Poor Man Survival
Self Reliance tools for
independent minded people…
ISSN
2161-5543
A Digest of Urban
Survival Resources
In survival situations,
money can lose its value overnight: How to Survive
So can expensive
modern comforts and luxury items like electronics, jewelry and accessories.
There are a few items that will get more expensive, food being the top one. In recent issues I’ve addressed the basics of
buying gold and silver. Today we’ll cover a few other important ideas…
Seeds are among the most valuable commodities in survival
communities. (Clearly, since you can use them to grow food.) I always advise my
readers to keep a seed
vault and I keep several myself. What can I say, I want to
make sure I’m covered even if someone discovers and confiscates or steals one
batch of seeds, I can always use a different batch.
It’s best to grow your own garden and store the seeds that
you extract from your own produce. Why? Because you know that you are not
adding chemicals, synthetic plant food, or other strange compounds. There’s
something great about knowing where your seeds came from. When you’re ready to
plant your survival garden, if your family doesn’t have one, buy organic
heirloom seeds. You will grow real food that tastes great and does not
have GMOs in its “genetic code.”
Storing seeds properly does take skill, but with practice
you can be a pro. When you extract the seeds, wash all of the fruit or
vegetable fibers off the seeds and pat them dry. Then lay them out to dry on a
paper towel or on a cotton kitchen towel. If the towel is soaked afterwards,
change it. Bottom line is, your seeds need to be 100% dry before you put the
away in your “storage vault.” Otherwise, they can spoil and grow mold, or they
can even germinate.
Put your seeds in paper bags or wrap them in paper and put
in Ziploc bags. Try to get the oxygen out of the bags (in other words, flatten
them before you close them.) The ideal condition for storing your survival
seeds are as follows:
1.
Keep the seeds out of direct sunlight. One good trick is to
put the bags of seeds into an old coffee can or metal kitchen canister.
2.
Keep them cool. Seeds store much better in cooler
temperatures. A good rule of thumb is to keep your vault at around 40 degrees
F. [I freeze bag lots]
3.
Make sure your seeds stay dry. Moisture destroys the seeds
and can even go as far as to germinate them. If you have the proper tools, keep
the moisture in your seed vault at or below 5%. You can dry them in a
dehydrator or in the sun.
A great alternative to collecting your own seeds is buying
survival seeds. You can get a kit
with a huge array of fruits, veggies and herbs which are all organic, heirloom, non-GMO seeds. [eBay offers
a variety of vendors].
I recommend storing a variety of seeds for survival, both
as a food source and as a commodity. Keep them dark, cool, and dry, and when
the SHTF you'll have enough nutritious food to last you and your family a
lifetime.
Preparedness
involves a lot. One of the skills that sets true preppers apart is taking
something old and reusing it wisely. Learning a few tricks now, while your
computer still turns on, will be a huge plus down the road.
Here are a few environmentally friendly ways to reuse the junk you
find.
Newspapers and/or Junk
Mail
First, get your newspapers wet and let excess water drip
off. (This will allow you to get a tighter roll.) Then roll them very tightly
into logs and secure with twine or rope. These make great logs to jump-start
your fire and will actually burn longer than you expect.
Plastic Bottles
There's a lot you can do with plastic two liter bottles.
·
You can use them to build an irrigation system for your
garden.
·
If you have collected numerous bottles with lids, check
them for integrity and if they are intact, use them to build a raft (or at
least a life jacket) to help you get mobile on the water. Don't be a fool
though - this is not something that can handle rapids.
·
If you have a bunch of lids from 2 liter bottles, connect
them to make a mat to sit and sleep on.
·
Use clear PET bottles to clean questionable water via solar
disinfection.
Beer Bottle Lid or Glass
Soda Bottle Lid
Nail the lid (or otherwise attach it) to a thick stick and
use it to scrape the scales off fish.
Empty Pill Bottles
Use them to safely store your mini bug-out kits or first
aid kits. They will keep your matches, medications, band-aids and candles from
getting wet.
Aluminum Cans
These make great tea pots, cooking pots and dishes. You can
also cut the can in half lengthwise, bend or cut off one of the semi-circles on
each half and attach a handle to make 2 small shovels to help you dig for roots
if you are bugging out. Also, if you are working on building shelter, aluminum
cans can be used to strengthen walls or can be cut and flattened to create
aluminum roof shingles. Not to mention, they work wonders in
scaring critters away from your garden.
Lint
Yes, save your lint! It is a great tinder, especially when
combined with vaseline.
Soda Cans
Soda cans are incredibly useful. You can use them to start
a fire, to create an oil lamp and a wind-resistant candle holder. You can even
cut them up to make a solar oven.
Stainless Steel Ruler
Hopefully, you have plenty of survival knives. But if you
happen to have a stainless steel ruler, you can sharpen it, wrap some rope or
paracord on one side and turn it into a survival knife.
Old Tires
If you happen to find old tires, you are in luck. They are
great for building garden beds, compost bins and even shelter.
If you're in a grid down
crisis & needed supplies where would you go?
Take 2 seconds to think of an answer…
If you said Walmart, a gas station, a Home Depot, or a local
grocery store…you’d be dead wrong.
Literally.
That’s where everyone will flock to during a crisis because it’s
a natural instinct for people to run where they normally get their supplies.
This means those areas would be filled with people desperate for
supplies.
Desperate people do desperate things for their families.
You'll land in the midst of riots, theft, fighting, chaos, and
the food, medicine and supplies you came for may be long gone.
So
if you can’t go to your local Walmart, gas station, a Home Depot, or a local
grocery store, where do you go?
You go to a secret place that no one will expect.
You go to the nearest pet store.YES - PET STORE.
Why?
Pet stores are filled with everything that you need to survive
for extended periods of time during a grid down situation.
They have antibiotics, and medicines that are crucial to your
survival, plenty of water and food filled with nutrition. (yes,
animal food that will not only keep you alive but some of it has more nutrition
than what we eat daily.)
There are also beds, blankets, leashes for rope, crates, fish bait,
and plenty more.
You'll be fully equipped, and ready to survive for weeks.
Most importantly you'd be long gone from the pet store by the
time people get there.
Finally…
In my town we have a Dollar General and a Dollar Tree,
so last weekend I went walking around both of them to see how many emergency
supplies I could find. I jotted down what I saw and ended up with a list of
several dozen items that would be useful during a disaster.
Here
are the top 40 survival items you can find in dollar stores...
Homemade
water filters.
The instructions in “Household
Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis’s Cookbook” are quite basic as everyone
had a rain barrel back then and presumably knew how to clean the water. Now,
104 years later, I am thankful the authors had the foresight to preserve their
knowledge for us and pointed out that rainwater collected in barrels from a
roof is a necessity in some locations but also is best for laundry and “often
more wholesome for drinking purposes than hard water.”
Take a new vinegar barrel or an oak tub that has never been
used, either a full cask or half size. Stand it on end raised on brick or stone
from the ground. Insert a faucet near the bottom. Make a tight false bottom 3 or
4 inches from the bottom of the cask. Perforate this with small gimlet holes
and cover it with a piece of clean white canvas.
Place on this false bottom a layer of clean pebbles 3 or 4
inches in thickness. Next, place a layer of clean washed sand and gravel and
then coarsely granulated charcoal about the size of small peas. Charcoal made
from hard maple is the best.
Step 3: Add the Final Layer of the
Strainer
After
putting in a half bushel or so, pound it down firmly. Then put in more until
the tub is filled within 1 foot of the top. Add a 3-inch layer of pebbles and
throw a piece of canvas over the top to act as a strainer.
Tip: Later, you can
remove this canvas strainer and wash it occasionally. When you dump the
contents of the cask, you can also clean the pebbles. Then renew the charcoal
every spring and fall or once a year.
This also makes a good cider filter for the purpose of
making homemade vinegar. The
cider should first be passed through cheesecloth to remove all coarser
particles. You can also make a small cheap filter from a flower pot. A fine
sponge may be inserted in the hole and the pot filled about as directed for the
above filter. It may be placed in the top of a jar which will receive the
filtered water.
Free enterprise, limited government,
individual freedom!
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A Final Note…
Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.
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1 comment:
As usual, lots of excellent ideas and resources. No matter what or where, it the SH_T hits the fan, everyone needs food to survive. Other items can be bartered & people will barter for booze, drugs/tobacco, ammo, medicine, tools, sex and the like - just like they have for thousands of years!
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