooting from cover - It's nice to have something to hide behind, which will stop the bad guy's

bullets

Shooting in low light - You can count on the bad guys showing up at the wrong time. One of

their favorites is when you can't see them well. Unfortunately, they won't take a rain check

Shooting in these circumstances is vastly different than shooting at round targets at a fixed range. No

matter how good a shot you are, I can pretty much guarantee that you will do horribly the first time out.

I did, and that target with the 7/8" group was shot with the same gun that I used at the tactical shoot.

The great thing about tactical shooting events like this is that they train you how to do what you have to

do, when you have to do it for real. After a few months of regular tactical shooting, you'll find that you

do better, even when they through things at you like shooting while moving.

Defending Your Home

Now that you have prepared your passive defenses, bought some guns and learned how to use them,

you're ready to consider how you're going to defend your home. I've already hinted at some of this, but

I want to bring it together and make sure you know how to develop your defensive plan.

The first thing you have to look at is the assets you have at your disposal. In other words, how many

shooters do you have available? Hopefully, you're not planning on doing a Rambo and taking them all on

yourself. If you only have one or two people attacking your home, you can probably manage that. But if

you've got 10 or 20, there's no way you can do it, no matter how good you are.

I understand your desire to protect your family and keep them from harm, but getting yourself shot,

trying to take them all on yourself isn't going to protect them. It's probably only going to ensure that

they get raped and killed as well. You need enough shooters on your team, to ensure that you can either

kill or drive off the attackers.

This is why a survival team is important. If you can team up with neighbors or friends and work together,

your chances of survival will be much greater. While it may seem crowded, pick the most defensible

house in your team and meet there. By living together you can share survival tasks, such as defense.

You want to spread out your shooters, putting them in separate firing positions. Those will mostly be the

windows of your home. That spreads out the shooters, providing a greater chance of hitting the bad

guys, while at the same time making the job of the bad guys to hit your team members even harder.

If your home is made of brick, it will stop pretty much all handgun rounds, with the exception of some

magnum rounds. However, it will not stop rifle rounds, other than .22 caliber long rifle. So, you may

need to fortify your defensive positions or use body armor.

To fortify your firing positions, you can turn to an age-old army device, called the sandbag. The floors of

an average home will support a three foot high, one foot thick sandbag wall, without any problem.

That's enough to stop pretty much all bullets fired from rifles, with the exception of a couple of the

stronger sniper rifle rounds.

One person (probably you), needs to confront the attackers as they approach the home, asking about

their intentions and warning them to leave. That may not have any effect, but it will put it on record

what they are approaching the home for. Once they have been put on notice, you can open fire, as long

as they are clearly displaying hostile intent.

We've talked about using an ambush and having it take on your front walkway, between the sidewalk

and your front door. That's the best possible scenario for you. The key thing is, they have to show

hostile intent first. That will probably happen by someone in the group taking a shot at the house. With

a sizeable group of aggressors, you can easily argue that they were an imminent threat, if they show

hostile intent.

Once they do, unleash on them with everything you've got. One of the things that makes an ambush

work so well is massed firepower raining down on the victims, quickly. It not only increases the chances

of getting some kills, but adds to the psychological impact of the event. Every one of them is going to

feel very alone, as if they are the only one you are shooting at.

Ideally, the majority of the group will lose courage and run away. That's as effective for your purposes as

having to kill them. It also lowers the legal complications. The less victims, the less likelihood of being

charged with murder.

The one person you most want to seek out and target is the group's leader (or leaders). They will usually

be pretty obvious, as they will do the talking and they will be giving commands to others. Those

commands may be verbal, but they might also be hand signals.

If you can take out the leader, then there's a good chance that you can demoralize the whole group,

causing them to run away. If you have a sniper, that's their principle job. If you don't have a sniper, than

take that as your principal job. Other than seeking out leaders and eliminating them, concentrate on

those that seem to be the biggest threat.

Don't forget about your blind side. A frontal attack could be a diversion to get your whole team fighting

that attack. While your attention is focused out the front of your house, they might send a man over

your back fence, with the mission of getting into your house and killing you. Always post a rear guard.

Stockpiling - What Else do You Need

We've already talked about stockpiling food and water, but that's not going to be enough, there are

some other things you should consider stockpiling as well. If the supply system is so bad that you can't

get food and water, you've got to figure that you aren't going to be able to get anything else you need

either. So, you'll have to be able to survive on what you have stored up in your home.

There's actually quite a bit that you need; some of which is obvious and some of which is not so obvious.

In addition, there might be some things that you think you need, but don't really. It's important to

remember that your main business will be survival, not whatever you do normally. In fact, your regular

job may be closed down for the duration of the crisis, leaving you free to deal with the necessities of

survival.

Of course, it all depends upon the actual disaster that you end up facing. Not all disasters will require

the same equipment and supplies. A lot will depend upon what parts of the infrastructure will still be in

operation. Since we don't know that ahead of time, we have to plan as if none of it will be.

This list isn't 100% complete, simply because every person's situation is different. You will need to add

to it as is appropriate for your personal needs. Keep in mind that as family members pass through

different stages of their lives, their needs will change. So, you'll want to plan ahead a bit, buying things

that they may not need for a year or two and having them in your stockpile.

Fuel - You're going to need fuel to burn for heating your home, cooking, your vehicle and even

for cutting the grass. While it will be impossible to stockpile enough fuel, you should do what

you can. It's especially important to stockpile fuel for eating and cooking, as you will need those

to survive.

Fire starters - You will probably be using fire to cook and heat your home. Make sure you have

an adequate supply of fire starters, both primary systems and some alternate ones you can use.

Lighting - Flashlights, candles and oil-burning lamps are all excellent options for lighting your

home when the power is out. One nice thing about oil-burning lamps is that you can burn just

about any flammable liquid in them, it doesn't just have to be the fuel designed for the lamps.

Batteries - Modern society is addicted to electricity. Even if the power is out, you'll still want to

use your portable electronics. Stock a goodly supply of batteries, especially AA and AAA. Now,

the manufacturers of alkaline batteries is saying that these batteries will last for as much as ten

years. Don't forget lithium button batteries for those things that need them.

Personal hygiene - Keeping clean is an important part of maintaining your health, specifically in

avoiding infections. Don't forget plenty of toilet paper, as well as feminine hygiene products.

Cleaning supplies - Keeping yourself clean is easier if you have the capability of keeping your

home clean as well. It will also help to keep down bugs, rodents and cockroaches.

Medicines - If you have any family members who regularly use prescription medicines, you want

to have a goodly supply of them on hand. This can be difficult because doctors may not want to

write prescriptions for a year or two's worth of the medications. If you happen to travel close to

Mexico you can solve this problem by buying the medicine in a Mexican pharmacy.

Heirloom seeds - Your best shot at sustainability if the crisis lasts beyond your food stocks is to

grow your own. Heirloom seeds are the old varieties, which are open pollinated. Unlike hybrids

and GMOs, seeds produced by plants grown from heirloom seeds will grow the next generation

of plants, the same as the generation they were taken from.

Gardening equipment and supplies - Gardening requires more than just dirt and seeds. You'll

need a fair amount of equipment, as well as fertilizer and some other supplies. Actually, I'd

recommend beginning your garden before the crisis hits, as it takes at least a year to get your

soil in shape for a good garden. This will also give you an opportunity to learn how to garden, so

that you can get good yields.

Hand tools - Most of us are used to using our power tools for everything. But if there is no

electrical power, those tools aren't going to do a whole lot of good. Make sure you have at least

the basic hand tools, as well as an axe, a shovel and a bow saw.

Home repair materials - Many disasters can cause damage to homes. A few basic supplies, like

plywood, 2"x 4" studs and tarps, along with a good selection of hardware, will help you to make

any emergency repairs needed.

Clothing - Most of the clothing that we use on a day-to-day basis isn't rugged enough to hold up

in a survival situation. You'll need some strong, outdoors type clothing that you can work in.

Your children will also need clothing, as they will be growing out of it. Have some clothes on

hand for them that are a size or two large, so that you have something for them to wear as they

grow.

Baby needs - If you have a baby in the household or if you are pregnant, you want to make sure

that you have enough baby supplies to last. I won't get into what those are, as that could be a

whole list in and of itself. But you might want to consider cloth diapers, rather than disposables.

Barter goods - Undoubtedly there will be things that you forget to stockpile; it happens to all of

us. The easy solution is to stock some barter goods, so that you can trade for those things you

need. Besides stocking extra food and the other survival supplies I've mentioned, the best barter

goods are alcohol and cigarettes.

Please note that I've intentionally skipped over items that are talked about elsewhere in this book.

There is no reason to repeat what I've already told you. So, before you run out with this list, thinking it is

complete, check through the rest of the book to see what else you need.

Chapter 6 – Fail-Proof Fire Fusion

I think that someone should have named fire man's best friend, rather than the dog. Maybe they didn't

because fire isn't alive, although it acts like it is at times. Nevertheless, fire remains the greatest

invention or perhaps discovery of all times. Whenever you find yourself in a survival situation, you'll be

glad you have fire to keep you warm and to cook your food.

In olden times, people thought nothing of starting a fire. Travelers carried a tinder box, which held some

tinder that they had encountered along the way, as well as a flint and steel for starting a fire. If they had

matches, they were stored in the tinder box as well. Armed with their tinderboxes, our ancestors were

ready to start a blazing fire for whatever their need might be.

Today, most of us have trouble starting a fire. Since we don't need to start a fire as often, when we do

need to start one, we struggle. But starting a fire really isn't all that hard, if you know how. Survival

instructors and others who are serious about survival collect ways of starting a fire, as if they got points

for them. While many of these aren't really the best to use when you need a fire, knowing many ways of

starting one helps ensure that you can, when you need one.

For most of us, all we need is our primary fire starting techniques, those of using matches or a butane

lighter. All the other, more exotic techniques are considered secondary techniques, to be used when we

don't have our primary means available. I'm not going to bother spending a lot of time talking about

secondary techniques, just recommend that you have a lot of matches and butane lighters on hand.

The absolute best matches on the market are ones called "stormproof matches." You can literally start

these matches underwater, let alone in a rainstorm. Many preppers make their own version of this,

taking four wood matches and bundling them together, wrapping a strip of toilet paper around them,

just behind the match heads. They then dip this is melted paraffin, covering the entire match bundle and

allowing it to dry.

To use these homemade waterproof matches, simply scrape the wax off the match heads and strike

them like normal. The combination of wax and toilet paper will provide you with a match which will

keep burning for a couple of minutes, giving you a good chance for getting your fire started.

If you are going to keep butane lighters on hand for fire starting, there's one thing you need to know.

That is, they don't work well in the cold. Butane liquefies at around the temperature of water freezing.

For the lighter to work, it needs to convert to a gaseous state. So, if you are planning on using a butane

lighter in the winter time, keep it inside your clothes, where your body can keep it warm.

How to Lay a Proper Fire

A lot of starting a fire depends upon proper preparation. Specifically, how you lay the fire. The same

basic rules apply whether you are laying a fire in your fireplace at home, in a fire pit in your back yard or

in a circle of rocks out in the woods.

To start with, you need someplace safe to light the fire, which will not catch fire itself. That means

having an area made of rock, gravel, cement or dirt. In the woods, you would build a circle of rocks

around a flat, cleared area or around a flat rock. At home, your fireplace or fire pit will provide that.

There are three different categories of materials you are going to burn. If you start out trying to catch

logs on fire, you're not going to get very far. Rather, you need to light smaller materials first, then work

your way up to the logs. Basically, we use a three step process, using:

Tinder - This is small pieces of material which will easily catch fire. Dry grass, charcloth, dryer lint,

an old bird's nest and other similar things are all great tinder. The tinder is the part we light,

which then carries the flame to larger materials.

Kindling - If we try to make a fire of all tinder, we'll spend all our time feeding it more material

to burn. So, we step it up to kindling. These are pieces of wood about the diameter of your

finger. They can range from as little as 2" up to big pieces which are 10" long. Just don't let them

get too big in diameter.

Fuel - Once the fire is started, it is passed on to larger pieces, which we call fuel. This is split

branches and tree trunks, which will burn for a while. As much as possible, you want to use

hardwoods for your fires and not softwoods, as the hardwoods will store more potential heat

energy in them.

When laying a fire, the idea is to catch the tinder on fire first and allow it to get the kindling burning. The

kindling can then pass the fire on to the fuel. Once the fuel is burning, you can say that your fire is ready.

For cooking, you'll want it to burn a while, so as to produce coals. The coals burn hotter than the flame,

so they are better for cooking with.

Fire - pyramid

Fire - teepee

There are several ways of stacking a fire, such as crisscrossing the pieces to make a tower or leaning

them against each other to form a teepee. How you stack the fuel isn't as important as doing so in a way

that allows the progression of the fire from tinder to kindling to fuel. This is usually accomplished by

having the tinder at the bottom, with the kindling stacked over it, leaving air space and finally the fuel.

Air space is very important in any fire. If not enough air gets to the fire, it will go out. So, when you stack

your materials, you want to make sure that at least half of your space is air space. That will allow air to

flow through and keep the fire burning.

Secondary Fire Starters

There are many different ways of starting a fire, but I want to mention a couple of the best. If you make

sure you always have good means of starting a fire with you, then you may not need some of the more

exotic methods.

Sparkers

There are a number of different fire starters that provide hot sparks to get your fire going. The most

common one is the Ferro (ferrocarbon) Rod. This is a man-made material which is struck on a piece of

steel, much like using flint and steel. Typically they are sold with a short piece of a hack saw blade

attached, to use as the steel. However, the back of a knife works better.

Going up the scale from there is the Metal Match. This is a block of magnesium, with a Ferro Rod

embedded into one side. Magnesium is highly flammable, so it makes a great fire starter. To use it, some

shavings of magnesium are cut off with a knife and allowed to fall on the tinder. Then the knife is flipped

over and the back side struck on the Ferro Rod, directing sparks into the magnesium to start it burning.

There is one other type of sparker that is even better, that's the BlastMatch. This device takes the idea

of a Metal Match and a Ferro Rod and puts them together in a spring-loaded package. When you push it

down, it creates a shower of sparks, starting your tinder burning.

Solar

When I was a kid, my parents gave me a magnifying glass. It wasn't really glass, but plastic, but we still

called it a glass. About the first thing I did with it was to take it outside and find a dry leaf to start on fire.

While that little magnifying glass didn't do all that good a job, the idea is sound.

Focusing the sun's rays, either by the use of a lens or by reflection is a great way to start a fire. There are

countless ways of doing this, up to and including making a lens out of ice that you cut from a frozen over

river. However, that's a rather desperate method, only for use when you don't have anything else to

count on.

Carrying a small Fresnel lens with you offers an easy way to start a fire. Just focus the sun's rays through

it, aiming them at some dry grass of leaves to act as tinder.

You can also focus the sun's rays with any parabolic reflector. You actually have several of these around

you, without even realizing it. Your car's headlight housing is a parabolic reflector, as is the reflector

inside a flashlight. If you have stainless steel mixing bowls, they will probably work as a parabolic

reflector as well.

Friction

Stating fires with friction is the hardest way that you can find to start them. However, methods like the

bow drill work well, once you've practiced enough with them to become proficient in using them.

Fire Accelerants and how to Make Them

There's a bit of confusion when it comes to fire starters. The confusion comes in that anything that is

used to help get a fire going is called a fire starter. However, not all fire starters are the same. Some

create fire and others work to get that fire into the tinder, kindling and fuel. These are better called fire

accelerants.

If you pour charcoal lighter fluid on charcoal and then throw in a match, the lighter fluid is an accelerant.

It is accelerating the rate at which the fire gets into the fuel. Since charcoal lighter fluid isn't a great

choice for use indoors or when you are bugging out, we need to look at other accelerants.

There are a number of commercially distributed fire accelerants on the market, some of which have

been developed specifically for the prepping and survival market. Of these, the cubes are about the best

I have used. They can be broken into smaller pieces for use multiple times and burn hot enough to

pretty much guarantee starting a fire, even if your fuel is a bit on the damp side. Instead of buying them

though, I'm going to show you how to make three different types of fire accelerants.

Dryer Lint & Wax

This is one of the easiest fire accelerants to make and if you buy candles from garage sales, it costs

almost nothing to make. Start by making loose balls of dryer lint and putting them in a cardboard egg

carton. It has to be the cardboard type and not Styrofoam. Melt some paraffin from old candles and

pour it over the dryer lint, wetting it. It is not necessary to fill the egg carton with the wax, just put

enough in to wet the lint well. Allow it to cool, cut or tear it apart into individual cups and its ready to go;

you don't even need to take them out of the carton.

Cotton Balls & Petroleum Jelly

This is my go-to fire accelerant, both because it is easy to make and because it works well. All you need

are cotton balls and petroleum jelly. Start by stretching the cotton ball out, making a bowl out of it. Then

put a glob of petroleum jelly in it, equivalent to about 2/3 teaspoon. Fold the cotton over it and knead it,

mixing the petroleum jelly throughout the cotton.

This fire accelerant starts extremely easy, even with a sparker. It will burn for over three minutes, at a

temperature high enough to not only start a regular fire, but also one in which you're starting out with

damp wood.

Black Powder & Nail Polish Remover

When all else fails, this method will start a fire, even with wet firewood. To make this, you'll need some

black powder (the old type of gunpowder, still used for muzzle loaders) and some oily nail polish

remover, the type that has acetone in it. When you buy the black powder, buy the finest grade they

have; it's graded by the size of the granules. You want the smallest granules possible.

Put about two tablespoons of black powder into a bowl and cover it with the nail polish remover. Allow

it to soak in for a couple of minutes and then pour off the excess nail polish remover. It will have

softened the black powder, turning it into putty. Knead that putty thoroughly by flattening it out and

folding it over. You are trying to make layers in it and you need about 50 of them.

The layers are what controls the burn rate of this accelerant, so they are very important. Without them,

the putty will burn too rapidly, almost exploding. With sufficient layers, this accelerant will burn for

about 3 1/2 minutes at a temperature over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's enough to dry the wood

out and get it burning.

The one problem with this type of fire accelerant is that acetone is highly volatile. So, it will evaporate

out of the putty very easily. Once that happens, these are useless and need to be replaced. I usually

keep mine in 35mm film cans, in which they stay good for about six months. A baby food jar would keep

them good longer, but is much more fragile. I'm not sure I'd want to keep a baby food jar in my bug out

bag, just to have a good fire starter.

Chapter 7 – Household Military Medic

In a crisis situation, medical services tend to become overloaded. The disaster itself causes many people

to be hurt and then many more are hurt as they deal with surviving the aftermath and putting their lives

back together. On top of this, there is the usual workload of babies being born and people with chronic

illnesses that the medical community has to deal with.

With all that, it can be hard to get to see a doctor, except for the most serious of circumstances. Then

there's the problem of getting to a doctor. Roads may be blocked by fallen trees, gasoline pumps may

not be working and roads may even be damaged.

That's why it's a good idea to have a good first-aid kit on hand, as well as learning some basic first aid

skills to use in taking care of your family's injuries and minor illnesses. With the right medical supplies on

hand, most of which can be purchased over the counter, you can take care of a lot of things yourself,

leaving the doctors to take care of the more serious illnesses and injuries.

Building a Survival First-Aid Kit

With medical services potentially overloaded, you need to be ready to take care of things yourself,

especially wounds. I'm not talking about a little paper cut here, but major wounds, like gunshot wounds

or someone hitting themselves in the leg with an axe. Those need quick treatment to stop the bleeding

and prevent infection.

The type of first aid kit you can buy at your corner pharmacy isn't going to do a thing for these larger

wounds. You can buy larger kits, known as "trauma kits," but I prefer to make my own. That makes it

more complete and ensures that I know what to do with everything in the kit.

To start with, you'll need a good case for it, something to keep everything together, organized and

protected. Most commercial trauma kits come in soft cases, but I like using a large fishing tackle box.

That provides a lot of room and some pretty good organization. To make larger areas for supplies, I cut

out some of the dividers between compartments in the trays.

I recommend buying high quality first aid supplies and equipment. This isn't a good place to cut corners.

High quality supplies will hold up better, do a better job of taking care of your patients and ultimately

cost less, because they will work correctly.

So, what do you need to put in this kit?

Personal Protection

Medical grade gloves - You always want to wear gloves when treating anyone. Many infections

can be transmitted by the blood. By wearing gloves, you can help ensure that the patient

doesn't infect you and that you don't infect the patient.

Anti-bacterial hand cleaner - Always clean your hands, up to the elbows, before treating a

wound. Your skin has a lot of bacteria on it and you don't want that to get into the patient's

wound.

Medical mask - For keeping you from breathing directly on the patient's open wound. It also

protects your nose and mouth, should they cough or sneeze.

CPR mask - Used when doing CPR to keep saliva from passing from one person to the other.

Viruses and bacteria can pass with bodily fluids.

Medical Equipment

Blood pressure cuff - For diagnosis. Helps you determine if the person has bled too much or if

there is internal bleeding. High blood pressure is also dangerous in and of itself, triggering

strokes and heart attacks. If you have anyone in your family who is susceptible to these, you

should monitor them regularly.

Blood sugar kit - Also for diagnosis. Low blood sugar is a prime cause of people fainting or

passing out. If they feel dizzy, weak or are shaking, check their blood sugar.

Medical scissors - For cutting away clothing and removing old bandages. Don't cut corners here,

as good ones should be able to cut through blue jeans, including the seams.

Fine-pointed tweezers - For removing splinters and other foreign objects.

Eye loupe - For use with the tweezers

Eye cup - For rinsing the eye out when it has foreign objects in it. It is used with a sterile

saltwater solution.

Hemostats - For closing off exposed blood vessels that are bleeding profusely. This is risky, as

you will be cutting off blood blow to parts of the body, so only do it when absolutely necessary

to prevent the patient from bleeding to death.

Tourniquet (the kind that can be used one handed) - Used when there is a severed limb or when

there is excessive bleeding. Like the hemostats, you need to be careful, as you are cutting off

blood flow to that limb. Only use when absolutely necessary and even then, release pressure

every ten minutes to see if the wound has clotted. A tourniquet can also be used as a pressure

bandage, if you are careful with it.

Snake bite kit - Conventional wisdom has moved away from the old snake bite kit where you cut

an X and sucked out the blood. The only snake (and insect) bite kit on the market today which

works is made by Sawyer. It works by suction, drawing the poison out through the holes it was

injected in.

Medical Supplies

Blood clotting agent - A powder which absorbs blood and helps promote clotting. This is

available either as a powder alone or impregnated into a bandage. Very effective for wounds

where there is a lot of bleeding, reducing overall blood loss.

Fabric adhesive bandages (assorted sizes) - The fabric bandages work much better than plastic

ones, as they are flexible and conform to the movement of the body. They can be put over joints,

without coming loose. There are special bandages for knuckles and fingertips, both of which I

recommend highly.

Larger bandages - Larger bandages don't usually have adhesive strips on them, being held in

place by medical tape. Stock an assortment of sizes, ranging from 2"x 3" up to 5"x 7".

Sanitary napkins - These are great for bandages on large wounds. They are sterile and designed

for absorbing a large amount of blood. They are also considerably cheaper than normal

bandages.

Butterfly closures - Used in place of suturing, for those that don't know how to suture. They look

like an adhesive bandage strip, without the middle pad. The center area, where the pad would

normally be, is just a thin strip, to hold the two adhesive parts together. They are placed over

open wounds, pulling the skin together so that it can heal.

Medical tape - For holding all types of bandages in place. While more expensive, the new

cohesive tape they have come out with is much better. This tape is like a thin, stretchy rubber

band. Instead of sticking to the skin (and hair) it sticks to itself, holding the bandage in place.

Antiseptic ointment - For putting on wounds to keep them from becoming infected.

Irrigating syringe - A large syringe used for flushing out a wound and floating out foreign objects.

The syringe can be used with any water that is purified enough to drink with. It comes with a

plastic "needle" for getting inside the wound.

Alcohol towelettes - For cleaning and disinfecting wounds.

Elastic bandages - The old "Ace Bandage" is great for stabilizing all sorts of injuries to joints.

They are also useful for holding splints in place.

Formable splint ("Sam Splint") - This splint material is aluminum, backed by foam rubber. The

splint can be cut with medical scissors and is flexible, allowing it to be bent to conform to the

injured limb. It is held in place by elastic bandages. The fastest and easiest way to make a splint.

Cold packs - Applying ice or a cold pack to a recently injured joint can help to prevent swelling.

For this to help, it must be applied as quickly as possible and held there for the first 15 minutes,

as that is when most of the swelling occurs.

As you can see, this is a lot to keep in a first aid kit. Even so, you're going to find that you are limited by

space. It is a good idea to have a box of backup supplies, to replenish your first aid kit, when things are

used. For example, you will probably only keep one Sam Splint in the kit, but when you use it, it would

be nice to have another to replace it.

Basic Medicines You Should Have

It is impossible to stockpile all the medicines you might need for every eventuality. Fortunately, that's

not necessary. Even if you did, you don't have the knowledge or the test equipment to diagnose any and

every possible medical situation. However, just stockpiling a few basic medicines will take care of most

situations you are likely to be faced with.

Other then the antibiotics, most of these are over the counter medicines. However, antibiotics are

controlled to prevent them being misused. Without proper understanding of their use, taking antibiotics

indiscriminately can be dangerous.

Pain relievers - Common pain relievers like Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen are the first thing you

want to include in your medical kit. These also work as anti-inflammatories. Many times, pain is

caused by inflammation, rather than by damage. In either case, these pain relievers will help

reduce pain and can also help to reduce fever.

One thing you should know about these pain relievers is that both of them can be taken at the

same time. So, if you have a situation where there is severe pain, you can stagger taking both of

these medications, taking one, than the other, every two hours. They do not react with each

other and will not cause the patient any harm.

Antihistamine - The number one medicine for dealing with allergies, colds and the flu.

Antihistamines block nerves to prevent the excess forming of mucus. It does not cure anything,

but merely deals with the symptoms, while the body's immune system overcomes the disease.

Decongestant - Used for clearing blocked sinuses. One must be careful with the use of

decongestants, especially nasal sprays, as it is possible to become physically addicted to them.

However, for the short duration of most colds, there is no risk.

Imodium, also known as Loperamide - The most effective OTC medicine for dealing with

diarrhea. As one can become dehydrated from diarrhea, it must be treated seriously, especially

in a survival situation. Improperly purified water can cause diarrhea.

Antibacterial ointment (Bacitracin or Neosporin) - For protecting cuts and abrasions from

becoming infected.

Hydrocortisone cream - Used extensively for treatment of rashes and other skin irritations.

More than anything, it reduces the itching so that the patient doesn't scratch it and enlarge the

infected area.

Meclizine (Dramamine) - For the relief of nausea, vomiting and motion sickness. It can cause

drowsiness in some people, so it can be used as a sleep aid for those people.

Clotrimazole cream - Used for treatment of various types of fungal infections. If you buy the

lotion, rather than the cream, it can also be used for vaginal fungal infections.

In addition to these, it would be a good idea to have some basic antibiotics on hand. This can be tricky,

as the right antibiotic needs to be used for the right infection. Here is some basic information on the

most common antibiotics and what they can be used for. There are a number of medical websites online

which can give you more information about these medicines. 4

Ampicillin - a form of penicillin, but more effective. Can be used for respiratory tract infections,

bacterial meningitis, urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal infections.

Azithromycin - A great all-around antibiotic. Can be used for Chlamydia, Lyme Disease, PID,

Syphilis, Typhoid and much more. There is a slight chance of abdominal pain, nausea and

diarrhea.

Cephalexin - Great for almost any type of respiratory infection, such as bronchitis, pneumonia,

strep, etc. as well as middle ear infections. It is also safe for pregnant women.

Amoxicillin - This antibiotic will handle most of the same infections as Cephalexin. It is also safe

for pregnant women and small children. Some people are allergic to it, in which case

Erythromycin should be used.

Erythromycin - Another good antibiotic for respiratory and middle ear infections. It is also good

for syphilis, lyme disease and chlamydia. It is also safe for women and children. However, it can

have side effects, such as nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

Doxycyline - Treats the same things as Erythromycin, however it is easier to find. Can also treat

sinus infections, Typhus and Malaria. It should not be used by children, pregnant women or

nursing mothers. It can cause kidney impairment and sensitive skin.

Ciproflaxacin - Best for urinary tract infections, prostrate infections and respiratory infections, as

well as bacterial diarrhea, anthrax, and colitis. Should never be used by pregnant or nursing

mothers.

Metronidazole - Used primarily for treating anaerobic bacteria in the intestine. It can also treat

bacterial vaginosis, diabetic foot ulcers, joint or bone infections, lung or brain abcesses,

meningitis and a few other infections. Should not be used by children, pregnant women or

nursing mothers.

SMZ-TMP - Sulfamethoxazone and Trimethrpin (the actual name) - Can treat most respiratory

infections, but are often used for urinary tract infections. One of the best things about it is that

it can be used to treat resistant staph.

4 Please note that I am not a MD and therefore I cannot and am not prescribing these medicines or

recommending that you use them for any particular purpose. The information I am providing here is

commonly available on the internet. I recommend you study this out for yourself and always proceed

with caution.

While it is difficult to buy these antibiotics over the counter, there are ways of buying them. I buy them

in the pharmacy in Mexico, where I don't need to hand over a prescription to buy them. You can also

buy them through some online suppliers without a prescription. Be careful about this though, as not all

online suppliers sell you what they say they are selling you.

Another very effective option is to buy these medications as veterinary pharmaceuticals. In most cases,

they are the same medications, produced in the same factories, but packaged differently. While labeled

as not being for human consumption, in a survival situation, they are much better than not having

anything to use.

Some of the common veterinary equivalents for these antibiotics are:

Ampicillin - "Fish Cillin"

Cephalexin - "Fish Flex"

Amoxicillin - "Fish Mox"

Doxycyline - "Fish Cycline"

Ciproflaxacin - "Fish Flox"

Metronidazole - "Fish Zole"

SMZ-TMP - Sulfamethoxazone and Trimethrpin (the actual name) - "Bird Sulfa"

Please be careful about allergic reactions to these antibiotics. Reactions can be severe at times. If you

see any abnormal symptoms, be sure to terminate treatment immediately.

Understanding Hypothermia and Hyperthermia

One of the most dangerous killers you are likely to encounter in any survival situation is hypothermia. It

can not only cause problems during the time of the disaster itself, but all the way throughout the

recovery process. Every year, countless lives are lost to this killer, many of them unreported, except in

local media. There, they are often referred to as people who "died of exposure" or "froze to death."

People confuse hypothermia and hyperthermia all the time. That's simply because of the Latin prefixes

to these terms. However, if you can remember that a child who is overly active is referred to as

"hyperactive" or simple "hyper" then you will be able to remember that "hyperthermia" means too

much heat. So, the other term, "hypothermia," means too little heat. While both are dangerous and

both can kill you, hypothermia is more common and generally more dangerous.

It's easy to make the mistake of thinking that hypothermia can only happen when it is bitterly cold out,

but that's not true. Since hypothermia is a lowering of the body's temperature, it can happen anytime

when the ambient temperature is considerably lower than the body's natural core temperature. Every

year there are people who die of hypothermia in the summertime, usually because they get wet.

Water makes the body radiate heat more quickly, just as perspiration does. So, if the person gets wet or

their clothes get wet right before sundown, say by falling in a stream, they could be in grave danger. At

the same time that the ambient temperature is dropping quickly, the person is radiating heat quickly.

Most types of fabric actually cause body heat to radiate faster when they are wet, than being naked. In

fact, the only cloth that retains some of its insulating value when wet is wool. Even soaked through,

wool will retain half its insulating value. But all others draw body heat away, sometimes as much as 200

times faster (a down jacket will do that).

Technically, hypothermia is a lowering of the body's core temperature. The body has several defenses it

can put into play to avoid hypothermia. The first of these is shivering. When we shiver, muscles are

being contracted and then allowed to relax again. That movement of the muscles burns energy, which is

then converted to heat. The second defense is to slow the flow of blood to the extremities, so that the

body's heat will stay in the core. Taken to an extreme, that can cause other problems, such as frostbite.

One of the problems with both hypothermia and hyperthermia is that it doesn't take much of a shift in

the body's core temperature for the individual to lose the ability to think clearly. Once that happens,

they probably won't be able to save themselves. There have literally been cases of people who seemed

more or less okay, but hypothermia had progressed to the point where they walked right past their car

and off into the woods, without seeing the car.

Because of this inability to recognize what is happening to ourselves, it is important to recognize and

heed the first signs of hypothermia. It is also important to recognize it in others and watch out for it.

Most people who are rescued from hypothermia are rescued by others, not by rescuing themselves.

There is a detailed list of symptoms, which breaks down by levels of hypothermia, but learning all the

details isn't as useful as knowing the basic symptoms to look for. These are:

Shivering

Decreased awareness (especially of one's own condition)

Confusion

Inability to think clearly

Apathy

Loss of dexterity

As the individual progresses through the various stages of hypothermia, these symptoms will increase.

For example, their dexterity will degrade to the point where they start to stumble. Their speech will

become less clear and more slurred. They will make less effort to protect themselves from the cold,

even to the point of acting as if they were warm. They can even reach a point where they stop shivering.

Treatment for hypothermia requires warming the person up immediately. That is accomplished by

removing any wet clothing and getting them into a sleeping bag, if possible. Put another person in there

with them, to share body heat with them. If there is shelter available, get them into it and some heat

going. Light a fire and get them close to it. You can also give them hot liquids to drink or hot soup to eat.

While hyperthermia is the opposite of hypothermia, there is some similarity in the symptoms, especially

those referring to the person's mental state. However, they will also exhibit other symptoms which are

particular to the heat:

Nausea or vomiting

Decreased appetite

Severe thirst

Generalized weakness and possible muscle spasms

Headaches

Their pulse may become irregular

Hyperthermia is treated by bringing the body's core temperature down. The easiest way to do that is to

douse them in cool water (not ice water) or to use ice packs. In the hospital, they use alcohol, as it

evaporates faster than water. If you have it available, submerging their body in water, while holding

their head above the surface is about the fastest way to bring their temperature down.

Treating Wounds

Proper treatment of wounds is important for two basic reasons; ensuring healing and preventing

infection. Of the two, preventing infection is actually more important. During the Middle Ages, more

people died of the infections caused by wounds, than by the wounds themselves.

Let's define what we are talking about here. For the purpose of discussion, when I use the word

"wound" I'm referring to any unnatural opening in the skin. It doesn't matter if that's a scrape, cut, hole

or tear, they are all the same thing. What makes them the same is that the skin is penetrated, making an

opening for bacteria to enter the body.

The skin is actually a very important part of our autoimmune system, in that it is an almost impermeable

barrier for bacteria, viruses and other germs. So, unnatural openings in the skin are worth being

concerned about, regardless of how big or small they are.

1. Before treating any sort of wound, it's important to make sure that you aren't going to introduce

any bacteria into it. So, start by cleaning your own hands with antibacterial hand cleaner, all the

way up to the elbows. Then, if you have them available, put on surgical gloves. While this may

seem redundant, we're talking about your family's health, so it's worth taking the extra step.

2. Examine the wound to determine the extent of the injury. You need to notice if there are any

foreign objects in the wound, how fast the blood is flowing and whether the skin comes back to

meet over the injury.

3. The first actual step in treatment is to clean out the wound. There are two goals here. The first is

to clean out any foreign objects, such as splinters, gravel or dirt. At the same time, you are

hopefully removing at least some of the bacteria that might have entered the wound. Since

bacteria are all around us and we can't see them, we have to assume that at least some have

entered.

The easiest way to clean out a wound is with an irrigation syringe. This is a large plastic syringe

with a plastic nozzle. It allows you to squirt water directly into the wound, even putting the

nozzle below the surface if there is an opening. If you don't have an irrigation syringe, running

water can be used. In either case, if the water is safe enough to drink, it's safe enough to irrigate

the wound with. In an absolute emergency, urine can be used, as it is biologically pure.

4. Use alcohol or hydrogen peroxide for the next stage of the cleaning process. Water won't kill

bacteria, but these will. You don't only want to clean the wound, but also the area around it.

5. Apply an antibacterial ointment to the wound to kill any bacteria. Make this a generous

application, without becoming wasteful and globing it on. A thin coating over the entire open

area is sufficient.

6. If the wound is bleeding profusely, it may be necessary to apply a blood clotting agent. This

absorbs the blood and helps with the rapid formation of a scab to protect the wound. Blood

clotting agents can either be in powder form or impregnated into a bandage.

7. If the wound is open in the sense that the skin doesn't meet, try to make it meet by pushing on

the flesh on either side of the wound with your fingers. If it can be made to meet, it will heal

faster. In a hospital, they would suture such a wound, but you can do just as well by using

butterfly closures to hold the wound closed.

8. Cover the wound with a bandage which is large enough to ensure that the whole wound is

covered by the gauze part of the bandage. This way, there will be something to absorb the blood

and promote clotting. Tape the bandage in place, sealing all the edges and ensuring that the

tape will not pull loose by movement of the limb.

Generally speaking, bandages should be changed every 24 hours. This is mostly because they become

dirty. If the bandage becomes stuck to the wound, you may have to pull it loose, which could pull off

part of the scab and cause the wound to start bleeding again. This should be done with care, to minimize

blood loss.

Each time the wound is re-bandaged, clean the area and apply antibacterial ointment once again. While

there may be a scab in place to protect the wound, your action of removing the bandage may have

opened up the scab, allowing bacteria to enter. Better to play it safe and keep the wound clean.

Treating Broken Bones

Broken bones are difficult to treat on your own. You are limited by the inability to see what is actually

happening, unless there is a compound fracture and the bone is sticking out through the skin. These are

extremely dangerous, with a high risk of permanent disability or even death.

In theory, all that has to be done with a simple fracture is to ensure that the bones are aligned and then

immobilize them until they heal back together. Even a slightly more complex fracture, where the bones

are separated, but haven't penetrated the skin only requires aligning the bones and immobilizing them

for healing to occur. That's the theory anyway; in reality, it's difficult to properly align those bones if you

don't know what you are doing.

The best thing to do is to immobilize the bones and get the patient to a doctor who knows more than

you and I do. That means splinting the limb. For a splint to be effective, it must immobilize both of the

joints that surround the break. So, a break to the shin would require immobilizing the knee and ankle.

Any movement of either of these joints would cause the fracture to move as well.

Splints can be made of almost any stiff material. Tree branches have been effectively used for centuries.

However, if you have it, a Sam Splint is much easier to work with. A Sam Splint is a piece of aluminum

sheeting that is coated with about 1/4 inch of high density foam rubber on one side. It can be cut with

medical scissors and shaped with your hands. This makes it a more or less universal splint for use in

immobilizing any fracture in a limb.

The Sam Splint should be shaped off the patient's body, so as to not cause them any undue pain. Once

shaped, place it on both sides of the limb and tie it in place. The easiest way to tie them in place is by

using elastic bandages; the type that are used for sprained and strained joints.

If you absolutely have to set the bone, you will have to work by feel to locate the fracture and how the

two ends of the bone are in relation to one another. If they are overlapping, the limb will need to be

stretched, so that they can be guided into position. Once stretched, the ends of the bone will tend to

find each other and settle into the correct position. Verify this by feel and then splint the bone.

There may be a possibility of a surface wound in conjunction with the fracture, even without a

compound fracture. In that case, you'll have to decide which you have to deal with first. In most cases,

you'll have to immobilize the fracture first, and then work on the wound. That means you have to

ensure that you leave access to it, even when the splint is tied in place.

The Importance of Personal Hygiene

Personal hygiene is an important element in maintaining your health, especially in a survival situation.

Many diseases are passed from person to person, especially in third-world countries, simply because of

a lack of personal hygiene.

When we do something as common as eating, without ensuring the cleanliness of our hands, we open

the door for bacteria to enter our bodies through our mouths. This problem becomes even worse when

we are eating with our hands. So, something as simple as dirty hands can adversely affect our health.

Many people become sick during the aftermath of a crisis, because of lack of proper hygiene. We are

accustomed to being able to use copious amounts of water to wash with, so when that water is not

available, we tend not to keep ourselves as clean. While dirty hair won't make you sick, that's about the

only part of your body you can let go, without some sort of risk of affecting your health.

It is possible to wash with very little water. I've had to learn this, because I travel to third-world and

emerging countries. In many places, the "shower" consists of a small cement room and a bucket. You fill

the bucket with water and use a smaller plastic container to scoop water out of it. About a quart is

enough to wet your body, if you use it carefully. Then you soap your body and use the rest of the water

carefully to rinse off. I've actually managed to wash myself, including my hair, with less than a gallon of

water.

Keeping out clothes clean isn't as important as keeping our bodies clean, but who wants to put on dirty

clothes after bathing? To save water on washing your clothes, put them in the bottom of the bathtub

while you are taking your bucket shower. As you bathe, walk on your clothes, ensuring that they get wet.

Then, once you're done bathing, you can wash your clothes in your bath water.

The other really big issue when it comes to personal hygiene is dealing with human waste. If you happen

to have a septic tank at your home, you have an advantage. With a septic tank, you don't have to worry

about city water and sewage working, to take care of your sewage. You can still use your toilet, although

you should only flush it with grey water (water that has been used for cleaning) to conserve water.

If you don't have a septic tank, there are two options you can use. You have to realize that human waste,

especially solid human waste is highly toxic, with a high concentration of bacteria. Improper disposal of

this can cause serious health problems.

One option is to dig an old fashioned outhouse. If you do, you should keep it at least 100 feet from any

water source. That means wells, streams and ponds, including those of your neighbors. Bacteria can

travel through the ground and infect water sources, if they are too close. Don't allow your outhouse to

be uphill from these places either, as that increases the distance the bacteria can travel.

If you live in a place where you can't dig a well, you can always use a five gallon bucket as a toilet, with a

plastic bag inside. All you need to do, in order to do this, is to mount a toilet seat on the bucket. The bag

can be removed every day and tied up, saving it until it is possible to dispose of it properly.

A Quick Word About Herbal Medicine

Modern medicine has its roots in herbal medicine. Ancient doctors gathered herbs, flowers, seeds and

plants, making their own medicines out of them. Many plants have medicinal properties, which have

been passed down through the generations.

Today's pharmaceuticals are copies of what is naturally found in nature. Pharmaceutical laboratories

look for naturally occurring chemicals which deal with diseases. They then develop an artificial means to

create a chemical that is extremely close to the naturally occurring one, which will accomplish the same

thing, but doesn't occur in nature. They then patent that new chemical and sell it a medicine.

The reason for all this is obviously profit. Pharmaceutical companies can't patent naturally occurring

chemicals and can't make any money off of selling what you and I can pick in our backyards. So, they

have to go through a lot of extra work. But, the natural remedies still work and often work better than

what man has created.

In a post-disaster world, herbal medicine may be the only medicine available to us. While there are few

people around who are true experts in this field, there are many books available. I would highly

recommend buying a good book on herbal medicine and another on plant recognition, preferably

written from the viewpoint of herbal medicine. That way, when the time comes, you'll have the

information ready at hand.

Chapter 8 - Urban Survival System

Chances are that most people will be in the city when a disaster strikes. The vast majority of our

population lives and works in the city, so it only makes sense that we would be there when a crisis

comes to call. Even if we ultimately decide that we need to bug out and get away from the city, we'll be

forced into surviving in an urban environment for at least some of the time.

Urban survival has both advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage we find is that we have

our home available to us. Along with our home, we have all our possessions, at least some of which can

help us to survive. We are also close to many of the resources we will need to survive, assuming that

others don't grab those resources first. However, the big problem with surviving in an urban

environment is the people around us. We will be surrounded by people who will be competing for those

same resources, some of whom won't have the scruples that you and I do.

It is said that desperate people do desperate things. As the first few days without power and water pass

and people start eating up the food they have in their homes, they will begin to get desperate. It won't

take more than a week for people to start looking at where they can get supplies from, either

legitimately or by killing someone to take what they have. That's when things will start to get dangerous.

That's why home defense is such an important part of prepping. At some point in time, you're probably

going to have to defend your home, as it will end up being attacked by those people. You might be able

to put off that day by practicing good operational security and keeping your prepping a secret, but

people will eventually figure out what you're doing, especially your neighbors and friends.

The "Grey Man" Theory

One of the things you'll have to do in an urban survival situation is to make yourself as invisible as

possible. People notice what sticks out, so you don't want to stick out. You don't want to look like you're

living better than other people are, and you don't want to look like you're eating better than other

people are.

The grey man theory is about blending in. There are people all around us, each and every day, whom we

don't notice. Maybe it's a beggar on the street or the janitor at the office. It could be the delivery boy or

the cop on the street. These people become part of the scenery, escaping our notice.

That's what you need to do. How? By looking so boring that nobody pays attention to you. The last thing

you want to do is to stand out and look like you're prepared to survive the zombie apocalypse. Don't

walk around in public with camouflage on. Don't carry a tricked out AR-15 on the streets. Don't turn

your pickup truck into an armored car and drive it down the street. Don't be fat and happy, when

everyone else is losing weight.

Downgrade your appearance, both personally and that of your home. Some dirty or torn clothes when

you go out in public and a little bit of garbage sitting around your the front of your house will go a long

way towards making it look like you're suffering as much as anyone else. Cover a window or two from

the outside with cardboard, as if they were broken and you didn't have the money to repair them. These

little things will make a huge difference in the impression that others have of you.

The hardest part is that you'll need to lose weight... that is, unless you are already thin. Pretty much

everyone around you will be on a forced diet, so they'll be losing weight. If you are overweight and stay

overweight while they are losing weight, it will be a sure sign that you have food. You can hide this a

little bit by wearing clothes that are too large for you, but that trick will only work for a little while. At

some point, they'll see through that ruse.

Another area of hiding your affluence is in your use of electricity. If you have solar panels and can keep

your home lighted, when nobody else has electrical power, everyone will instantly know that you're

better off than they are. This is easily hidden by putting up blackout curtains, covering the windows

from the inside, so that the light can't escape. Be sure to check it from the outside, to make sure there

isn't a crack that light is getting out through.

The same can be said for water, heat, a cooking fire and pretty much everything else we depend upon.

You'll need to hide all that, even while you are using it. If you are cooking outside, do so in such a way

that people aren't going to be smelling it all around the neighborhood. Make sure that the wood in your

fireplace is dry, so that it doesn't produce any smoke. Don't water your flower beds and mow your lawn.

All of those things would give you away.

Where to Find Water in the City

We talked earlier about ways that you can harvest water, specifically rainwater collection systems and

putting in a well. But not everyone is able to do those. If you can't, you'll need to have other sources for

water. That may very well end up being your biggest challenge, surviving in the city.

The first thing to do is to find all the possible water sources around your home. These include:

Ponds and lakes

Streams and rivers

Canals

Public swimming pools

Fountains

Water towers (there is often a test spigot at the base)

Water treatment plants

Use maps, satellite imagery and good old shoe leather to find these water sources and make sure that

you have them all plotted on a map. Most of them will probably dry out as people use them, but you will

be able to harvest some water out of them before that happens. Together with what you can get from

rainwater capture, it will hopefully be enough.

You'll also need some means of moving this water, without using your car. Even if you have gasoline for

your car, you don't want to use it, but rather save it for an emergency. Once again, using the car will tell

everyone that you are better off than they are.

One good way of moving water is in food grade five gallon buckets. You're probably going to be using

those for your food storage anyway, so just make sure you have some extras. You can use a hand truck,

cart, or child's wagon to haul the buckets, providing a way of moving it without having to carry it.

Obviously, you want to be able to move as much water as possible in each trip, so that you don't have to

take as many trips.

Don't trust the water you get from any of these sources, even if it looks to be good water. Always be

sure to purify any of it that you will be drinking, using to wash food or using to wash dishes. The cost of a

mistake is too high to pay.

Turning Your Home into a Homestead

No matter how much food you stockpile, you'll eventually run out. The question is whether the problem

will run out first and things will return back to normal first or your supplies will run out. Of course, we

don't have an answer to that question and won't until the time comes. Unfortunately, if a disaster

comes which takes too long to recover from, we might find out that answer a bit too late.

The way many experienced preppers are dealing with this potential problem is to turn their home into a

homestead. Before you say that you can't do that, hear me out. The idea is to produce enough food on

your own property, to feed your family. There are a number of cases of people who have done that

successfully, with nothing more to work with than a backyard.

Homesteading is really about becoming self-sufficient. It is the idea of being able to take care of yourself

and not have to depend upon society to take care of you. Isn't that what prepping is all about? So, in

reality, homesteading is just taking prepping to its logical conclusion.

Now, you may not be comfortable with the idea of growing your own food and you may not know how;

that's okay, I didn't know how either. I've had to learn and to tell the truth, I'm still learning. But I figure

that if I can learn, you can too.

Don't wait until a crisis strikes to try turning your home into a homestead. I started working on my

vegetable garden two years ago, and about all I've got to show for it is a good collection of herbs that

I've grown and dried. Hopefully we'll get something more out of it this year. It takes time to get a good

garden growing, just like it takes time to get chickens to lay eggs. Start early, so that you can be ready by

the time a disaster hits.

Gardening

The first thing you should try and do for homesteading is growing a vegetable garden. While I'm not into

the idea of being a vegetarian, more of our daily calories come from plants than do so from animals.

Starting with a vegetable garden will also help you with having food to give to your chickens, as they will

eat anything. You can give them the scraps from your garden, and they'll covert them to eggs for you.

There are many ways to go about setting up a garden, but about the best is to use raised beds. There are

several advantages to raised beds, such as being able to create a good potting soil, keep your garden

separate from your lawn, plant with higher density, giving you greater yields and having the garden

raised up where it is easier to work on.

If you can, I would also recommend putting underground irrigation into your garden, in the form of

soaker hoses. They will allow you to irrigate your garden with the least amount of water, reducing waste

through evaporation. They also make it so that you can set up watering on an automatic timer,

eliminating one of the biggest hassles of gardening, that of watering. With your watering on an

automatic timer, you never have to worry about forgetting to water.

If you live in the northern part of the country, where you have a longer winter and a shorter growing

season, you might want to consider putting in a greenhouse for your garden. A greenhouse can be built

fairly easily out of PVC pipe and clear plastic sheeting (drop cloth). This will allow you to extend the

growing season, as the greenhouse acts like a passive solar home, absorbing heat to keep your plants

from freezing. You can find countless designs for simple do-it-yourselfer greenhouses online and adapt

them to your needs.

The most important part of any garden is the soil. If you have good soil you'll have a good harvest. But

most backyards don't have good soil in them for gardening. Hence the need for the raised beds. There

are a number of recipes you can find online for making your own potting soil, but I like this simple recipe:

1/3 compost

1/3 topsoil or peat moss

1/3 vermiculite or sand

If you don't already have a compost heap, check with your city. Many cities have composting facilities,

where they compost people's tree branches, leaves and grass clippings. Use that for a start and then

start your own compost heap for the next season.

When selecting what you are going to plant in your garden, be sure to check on the plants growing zone.

The USDA has developed this system to identify the temperature zones across the country. As different

plants grow better in different temperatures, checking the zone for the plants you are planning on

planting in your garden helps you to determine what will grow well in your area.

It helps to plant your seeds in starter plugs in trays, especially if you have a short growing season. That

way, you can make sure that they germinate before planting them into your garden beds. This helps

eliminate wasted space, as well as wasted seeds. You only need to plant one or two seeds in each plug

to ensure that you get enough that germinate. That's much more efficient than scattering the seeds on

the ground and then pulling up the extras after they germinate.

Once the plants have sprouted and are two to three inches tall, the entire plug they are planted in can

be moved and planted into your raised beds. When you move the sprouts from the growing trays to the

garden beds, check the proper spacing for that type of plant, as shown on the seed packet. Since you are

working with raised beds, you don't need to worry about having walkways in the garden, you have them

between the beds. So, you can plant the seedlings as close together as the seed packet indicates, both in

rows and columns. That eliminates a lot of wasted space.

An excellent way to improve the yield of your garden is to add mycrorrhizal fungi to the soil. This

naturally occurring fungi forms a symbiotic relationship with the plants, attaching itself to the roots. In

doing so, it brings water and nutrients from the soil directly to the roots of the plants.

You will also need to fertilize a couple of times per year. There are a number of ways of going about this,

but a good pattern is to top your garden beds with compost at the end of the year, after harvesting.

Then, add fertilizer at planting time and then once again in the middle of the growing season. While

commercial fertilizers are available, you can make your own from fish. This is actually one of the best

fertilizers there is, even if it does stink.

To make fish fertilizer, save all the scraps from any fish you eat, including the parts you don't cook. If you

catch fish, save the guts when you clean them. Put them all in a container in the freezer, adding to them

as you can. About a month before you need to need to use the fertilizer, it's time to start making it.

Thaw the frozen fish and cut it up into small pieces, the smaller the better. In fact, running them through

the blender is actually a good idea. Then, put it in a clear container with water and about a half cup of

sugar. You'll need a ratio of about three parts of water to one part of fish. Set it in the sun and let it

decompose. In about a month, it will be ready for use.

There are many other things you can use for fertilizers, some of which you are throwing away now.

Coffee grounds, grass clippings, leaves and vegetable scraps can all be turned into compost. Urine can

even be used as a fertilizer, but it needs to be mixed at a ratio of about 1:10 with water, so that the acid

in the urine doesn't damage the plants.

If you used heirloom seeds, like I recommended in the chapter on what else you should stockpile, your

produce will ripen in a staggered schedule. That will allow you to harvest it slowly, using some and

canning the excess. You can also use it to barter with others for things that you don't have.

At the end of the season, be sure to remove all the plants that have finished producing food for you and

put them in your compost pile for next year. If you are using mycrorrhizal fungi in your garden, you do

not want to turn the garden, as that will kill the fungi. Rather, allow the plant roots that remain to break

down by natural means and top your garden beds with a fresh layer of compost. Then, let the worms

and bugs work on it, getting it ready for spring planting.

Raising Chickens

For many new homesteaders, raising chickens is the next step after growing a vegetable garden.

Chickens are very fast easy to grow, resilient to sickness, will eat literally anything (including leftover

chicken) and an excellent source of protein. Other than seafood, chickens are probably the number one

source of animal protein worldwide.

The first thing you need to do is decide if you are growing chickens for eggs or for cooking. Some breeds

of chickens will lay more eggs and some will provide better meat. If you want both, then you need to

count on having two separate chicken coops that are in separate enclosures, so that they can't get to

each other. Mature chickens will peck chicks to death. So if you have some layers and are trying to raise

a batch of chicks to be fryers (meat chickens) the layers will most likely kill the chicks.

Chickens need a home, which is called the coop. There are countless designs for chicken coops online,

many with free plans offered. The main thing the coop does is provide the chickens with a safe place to

sleep and to lay their eggs. So, the coop needs to have some nesting boxes in it for laying eggs in, as well

as some horizontally mounted poles for the chickens to roost on at night. It's also a good idea to have a

lockable door, so that raccoons and other predators don't get at your chickens.

Keep in mind that raccoons can open many types of simple latches. So make sure that the latch on the

door is something that they can't get open or you'll have raccoons raiding the henhouse. A simple slide

bolt isn't enough, you need something more complicated.

Some coop designs have a penned in area for the chickens, while others put their coop in a pen. Either

works fine. Chickens need an area to walk around in, so that they get exercise. The only thing you have

to realize is that nothing will grow in that area, as the chickens will eat it to the ground.

You can allow your chickens loose in your backyard and they will stay there if they understand it as

being their home. However, they will eat everything they can. So in one way or another, either by

penning in the chickens or by fencing in the garden, you've got to keep them away from your vegetable

garden or you won't have one. Allowing your chickens the chance to free range occasionally is a great

way to keep the bug population down in your backyard, as they will eat the bugs, which are a great

source of protein for them.

About the only thing you have to provide the chickens with is food and water. However, you have to be

smarter than the chickens. Chickens are stupid enough that they will poop in their own food and water.

This can cause sickness, so you need to have feeders and waterers that allow them access to the food

and water, without getting in or on them to mess up their food supplies.

Layers will start to produce eggs at about six months of age and will continue laying eggs for as long as

ten years. One good way of getting layers is to buy them from an egg farm that is getting rid of them.

They replace the chickens after two years, as their production drops off somewhat. Even then, they'll

give you eggs three days out of four.

Fryers can be butchered as young as six weeks of age. Keeping them longer will allow some varieties to

continue growing, but not all will add much weight after six weeks. You'll need to experiment a bit with

the breed of chickens you are raising, to find the ideal butchering age. Many people do that in mass,

which is easier than having to butcher them individually when you are ready to eat one. Of course, in a

survival situation, you would only butcher them as you were ready to cook them.

Raising Fish

Another good option for raising protein is to raise fish. Fish can be raised in just about anything that will

hold water. You can create an actual fish pond in your backyard, use a fish tank, use a plastic barrel or

use one of the larger plastic chemical containers that are available for purchase. All the fish need is

water, food and air.

One of the easiest breeds of fish to grow is tilapia. These popular fish can handle a wide range of

temperatures, require little attention, grow fine in crowded conditions and will even help keep their

tank or pond clean, as they will eat any algae that forms.

The two biggest concerns with growing fish is keeping the water clean and adding oxygen to it. As you

know, fish extract oxygen from the water through their gills. Since they are extracting it, you have to

keep adding it to the water, so that there is plenty of oxygen for them. There are several ways of doing

this, such as using a bubbler, having a fountain in their pond or putting in a waterfall. Whatever system

you use, you want to make sure that you have enough power to keep it going, even if the grid goes

down.

The fish waste will eventually poison the water for the fish, if it is not eliminated. There are a couple of

ways to do this. First of all, it's a good idea to have a couple of bottom feeders, like catfish, to clean the

bottom of the tank or pond. In addition, you'll need to have some sort of filtering system. Most people

combine their filtering system with their aerating system, so that they only need one pump. You can buy

a variety of filtering system, rather inexpensively. Just make sure it is built to handle the volume of

water you have in your tank.

Fish will die if put in tap water, as it has chlorine. However, if you put the water in the tank and allow it

to sit for 24 hours, the chlorine will evaporate out. It will then be safe to add the fish to the tank. If you

have a rainwater collection system, you can put the water from it directly into your fish pond.

Your fish will need to be fed as well. The easiest way to do that is to buy commercial feed. Of course,

you'll need to stockpile that as well, so that you have enough to keep your fish going. You can also raise

mosquito larva, which the fish will eat. They are extremely easy to raise, as mosquitoes will lay eggs in

almost any open water. The eggs will cluster together, allowing the larva to grow. Simply scoop them

out of their growing tank and put them in the fish tank before they finish growing.

A good population of tilapia will be self-regenerating, keeping your in fish for years to come, just as long

as you don't eat them all. Simply harvest the most mature fish, leaving the others to grow and

reproduce.

Some people attach their fish tank to their garden in a process known as aquaponics. This is a

combination of hydroponics (growing plants in water) and aquaculture (growing creatures in water). The

basic idea is that bacteria convert the fish waste into nutrients for the plants. As the water from the fish

tank is pumped through the hydroponics tank, the plants draw off those nutrients, filtering the water for

the fish.

A well-balanced aquaponics system works extremely well. But the key is balancing the system. You have

to have the right ratio of fish to plants and maintain that ratio as both grow. That's a constant juggling

act on a small system. It's actually much easier to balance a large aquaponics system than it is to balance

a small one.

Chapter 9 – Backyard Power Plant

Another totally separate aspect of urban survival is living without electrical power. Our aged electrical

grid is so fragile that even a good spring storm can blow down power lines, leaving people without

power for hours or even days. When any sort of major disaster strikes, those days can be extended to

weeks. Just look at what Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy did. People were without power in both

cases for weeks.

Both of those were regional disasters. To help overcome them more quickly, power companies from

outside the area sent in crews to help with repairs. But what would happen if a large-scale disaster

struck the country, which took out a large portion of the grid? How long would that take to recover from?

Terrorism, cyber-warfare or an EMP attack could all take out the grid, perhaps to the point of taking

years to repair. Official government estimates state that a high altitude EMP attack over the central

United States would take too long to repair. It would be too long in the sense that 90 percent of the

country's population would die, before power could be restored. The country would be destroyed.

With such a fragile electrical grid, it's no wonder that most preppers try to develop some sort of

alternate power system. We depend on electricity for so much, that losing it would be devastating.

Trying to go back to living how we did before electricity became commonplace would put us back over a

century. Even having the ability to produce a small amount of electricity can make a huge difference, as

we would then be able to use at least some of our modern conveniences.

There are three basic ways of producing electrical power in the home:

Gas (or diesel) generators

Solar panels

Wind turbine generators

Of these three, gas generators are the easiest to use and the least expensive to buy. However, keeping

them fed the necessary fuel makes them totally impractical, unless you happen to be sitting on top of a

100,000 gallon fuel tank that you can tap into. About all you can use a gas generator for is short-term

power needs.

That leaves solar panels and wind turbines, both of which are excellent options. Of course, the climate in

the area in which you live makes a difference here. Areas where there is a lot of rain, such as the Pacific

Northwest make it hard to use solar power. Likewise, areas with little wind aren't the best choice for

wind turbines. You have to pick the system which will work best for your situation. If you are lucky

enough to have ample sun and wind, then you can use a combination of the two.

Both wind generators and solar panels are usually built to charge a 12 volt battery bank, rather than to

produce 120 volts AC for the home. The power from the battery bank can then be inverted to 120 volt

AC to power home appliances, used as 12 volts DC or stepped down to 5 volts DC for charging phones,

tablets and other portable devices that will charge of a USB.

Building Your Own Wind Turbine Generator

A wind generator is an excellent choice for electrical power, if you have at least ten miles per hour of

wind on a fairly regular basis; less than that and they don't produce enough power to be useable. The

wind generator catches the mechanical power of the wind and converts it to rotary mechanical power,

which then drives a generator to produce electricity.

While wind generators are fairly simple devices, there are several parts you will need:

DC Motor - The heart of the system is a DC motor, which is used as the generator itself. A motor

and a generator are essentially the same, with a motor converting electrical power to rotary

motion and a generator turning rotary motion to electrical power. With that being the case,

they can actually be used for the opposite task.

You will need a low speed, relatively low voltage DC motor. A 24 volt motor that's designed to

operate at 400 RPM is about ideal. You don't want a motor that's high speed, because it will

need to be at full operating speed to produce the specified voltage. Having a lower speed motor,

with a voltage a bit over the needed 12 volts helps ensure that even at lower speeds the motor

will produce what is needed.

About the best source for one of these motors is eBay. Look for a used motor from an old

computer tape drive, from back in the days when computers took up a whole room. Those

motors make excellent wind turbine generators.

Blades - The blades are what capture the wind and cause the generator to go around. Therefore,

they are an important element to the overall design. There are a number of ways you can make

blades for a wind turbine, but the easiest is by cutting 4" or 6" schedule 40 PVC pipe.

One nice thing about using PVC for the blades is that it is curved. This does two things for you.

The first is to provide stiffness. By having some of the material off the plane that it is turning

around, it makes the blade much stronger. The second is to provide angle. That is necessary to

force the blade to slide to the side, spinning from the force of the wind.

Width isn't as important as length on the blades. That's because the longer the blade, the more

leverage there is. This blade is 48" long. It has been tapered slightly and the corners rounded,

even though that isn't exactly necessary. You can't see it well, but there are three mounting

holes on the bottom edge of the left side. These are to connect it to the hub.

Three blades are typical for a wind turbine. You can go less or more, but three seems to catch

the wind well, without adding extra unnecessary weight.

Hub - The hub is simple a piece to attach the blades to the motor shaft. As such, they are usually

round. A good hub can be made by using a large pulley that has a hole in the middle the size of

the motor's shaft. Drill holes to mount the blades.

The motor will already have the necessary bearings to handle the rotary motion of the blades

and hub. So, the only task the hub has is to hold everything together. It needs to be strong

enough to not break under constant pressure. Other than that, the lighter it is, the better.

Tail - The tail can be of any shape and just about any size. I prefer using a tail that has the same

surface area as the three blades, so that it provides enough force to keep the wind turbine

pointed into the wind. While any material can work, thin aluminum sheeting is excellent. The

edge of the sheeting can be doubled over to add strength and stiffness.

Boom - The purpose of the boom is to hold everything together. It can be made out of either

hollow metal tubing or a 2"x 4" construction lumber, as you prefer. It merely needs to be strong

enough and long enough to hold everything.

Bearings - The wind turbine needs to be able to turn around the mast, allowing it to point into

the wind at all times. This means that some sort of bearing needs to be used to direct it. The

most typical sort used is a metal "lazy susan" type bearing. You can also use angled roller

bearings, such as those used for a car's wheels. If you have a hub from a car sitting around, you

can scavenge the bearing and housing for use on your wind generator.

Mast - The mast is a simple metal pole, used to hold the generator up off the ground. You want

to make sure that it is placed so that it is in the direct path of the wind. That may mean getting it

high enough to be over the neighbors houses or at least their backyard fence. You will probably

need to anchor the mast in cement and use guy wires to keep it from falling over.

Building the wind generator itself is fairly easy. The hardest part is forming the blades and hub. Once

that is done, it's just a matter of connecting everything together. How you attach the motor to the boom

will depend a lot on the mountings that are on the motor itself. In the diagram, I show it being strapped

in place with metal straps. That will work just fine, if you don't have any other way of connecting it. If it

has a built-in mounting bracket or flange, then by all means use it.

The hub is attached to the motor shaft with a set screw to prevent it from slipping. You may want to use

a cohesive on the threads of this screw and the blade mounting screws, just to help prevent them from

loosening. Nylon insert lock nuts work well for the mounting bolts as well.

As already mentioned, the tail can be any shape or configuration. It merely needs to be mounted so that

it is in line with the boom, so that it will always keep the face of the wind turbine pointed into the wind.

Designing bearing housings can be rather complex, which is why I recommended using the hub from a

car's wheel if you can get it. The types of bearings used on lazy susans are simpler, but require a plate on

the top and bottom of the bearing. The mounting point for the bearing is critical, as you want it to be

exactly under the center of the wind generator's mass. This will be somewhere under the motor, slightly

back of the center of the motor. I show that slightly exaggerated in the drawing.

Building Your Own Solar Panels

Installing solar power for your home is an expensive exercise. However, you can save a lot of money

(about half) by building and installing your own panels. Building panels is tedious, but not really all that

hard. The hardest part of the process is soldering the leads to the solar cells.

A Touch of Electronics

Solar cells all produce 0.5 volts each. Larger cells don't produce more volts, but they do produce more

watts. I realize this issue of voltage verses watts can be confusing, but it's important. For now, let's just

accept it as two different measurements of the power that is produced by an electrical source, in this

case, a solar cell. Building a panel out of larger solar cells will produce more power, as measured in watts,

even though it is at the same voltage potential.

Since we need both more volts and more watts out of the solar panel, we connect individual solar cells

together in strings. Now, here's the thing; the way we make those strings is important. Connecting the

string one way adds the voltage of the individual cells together, while connecting them together in

another way adds the wattage together.

If you think of a common 2 cell flashlight and the batteries it uses, you can see this concept. Each of the

batteries produces 1.5 volts at some number of watts. The number of volts determines how bright the

light is, while the number of watts determines how long the flashlight can remain illuminated, before

the batteries go dead. When you put the batteries in the flashlight, you're connecting them together.

The way we connect the batteries together in a flashlight, we have the positive end of one battery

connected to the negative end of the other. That's called connecting them in series. No matter how

many batteries the flashlight takes, they are always installed in series.

When connected in series, the voltages are added together and the wattage stays the same. So, those

two 1.5 volt batteries produce a total of 3.0 volts.

The same happens with solar cells. When we connect them in series, the voltage is added. Since they

produce 0.5 volts each, we need 24 of them connected in series to produce 12 volts. But in reality, we

usually connect 36 of them together, so that it produces 18 volts. That way, if it's cloudy and the solar

cells aren't producing full power, you still get enough to charge the 12 volt batteries.

Once we have strings of 36 solar cells, we connect the strings together in parallel. That means that all

the positive ends of the strings are connected together and all the negative ends of the strings are

connected together. In this manner, the voltage isn't increased, but the wattage is. The overall wattage

will end up being the sum of the wattage of each string. Another way of putting that, since the wattage

of the string is the wattage of one solar cell, is the overall wattage will be the wattage of one cell times

the total number of strings.

Connecting the Solar Cells

Solar cells can either be bought tabbed or untabbed. This just refers to whether they have the lead wires

soldered onto them. We're going to work with untabbed cells. That means we'll need to attach the lead

wires ourselves, by soldering them to the negative side of the cells. You can buy lots of them from solar

power suppliers or on eBay. You have to be extremely careful when working with solar cells, as they

break extremely easily.

The face of the solar cell is dark blue in color and is the negative side. It has a number of lines running

through it, with two wider lines crossing it. These two lines are the contacts we need to solder the

tabbing wire to.

Tabbing wire is a solid flat wire that is about 1/8" wide. It is silver in color because it is pre-tinned. That

means that it has solder melted onto it, making it easier to solder it to the solar cell. Liquid solder flux

must be applied to the solar cell, all along the two contact areas. Then a piece of tabbing wire that is

twice the width of the solar cell is laid on the contact and heated from the top with a soldering iron. This

will melt the solder on the wire and cause it to stick to the contact area on the solar cell. Move the

soldering iron slowly across the cell, at the speed that the solder melts. You'll be able to tell when the

solder melts because it will become shiny.

Repeat this operation for the other contact on the solar cell, as well as all the solar cells you are going to

be putting into the string. The silver cylinder in the photo above is a socket which I am using as a weight

to hold the tabbing wire in place, while I solder it.

Once all the tabs are soldered to the solar cells, it's time to turn them into strings. To do this, we're

going to need to solder the loose ends of the tabbing wires we've just attached to another cell. As we do

this, one cell after another, we form the strings of cells.

The back side of the solar cell is grey in color, with six small silver squares on it. These are the contacts

for the positive side of the cell. The tabbing wired from one cell need to attach to these contacts on the

next cell, making a series circuit. Thirty-six of them together will make one string, producing 18 volts.

That string can be broken in parts, if it is necessary to do so to fit the physical limitations of the panel' s

size. You just have to be careful to maintain the positive and negative polarity of the parts of the string.

Individual strings are attached together with buss wire. This looks much like tabbing wire, with the

exception that it is wider, allowing it to carry more current. It is easiest to attach the buss wire once the

strings of cells have been attached to the backboard of the solar panel.

Assembling the Solar Panel

There are many different ways of making solar panels, but they all have a couple of things in common.

First of all, they all must be glass covered to allow light to reach the solar cells. Secondly, they must be

airtight to keep moisture out. If there is moisture in the solar panel, it will condensate on the inside of

the glass, reducing the amount of light that can get to the solar cells.

One way to save money on your solar panels is to buy used aluminum windows and use them for the

glass. The one disadvantage of this is that the design of the panel will be affected by the window size

and type of window it is. However, if you can put up with that, the savings would be considerable.

The easiest way to make solar panels is to make a sandwich construction. The solar cells are attached to

the backboard with a single glob of silicone adhesive per cell. The panel itself is a sandwich, consisting of

the backboard, with the solar cells mounted to it and the glass plate above it. A small spacer is placed in

between them, to keep the glass from crushing the fragile solar cells. Double-sided foam adhesive tape

works well for this. The edges of the panel are sealed with silicone and then capped with a 1/2"

aluminum C channel.

Before assembling the panel, make sure that you have lead wires attached to the positive and negative

buss wires and that you have left a hole for them to go out through the C channel. Seal this hole with

silicone to maintain the moisture proof properties of the panel.

Mounting of the solar panel is important. It should be mounted so that it is pointing directly south. The

angle off of vertical is determined by the latitude at which you live:

If the latitude is below 25o, the latitude needs to be multiplied by 0.87.

If the latitude is above 25o, the latitude needs to be multiplied by 0.76, plus 3.1 degrees.

This angle will guarantee the best exposure to the sun, therefore the best power production for your

solar panels.

Building a Battery Backup

I've mentioned the use of a battery backup a couple of times in this chapter. The idea is to have your

solar panels and wind turbine charge a bank of 12 volt lead/acid batteries. The power from these

batteries can then be used to power things in your home, either inverting it up to 120 volt AC current or

using it directly from the batteries for DC powered devices.

The type of batteries used for a battery backup system are similar to car batteries. In fact, you can buy

them in any auto parts store. They are called "deep cycle" batteries. Some refer to them as marine and

RV batteries. These batteries are specially designed so that they will not be damaged by discharging to

less than half their total charge like normal car batteries will. Basically, the plates in the battery are

thicker to withstand that damage.

Deep cycle batteries are about the same cost as a normal car battery, but they don't hold as much of a

charge. You will find the charge capacity of the battery stated as "reserve capacity." A typical two year

car battery will have a reserve capacity of about 800 amps. This specification refers to how long you can

draw 25 amps of power out of a battery, before it is halfway discharged. It is not the same as the "cold

cranking amps" (CCA) which refers to how much power you can expect to have to start your car on a

cold winter morning.

Having the reserve capacity listed in amps may be a bit confusing, considering that we've been talking

about volts and watts. We already know that the voltage of these batteries is 12 volts, so we can convert

amps to watts or watts to amps.

To convert amps to watts, multiply the amps times the volts watts = amps x volts

To convert watts to amps, divide the watts by the volts amps = watts ÷ volts

One battery will not provide enough power to operate everything in your home, you would need many

batteries. However, one battery is a good starting point. Once the system is in place, you can always add

more batteries. Additional batteries are added by connecting them in parallel with the existing one. This

keeps the voltage the same, while increasing the watts or amps of power, just like it did with our strings

of solar cells.

So, a battery backup system consists of only three parts; a battery charger, a battery and a voltage

inverter. The battery charger must be one that is designed for charging 12 volt batteries from a DC

power source. You can find these most easily by looking for a "solar charge controller." You cannot use

the type of battery charger you would plug into your home's current for charging the car's battery,

because it is designed to work off of a 120 volt AC power source.

The output of the solar panels and wind turbine is connected to the battery charger, providing power for

it to charge your batteries. Power to be used from the system, which is to run through the voltage

inverter, can either be connected to the home's wiring or used through extension cords.

If you are going to connect the output of the voltage inverter to the home's wiring, you'll need to have

what is known as a "whole house switch" installed. This disconnects your home from the grid. If you

don't do this, then the power that you are producing will go out through the grid and you won't get to

use it. However, you can eliminate this problem by using extension cords.

Voltage inverters are rated by their output wattage. Be careful when you look at them, as many

companies brag about their peak output. You aren't interested in the peak output as much as you are

the continual output, which is usually half of the peak output. Running the inverter continually at peak

output will eventually burn it out, rendering your entire off-grid power system useless until it is replaced.

That wouldn't be good in the middle of a crisis.

Battery Charger

BatteriesVoltage Inverter

Chapter 10 – Bug Out Battle Plan

One of the big questions facing every prepper is the question of bugging in or bugging out. Bugging in is

sheltering in place, there in your home. Bugging out, on the other hand, is the idea of leaving your home

and heading to a safer place. Whichever you decide on doing will make a huge difference in your

prepping plans.

There's really no clear cut answer to this question as there are a number of factors that come into play.

There isn't even a clear cut answer that always works for one family, as one of the factors is the type of

disaster that you face. For some disasters it might make more sense for a family to bug in, while in

others it might make more sense for them to bug out. For example, a financial collapse would probably

be best weathered by staying home where you have your possessions and supplies. But if a category five

hurricane was heading for your town, it would be better to bug out, as the people in St. Louis learned a

few years ago.

Regardless of the decision you make on this one question, you really need to be prepared for both. Let's

say that your plan is to bug out, but earthquakes have made impassible fissures in the way; it would be

better to bug in. On the flip side of the coin, you could have bugging out as your main survival plan, but

have to bug out because social unrest has reached the point where it is no longer safe to stay in your

home.

Having plans for both bugging in and bugging out gives you the option to do whatever you need to,

when the time comes. Yes, it's more work and it even requires that you spend more money; but in the

long run, it provides the greatest security for your family.

Bugging in or Bugging Out?

So, let's look at the question of whether to bug in or bug out. There's a lot of talk today about bugging

out, with people building bug out bags and even looking at building bunkers in the woods. One major

factor that's going to affect your decision is money. You can't do what you can't afford to do.

I guess we all have a dream about having a cabin in the woods somewhere. I know that I do. If I had that,

I would probably be much more focused on the idea of bugging out; especially if I could turn that cabin

into a survival shelter, complete with all the equipment and supplies that my family will need to survive

any disaster that comes along.

Sadly, few of us can afford that cabin in the woods. That means that bugging out won't be as easy as

driving to our weekend getaway. You see, for any successful bug out, you have to have a destination in

mind; someplace you can go, so that your family can survive the coming disaster and its aftermath. If

you don't have that, your chances of survival are actually quite low.

The government has talked about bugging out and even makes recommendations for a bug out bag on

the FEMA website. But their idea of a bug out is that you leave your home to go to a government shelter

somewhere. I don't know about you, but I don't trust the government enough to do that. I'd rather be

on my own, than in a government shelter, depending on the government to take care of me.

So, if you don't have a cabin in the woods and you don't want to go to the government shelter, you're

left with two options:

Have someplace else prepared that you can go to

Go and live in the wild

I'll have to admit, living in the wild has a lot of romance attached to it. Going out and conquering nature,

following in the footsteps of our pioneering ancestors and living wild and free off of nature. Ahh, I can

almost smell the pine needles. But the reality is, living like that is hard. It would be much harder for us,

than it was for our ancestors, mostly because there was more game and were less people back then. If

you and I have to bug out and live in the wild, there will be a whole lot of other people doing it too. One

effect of that is that there probably won't be enough game to go around.

It is possible to have someplace to go, without having a prepared bug out shelter, aka cabin in the

woods. For most disaster scenarios, it will be easier to survive in a rural community, than it will be to

survive in the city. So, make some connections with a rural community, so that you have some place to

go, if you have to bug out.

That means stockpiling some equipment and supplies there; perhaps in a rented storage area. It also

means scouting out the area, finding possible places for your family to live and most importantly,

becoming known to the locals. That way, if you show up, they'll be more likely to accept you.

Okay, so those are the bug out possibilities; but that still leaves the question unanswered as to whether

we should bug out or bug in. Basically, the answer to that question boils down to whether you can

survive better at home or by bugging out.

If you have that cabin in the woods, all prepared for use as a survival shelter, then I would say "Yes, go

ahead and bug out." You'll probably be better off in almost all circumstances. If not, then you're

probably going to be better off staying home, unless you absolutely need to leave. While there are

several different scenarios that could make it dangerous to stay home, usually it's safer than living out in

the wild.

Bugging in gives you the advantage of having all your possessions to help you survive. While many of

them will be useless, your home will provide shelter. You'll have clothes to wear, food to eat and tools

to work with. Abandoning all that shouldn't be taken lightly.

The biggest danger in bugging in is the danger caused by the two-legged predators amongst us. They are

the most dangerous reality you and I face. So, even if you decide to bug in, you should be ready to bug

out at a moment's notice, if the two-legged predators become too dangerous to stay around. Don't

count on your ability to be Rambo and defeat them, get out while the getting is good.

Building a Bug Out Bag

A whole book can be written about building a bug out bag, but I'm going to try to give you the basics

that you need here in a few short paragraphs. Basically, the idea of a bug out bag is to have everything

you need to survive in one portable package. That means your bug out bag has to include the equipment

and supplies to provide you with:

Shelter

Heat (fire)

Water

Food

First-aid

Self defense

That may seem like a lot to carry in one package, and in fact it is; but we're talking about small quantities

of these things, not enough to last you for months. Your bug out bag is supposed to provide you with

enough to get you to your bug out shelter and no more. So, you're only carrying a few days worth of

food with you, not a year's worth.

Most people plan on bugging out in their car or truck. That's a good plan, if you can do it. But there's

always the possibility that you won't be able to bug out in your vehicle. Maybe an EMP renders all

vehicles unusable; maybe the roads are destroyed or maybe the roads turn into parking lots, as

everyone runs out of gas in massive traffic jams. In those cases, you have to be ready to head out on

foot, carrying your bug out bag with you.

That means that the bug out bag should be designed to be easy to carry. The best way to do that is to

build it in a backpack. Backpacks are designed to carry the kind of load you need to carry, making it as

easy as possible to carry.

There are two major considerations here that you need to keep in mind; space and weight. You're going

to have to carry this thing, so you need to make sure that you can carry it. Otherwise, you're going to

end up collapsing somewhere along the trail, unable to make it to your destination. Watch your weight!

It's easy to get a backpack overloaded to the point where you can't carry it.

So, let's look at what you should try to carry in your backpack:

Shelter

A backpacking tent or tarp that you can use to make a tent

Paracord

Duct tape

High quality space blankets

Backpacking sleeping bag (if you have room)

Clothing

Rain poncho

Seasonally appropriate hat

Leather work gloves

One change of rugged clothing

Jacket (on outside)

Tools

Fixed-blade sheath knife

Multi-tool

Camping hatchet or tomahawk

Saw - many carry a wire saw, but I prefer a folding pruning saw or saw backed machete

Folding backpacking saw

Flashlight with extra batteries

Water

At least two full 1 liter water bottles

Water filtration straw (Lifestraw)

Bag type water filter (for filling bottles)

Food

Enough dried food to last you at least three days, five is even better

Lightweight, high energy snacks

Backpacking cookware

Utensils

Backpacking stove

At least two means of starting a fire

Fire starting accelerants

Small fishing kit

Wire for snares

First-aid

A small trauma kit, basically a cut down version of what we discussed earlier

Personal hygiene kit

Toilet paper

Antibacterial hand cleaner

Insect repellant

Self-defenses

Long gun (rifle or shotgun)

Pistol

Extra ammo for both

Communications

Disposable cell phone

Battery operated or hand crank radio

Whistle

Signaling mirror

Miscellaneous

Various sizes of plastic bags

A flash drive with copies of all your important documents on it

Topographical and road maps from your home to your bug out location, including all alternate

locations and routes

Compass

Survival book

Guide to edible plants in your area

Realize that this may be more equipment than you can carry. A lot will depend upon your personal

physical condition. If you're in shape, you'll be able to carry more than someone that isn't in shape. At

the same time, your level of survival training will make a difference as well. The more training you have,

the better you can live off the land and the less you need.

When looking at equipment for your bug out bag, you're basically looking at backpacking equipment.

This equipment can be rather expensive, especially if you are buying high quality equipment. However,

one of the major differences between high quality equipment and low cost equipment is weight. That

tent that costs twice as much probably weighs a half or even a third of what the inexpensive one weighs.

That's a lot of what you're paying for. That lighter weight allows you to carry more.

One other way of saving weight is to look for tools that combine functions. For example, I have a

camping hatchet which also includes a hammer head and a pry bar. That gives me three tools in one.

The multi-tool is a perfect example of this as well. Any time you can get more functions into one item,

you save on what you have to carry.

Every family member should have their own bug out bag, albeit smaller and lighter than this. Even

children can carry a small pack, stuffed with some basic survival equipment, a favorite toy and some

food. That way, they are contributing to the family, as well as being ready to take care of themselves if

they end up separated from the family for a day.

Beyond the Bug Out Bag

As we just saw, a bug out bag doesn't really give you enough capacity to carry everything you need for a

long-term stay out in the wild. But there's only so much that you can carry. I'd like to propose an idea

that I've come up with, which will allow you to carry more than this.

First of all, if you could add to that list, what would you add? I'm not talking about frivolous things here,

but what else would you carry, to help ensure your survival? I can think of several things I'd want to

carry:

More food

More water

Some larger tools - I don't like the idea of trying to construct a long-term shelter with the tools

listed there

Sleeping bags

A few changes of clothing

Just carrying those extra items would be a problem for most of us. However, there is a way. That is to

have another pack or two, perhaps duffel bags, along with something that can carry them. What you

need is a wheeled carrier, which carries the weight, allowing you to guide it over rough ground.

My dad made himself something like this, which he called his "mule" for use when we went hunting. The

mule was made of aluminum and shaped to look like a stretcher. It was supported over a single bicycle

style wheel, with a hand brake for going down steep hills. Two people could guide it, holding onto

handles on both ends, like a stretcher, and allowing the mule to carry the weight. In this manner, two

men could easily bring a large mule deer down the mountain.

A device like this can carry a couple of hundred pounds allowing you to carry a whole lot more on your

bug out, than you would otherwise be able to carry. Each extra meal, liter of water or piece of

equipment you are able to add will help improve your chances of survival, making something like this an

invaluable aid to your survival.

Developing Your Bug Out Plan

We've already discussed possible destinations for a bug out. That's the first part of developing any bug

out plan. Without a destination, you really have nothing. Even if you are planning on bugging out to the

wild, you should have a primary and at least one secondary location scouted out, that you will head for

in the case of a bug out.

Keep in mind that others may find the same ideal bug out location that you do. That's why you need an

alternate location that you can go to. It might just happen that you show up at your primary bug out

location and find someone already there. If you instantly become best friends, that's fine; but there's

probably more of a chance that they'll want to shoot a hole in you and take whatever you have. If that's

the cases, you'll need to get out of there and go to one of your alternates.

Your bug out location is going to have to provide everything you'll need to survive, over and above what

you can carry with you. That means either getting it from nature or caching it there yourself ahead of

time. There are some places in the wild where you can live off the land, but they are few and far

between.

Your bug out bag and any additional bags must be packed with that destination in mind. That means

having the necessary equipment for that area. If the location has a lake teeming with fish and part of

your bug out plan is to fish for food, then you might want to add more fishing gear to your kit. If the area

is high in the mountains, you may want to add more warm clothes. Make sure you have what you need,

not what I or anyone else tells you.

With that location in mind, you need to plan on how you're going to get there. For most of us, the basic

plan is to drive. But you should also make plans for getting there if you have to walk. Plan routes for

both vehicle and on foot, along with alternate routes for each leg of the trip.

Your routes for walking should avoid roads. If things get to the point where you have to abandon your

vehicle and take out on foot, there will be lots of other people on the road too. Few of them will be

prepared and as you walk by with your bulging backpack, you could look like Wal-Mart to them. You

don't want to invite attack, so that means you need to avoid people. The only way you can do that is to

head out cross country.

The other very important thing your plan needs to cover is your meeting plan for your family. Chances

are, the disaster isn't going to hit at a convenient time. Rather than happen when you are all at home, it

will happen when you're scattered all across town.

With that in mind, you'll have to have a way of letting everyone know that it's time to put your bug out

plan into effect. Then, you'll need to have a plan for gathering everyone together. This might mean

picking up kids at school or other activities. It might mean getting home from work. What will you do if

you're at work and an earthquake hits, starting fires and dropping all the bridges on the highway? How

will you get home? What will your alternate meeting place be? How will you get your family together?

These questions have to be answered and put into your plan. Then you need to try it out, to see if it's

actually going to work. A dry run will often show problems that can be fixed by modifying the plan. It's

better to be able to do that beforehand, rather than having to wait until you're bugging out for real.

Finally, make sure that everyone in your family knows what to do, in case something happens to you and

you're not there to take care of them. Ultimately, each family member needs to be able to take care of

themselves. That means teaching and training them in the necessary techniques for survival.

A Survival Retreat on a Cheapskate Budget

We've already talked about the desire for that cabin in the woods and how most of us can't afford it.

That doesn't mean that there' s no possibility of creating a survival retreat though. As Yahoo's name

declares to us, you always have other options. We've already mentioned some of them briefly. I want to

take a moment to share another of them with you.

Basically, the problem that most of us are dealing with is not having enough money to buy that cabin in

the woods. I'm going to assume for the purpose of this discussion that you have some money, but not

enough. How much you have is of course something you know better than I. The idea I want to propose

to you is one to save money and hopefully make a survival retreat affordable. Sorry, but it probably

won't be free.

To start with, you need some land. That stops most of us in our tracks. But let's think about this for a

minute. Who do you know that lives out in the middle of nowhere and has some land? Is there anyone?

If you do, that's a good starting point. Perhaps you could talk them into allowing you to do something on

their land. Obviously, there would have to be some benefit to them as well; but between the two of you,

you could have your own little survival community.

If you don't know anyone, the thing to do is to look for what is known as junk land. This is land which

can't really sell, because it is not commercially viable. It won't have any utilities on it, nor will it have

access to water; but it's still land. It will probably be hard to find, but it's there. One way to find it is to

look on the internet for junk land. A lot of what you'll find won't really qualify, but I've found land for as

little as $500 per acre.

You can also advertise that you're looking for junk land to buy. You'll get lots of calls from real estate

agents who want to sell you good land, but you may get a call or two from people who have some junk

land that they're willing to sell.

There are a couple of things you want to make sure of, when you buy your land. The first is that you

have access to it. If you have to cross someone else's property to get to your land, you want to make

sure you have a signed contract that allows you to do so. You also want to make sure that it's not in an

obvious place, such as alongside a highway. That land is not likely to be junk land, but check anyway.

You don't want people to see you. Finally, you want there to be somewhere that you can get water,

which is close enough to be usable.

With your land in hand, it's time to start improving it. You see stories once in a while about people who

build a cabin for $500, using mostly recycled material. I'm not going to say it can't be done; because it

can. You'll need to work hard to make it, but you can build a cabin that way.

There's an easier way to get your cabin though; buy a used travel trailer. If you buy an older trailer, you

will be able to pick it up really cheap. You'll probably need to do a few repairs, but it will be worth it. A

travel trailer will provide you with everything you'll need, as far as a cabin is concerned. Then, it's just

working on putting in some water, power and sewage.

We've already talked about ways of doing those things, so I'm not going to repeat myself here. Just take

your time and do it as you can afford to. Bit by bit, you can make your survival retreat better, so that it

will be ready for whenever you have to bug out.

One other thing you might want to do is to buy a shipping container. Now, I'm not a big fan of burying

shipping containers; mostly because the weight of the dirt above them tends to crush them. However,

there's no reason why you can't have one above ground, to use as a warehouse for your supplies.

Between the trailer to live in and the storage container for your supplies, you'll be able to make a nice

place to sit out any disaster.

Chapter 11 – Modern Wilderness Warrior

If you bug out, you're basically going to be heading into the wilderness. Hopefully you have a survival

retreat prepared somewhere that you'll be heading towards. Even so, you'll have some time in which

you'll be traveling through the wilderness, in which you'll need to survive.

Many of the techniques we've discussed throughout this book, like fire starting and water purification,

apply directly to surviving in the wild. But there are a few things we haven't discussed.

Surviving in the wilderness can be an all-encompassing task. Our pioneering great-great-grandparents

didn't have an easy life or a lot of time for relaxing and recreation. Their lives were hard, filled from can

see to can't see with tasks necessary for their survival. The price of laziness on the frontier was death,

either by hypothermia, starvation, dehydration or roving Indian bands on the warpath.

This survival process consists of fulfilling the same priorities that we've talked about all the way through

this book. You'll need to create shelter, find and purify water, find, prepare and cook food, build fires,

protect yourself from dangers and in between time, prepare for those times when you won't be able to

find the food, water and firewood that you need.

The life of our ancestors was one of constant prepping. Throughout the warmer months, they prepared,

so that they would be ready to survive the winter months. In a way, we can call the celebration of

Thanksgiving the feast of prepping. They celebrated, thanking God for their harvest, because they knew

that they were prepared to survive the winter. Each year they had to do the same work and make the

same preparations, because winter always came, ready to kill those who weren't prepared.

Shelter in the Wild

As I've already said, your biggest need for surviving in the wild is to maintain your body's temperature.

That means having adequate shelter. Hopefully, you'll go into the wild, taking some sort of shelter along;

but you have to be ready in case you can't. In that case, you'll either need to find or build some sort of

shelter.

The most basic building blocks of shelter are the tarp and a piece of rope. When we were talking about

building your bug out bag, I mentioned these items in the list. More specifically, I recommended having

paracord in your pack. Paracord, sometimes known as 550 cord, is a thin, strong cord, originally

developed for the use in making parachutes. It is known as 550 cord, because this 1/8" thick rope will

actually support 550 pounds of weight.

With a tarp and paracord, you can set up a variety of different tents. I'm not going to go into detail here,

but I've literally seen dozens of tent designs made out of these two items, together with what can be

found in nature. But no matter what you do, nature is your starting point.

Finding Natural Shelter

If you keep your eyes open out in the wild, there is quite a bit of natural shelter available. The biggest

problem is that most of it is hard to see. It's like the old saw about not being able to see the forest for

the trees. In this case, it's more like not being able to see the trees for the forest. Many times the shelter

will be hidden by the rest of nature around it.

Shelter really only has to do a few things. It has to help keep you warm, keep you dry and keep you out

of the wind. Anything that can do those three things, at least to some extent, can be considered to be

shelter. So, as you're traveling through the wild, look for anything that can do that.

Caves - A cave is the archetypical natural shelter. They provide shelter from the rain and wind,

as well as providing excellent insulation. With a fire inside to warm you (make sure the smoke

has a way to escape), a cave can be a very cozy place to sleep. In hot weather, caves are often

cooler than outdoors, allowing you to be refreshed while you sleep. The one problem with caves

in the wild is that they are seldom unoccupied, so check it out thoroughly before setting up

housekeeping.

And Undercut Bank - Many caves start out as an undercut bank. If you've ever seen Mesa Verde,

the caves they built their cities in are wide, but shallow, as if they were carved out by a passing

river. While not as good as a full cave, an undercut bank still offers excellent protection from the

elements.

A Rock Outcropping - Rocks can appear anywhere, often in jumbles and heaps, with one rock

supporting another. This sometimes creates caves or partial caves. Large standing rocks may

provide a place between them that is somewhat sheltered and could be improved upon by

roofing the space over.

An Upturned Tree - When large trees fall, the root mass makes an almost impenetrable wall.

While not a complete shelter, it can form the wall of one. Sometimes, the tree will fall in such a

way that between the root mass and the trunk, there's a pretty good space to use for shelter,

perhaps with a few modifications.

A Pine Tree - Large pine trees form natural shelters. Unlike other trees, the branches of pines

grow out to the sides, not upwards. Their weight causes them to sag, to the point where the tips

of the branches are lower than the point where they come out of the trunk. Therefore, a large

pine tree will have a space under it, even if the lowest branches are brushing the ground. You

may need to clear out some dead branches, but you'll have a nice, tidy shelter, with a dry pine

needle mattress.

A Thicket of Trees - When trees grow close together, they often form a natural shelter between

them. Sometimes, you have to cut out a couple of saplings to make that space useful, but the

trees themselves form the walls and roof of the shelter.

In many of these cases, you'll need to make at least some modification to what nature provides. The

undercut bank, for example, provides good protection from the rain and from any wind that comes from

the back. But it doesn't for any wind coming from the front. Adding a wind brake can make the shelter

much more comfortable, keeping you warmer. Likewise, covering a gap between two large stones to

keep the rain off your head turns those stones into a shelter.

Typically, you'll want to stop and make camp about two hours before sunset. That will give you some

time to prepare a shelter, start a fire and cook a meal. If you don't give yourself enough time, there's a

good chance that you're going to have problems getting your shelter together. Building a shelter in the

dark or even by flashlight is infinitely harder than doing so in daylight.

Setting up Temporary Shelters

As I said, the easiest way to set up a shelter is with a tarp and a piece of rope; but what do you do if you

don't have those materials with you? How do you make a shelter in the wild?

There are a number of different shelters that you can make out in the wild, using the materials that

nature provides. One of the easiest of these is a debris hut. This is essentially a pile of leaves, with a

space underneath it where you can shelter. It does an amazingly good job of keeping you warm and dry.

To make a debris hut, you've got to make a structure to keep the leaves off of you. This starts with the

ridge pole. Find a fallen tree branch that's about eight to ten feet long. Lean one end of it in the notch of

a tree, three to four feet off the ground and allow the other end to sit on the ground. If you have some

rope, long grass or vines, you can tie it in place.

The next step is to find a bunch of sticks of various lengths, ranging up to about five feet long. These are

going to be used to make the sides of the structure, much like the rafters of a roof. You'll need to lean

the top end of these against the ridge pole, at about a 45 degree angle, with the bottom end sitting on

the ground. It's going to take a lot of these, as you need the space between them to be smaller than the

size of the leaves on the ground.

Once the structure is complete, all you need to do is rake up a mountain of leaves and pile it on the

structure. The sticks will keep the leaves from falling through, leaving you an area you can crawl into.

The leaves will shed the rain and make excellent insulation. A door can be fashioned by moving another

pile of leaves in place to block the opening.

Another simple shelter requires finding a number of saplings which form a rough circle. The tops of

these saplings are then drawn together and tied, forming a dome. This dome can be used as the basic

structure, cutting tree boughs and leaning them against it, working from the bottom up to create the

walls and roof.

Both of these sorts of shelter structures can be used with a tarp as well, making it much quicker to make

a shelter. The ridge pole of the debris hut works perfect for the ridge pole of a tent. All you need to do is

throw a tarp over it and stake the edges to the ground.

Building a Long-Term Shelter

Long-term shelters require much more work than a simple overnight shelter. You obviously don't want

to live in a debris hut for six months, nor do you want to live in a tent for that long. That's why I was

talking about bringing larger tools in the section called "Beyond the Bug Out Bag." Building a long-term

shelter will require those tools.

How you build your shelter will depend a lot on what materials you have available to you. As we look at

the primitive shelters of our ancestors, we see that they make their shelters from whatever nature

provided. In areas where there were lots of trees, they built log cabins. In the Great Plains they didn't

have many trees, so a lot of homes were made out of sod; cutting the sod and stacking it like bricks.

These were called "soddies." In the southwest, adobe was used, as there was a lot of long grass and clay.

Eskimos built the famous igloo out of their most common resource, ice.

As with building a temporary shelter, always start with any shelter that nature provides. I mentioned the

Indians of Mesa Verde a bit ago. They made their homes by bricking up the entrance of the caves that

they found. Larger caves were divided into homes by adding walls. But the basic structure was a cave.

Starting with a cave or cliff face reduces your work, by providing from one to three walls for you. That

makes your construction job simpler, saving you time and energy. It also helps to camouflage your

dwelling, making it blend into nature more. Strangers may not see you, in which case they may not

bother you.

A couple of considerations for any type of long-term shelter you make:

Building your roof at a steep angle helps it to shed rain and snow better. That protects you

better, as well as protecting your shelter from damage.

Any time you have an opening in a wall, for a window or door, you need to have a header. This is

a log above the open space, spanning it, to support the weight of the wall and roof above it.

Most natural materials don't fit together perfectly, leaving air gaps that wind can blow through.

Fill those gaps with clay or moss to make your home more airtight and keep it warm.

Don't forget about a chimney. You have to have some way for smoke to leave, even if it is just a

hole in the roof. Many cultures used such a smoke hole, rather than an actual chimney.

Water will work to damage your shelter. Structures built of adobe or sod can be damaged by a

hard rain. Covering them with a layer of clay or stucco gives the rain something to expend its

energy against, without damaging the structural integrity of the shelter.

Heat rises, so a loft is the warmest place to sleep.

You may need to defend your shelter at some point in time, so give yourself shooting positions

where you have cover from enemy fire.

Start small, with a one-room shelter; but plan for expansion. You can always add on rooms.

Many homes on the frontier grew in this manner. They would start with a single room and then

add on through the years.

Make sure that you pick a site for your long-term shelter which will provide you with the resources you

will need to survive. Having a long trek for water is not conducive to happy living. You want to make

your life easier, as much as possible, not harder.

Finding Water in the Wild

If you're ever forced to bug out, I hope it's in an area where there is abundant water. However, there

are many parts of the country where water may not be all that obvious or may even be scarce. That

won't diminish your need for water in any way though; all it will do is make you spend more of your time

looking for that water.

Finding water in the wild can be difficult, if you don't know where to look. Hopefully you've got good

topographical maps of the area with you, which show all of the naturally occurring and man-made water

sources there are. However, even the best of maps might miss something. So, it's a good idea to know

what to look for, so that you can always find water in the wild.

Follow the Terrain

Last I checked, the laws of gravity still worked. That means that water still flows downhill. So, you're

going to stand a much better chance of finding water if you go downhill, than if you stay on the high

ground. Look at the terrain where you are and try to figure out the path that the water will take to go

down. Typically it will leave a hillside to go to a low fold in the ground, whether that's a valley or canyon.

It will follow that down until it finds another, larger one to join with.

Follow the path that you think the water will take. You will often find that there are little ponds and

pools of water that get left behind. These may be because of an old beaver pond, or just because of

some rocks that kept the ground from eroding away. Either way, they will hold back the water where

you can access it without having to follow the water all the way downhill.

Look for the Green

Plants need water, so you'll find more plants growing where there is more water for them to drink. This

is especially useful in arid territory, where the plant growth along a watercourse is going to stand out

much more. Many times, this will identify the low spot in the ground for you, in otherwise flat territory.

Even if there is no water flowing in the watercourse at the moment, the fact that there are plants

growing there will show you that water has flown there. That means that when it rains, water will flow

there again. It will also indicate where to look for pools and ponds that may have formed when the

water flowed past.

Look for the Low Point

If a watercourse is dry, check the streambed. There are two things you want to be looking for: mud and

low spots. Either one is an indicator of water, albeit subterranean water. If you find a low point that

looks like it could have been a pool before it dried up or especially if you find a muddy patch, dig a hole a

couple of feet deep. Water in the ground will seep into this hole, providing you with water you can use.

Granted, that will be muddy water, but muddy water is better than no water. You can filter a lot of that

mud out by just running it through a piece of thick cloth. Then, use your water purifier to get the clean

water out of the mud.

Follow Animal Trails

Animal trails will almost always lead to water, as pretty much all animals need water. So, if you find an

animal trail, as you are walking through the wilderness, it's a good idea to follow it. That may not be as

easy as it seems, as animals can often fit through spaces where we humans get stuck. But if you can

follow it downhill, chances are that it will lead you to water.

Look for Animals

Following the animals themselves is just as good as following their trail, although you can't count on

them being cooperative with your efforts. Many species of animals water at dawn and dusk, making it

possible to use their movements as an indicator of where water is.

If you see cattle or antelope moving in a particular direction close to sunset, you can be pretty sure that

they are moving towards water. This is an especially good sign, as many ranchers' wells and wind

powered pumps won't show up on a topographical map. Yet the animals will know where to find them.

Always Make Sure the Water is Safe

Never count on water you find in the wild being safe. Even water taken from a cool, clear mountain

stream may be contaminated. You don't know who might be upstream of you, who thought that stream

was their personal toilet. While that cool, clear mountain water may be tasty and refreshing, it can also

be crawling with microscopic pathogens. Be sure to purify it before drinking and avoid any risk of getting

dysentery.

If the water is clear and you're going to be cooking with it, you don't need to purify it beforehand; that is,

if you're going to be boiling the water. Boiling water will kill any pathogens. So, if you're making soup or

even just some Ramen noodles, you can use the water just as you find it.

Finding Food in the Wild

Finding food in the wild isn't as easy as many would think. That's not to say it's impossible, but you need

to be well prepared to do it; much better prepared than what I can give you in this book. About all I can

do is to point you in the right direction.

Your potential food sources in the wild break down into four different categories:

Plant life

Fish

Small game

Big game

Plant Life

Plant life is usually the most abundant and can't run away from you either. Therefore, you should always

plan on harvesting plants from nature to eat. The thing is, understanding which plants are edible and

which ones aren't.

The easiest way to solve this problem is to buy yourself a book on edible plants in the area where you

live and where you will be bugging out. You need a local one, as the same types of plants do not grow all

across the country. Using a local one ensures that you have information that will be applicable to your

situation and you won't be wasting your time looking for plants that don't grow in your region.

Don't just buy the book, use it. Take the time to walk in the woods, identifying edible plants. This isn't a

skill you want to learn when you're starving. Better to take some time to learn it ahead of time. But still

bring the book with you, packed safely in a waterproof bag, along in your bug out bag.

Fish

In most parts of the country, fish are the easiest form of animal protein to obtain. Pretty much

anywhere that you have water, you're going to find fish as well. While some may be small, at least they

will provide you with something to eat.

Fish can either be caught with a pole, a net or a trap. None of these are easy to carry with you in a bug

out bag, but you could carry some essential gear, like hooks, line and bobbers, which you can use with a

pole you cut out in the wild. While that won't meet the beauty and efficiency of a modern spin-casting

rig, it will still work.

There are several styles of fish traps which can be made easily from materials you can find in the wild.

They all have one thing in common. That is, they have a wide mouth, which narrows down like a funnel,

leaving an opening which is just larger than the fish. When the fish swim into this, they find themselves

caught. They can't find the opening, which is small, so they stay in the trap until you remove them.

In this diagram, the trap is made of a number of sticks, driven into the stream bed. There need to be

enough sticks to make the spaces between them too small for the fish to swim through. If the sticks are

not very strong, it can help to tie them together with tall grass or vines, so that they will not move apart.

Fish swimming upstream enter the mouth of the trap and naturally follow it to the containment area,

where they are trapped awaiting your arrival.

Small Game

Small game aren't usually hunted, as much as they are trapped in a snare. There are a number of

different types of snares which can be made, some of which are fairly complicated. They also require

finding the animals' paths, so that the snare can be set along their normal path.

If there are squirrels in the area, you can set up a very simple snare, which is almost guaranteed to work.

All you need is a deadfall branch and some snare wire. I like to use the high strings off a guitar for my

snare wire. Since my son is a classical guitarist, I have no shortage of used strings and they are very easy

to convert into snares. I cut the messed up end off the strings, where it had been wrapped around the

tuning peg, before putting them into my survival kit.

The end of the guitar string has a small loop in it, usually formed around a metal donut. Putting the

other end of the string through this donut makes a larger loop, which will slip easily, making the snare.

Lean a deadfall branch that's about 3" to 4" in diameter up against a tree in the area where you see

squirrel activity. Squirrels will always take the easiest way up, so they will naturally take this branch as a

means to get into the tree, rather than climbing the trunk. Then take your snare loop and attach it to the

branch, so that the open loop is on the top side of the branch. You need a loop that is about 2-1/2"

across.

When a squirrel runs up the branch, they will get their head caught in the loop, jerking them off the

branch and hanging them. The next squirrel that comes along will go farther up the branch, hopefully

encountering another of your snares and have the same fate happen to it. When you come back to

check your snares, you should have several dead squirrels awaiting you.

Big Game

Big game hunting is varied and extensive, depending upon the type of game that you are trying to kill. If

you are used to hunting, you'll already have a pretty good idea of how to stake out a trail and kill any

passing game. I have to warn you though, this isn't going to be the kind of hunting where you bait the

deer in with corn and sit there in your blind waiting for them. You're going to have to find a place to hide

in the underbrush, alongside a game trail.

Hunting for big game requires understanding their habits. The easiest way to hunt effectively is to find

where the animals frequent and stake out those areas, waiting for the game to come to you. A meadow

where deer tend to eat or a stream where they water at dusk are ideal areas to stake out. If you are

going to be in the area for a while, you should be able to learn their habits. If you are on the move, your

best bet will be to try and find where they water.

You should always take a goodly quantity of salt with you, to be used for preserving meat. If you have a

cabin in the woods or other survival retreat, always make sure you have a good stock of salt. With it, you

can make jerky, which is the easiest way of preserving meat, without using electrical power.

The same could be said for killing some rancher's cattle. If you have to resort to that to survive, then by

all means do so. However, make good use of the meat that you get from the animal. Throwing half of it

away because you let it spoil is wasteful. Turn the whole thing into jerky, so that you can eat off of it for

a long period of time.

A Final Thought

You may be feeling a little overwhelmed by now, thinking that this is a bit more than you can do. That's

okay, we all feel that way when we get started. Truly preparing to survive is an extensive exercise that

takes time. Nobody can do it overnight and trying to will merely cause you to become overwhelmed.

Having said that, there is one thing you can do overnight, that's make the decision to get started. As

they say, every journey starts with one step; so decide to take that first step. Each step you make along

the path will make your family a little more prepared to face an emergency and a little more secure. Isn't

that worth it?

So, where do you start? Let me recommend three things to you:

First of all, start building your stockpile. That's going to take a long time; so you may as well get

it going now. Get going on that first month's worth of food and water, so that you have

something to work with.

Secondly, start learning survival skills. I've mentioned a bunch of skills in this book, ranging from

starting fires to building shelters with water purification somewhere in between. Start learning

those skills, so that you can do them without having to use the book to help you.

Thirdly, go back and read the book again. There's no way that you could have gotten everything

the first time around. I've put too much information in this book for anyone to do that. Read it

again, highlighting the parts that really spoke to you.

A year from now you're going to be much better off than you are today. Even better, if a disaster

happens a year from now, you're going to be much better off than you would be if the disaster

happened today. While I don't want to wish a disaster on anyone, I'd rather see you ready before it

comes.

Whatever you do, don't give up. You're a winner. You can survive. Convince yourself of that and then get

to work making it a reality. I know you can do it, now convince yourself you can too.