Monday Motivation

What One Soap Would You Choose?

A recent line in an article caught my attention.  It said, "If you could only have one soap, what would it be?" That was an easy one for me.

Ivory soap can be used for just about anything.  Your hair & body, dishes and laundry.

Using Ivory to bathe should be pretty self explanatory.  

To use it on dishes you can do it several different ways, I'm going to mention the 2 easiest here (we are talking about prepping after all). 

#1 is to simply toss the bar in the sink or wash pan as you're adding the hot water.  Let it set for a bit to allow the soap to melt a little bit, then slosh it around a bit to circulate.  Wash the dishes with a rag and rinse.

#2 Grate a small amount of soap into sink or wash pan before adding water.  Add water and allow to sit for a bit to melt.  Add dishes and wash.

For laundry it is similar.  First wet any heavily soiled areas and rub the bar directly on the soiled area. Add about 1 tablespoon grated soap (the finer the grate the better) to a washing machine, run hot water for about 6 inches and stop the filling to allow soap to melt. After allowing about 10 minutes (all soap may not be melted) resume adding water if you are washing in hot or warm water.  Wait until soap is melted if you are going to use cold water the rest of the way.  

If you are hand washing the process is similar.  Wet and treat any soiled areas with the bar.  Add a small amount of grated soap (you'll have to allow for the size of your washtub as to decide how much, but I would not go over a tablespoon) to your washtub and add water.  The hotter the better, if you need to add hot water and let it melt the soap and cool before adding clothes. Agitate clothes and when clean, rinse well!

There you have it, why I think Ivory Soap should be the choice if you could only have one soap.

I have a few more thoughts I'm going to be posting soon, please follow my blog to get notices when it's updated.  It will only be one or two items a week so you won't be inundated with items.  Thank you.

National Preparedness Month

Our friends at Ready Gov, part of the Department of Homeland Security, have declared September to be National Preparedness Month. Once you're done with your Labor Day festivities, start thinking about how well (or not) you are prepared for a disaster or other emergency.

In the meantime, have fun!

What is a "Simple Prepper"?

Prepping. Even the word conjures up images of camo-clad ninjas stockpiling goods in anticipation of the collapse of the world.  There may be a few like that, but for the most part preppers are just normal people taking the Boy Scout oath of "Be Prepared" seriously.

You've probably seen (or heard of) the Discovery Channel series "Doomsday Preppers."  Like any other "reality" show, they focus on the most extreme people they can find.  Personally I think those folks are wasting their time and money. 

I grew up and spent most of the first 50 years of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area.  AKA "Earthquake Country." I lived about 1/4 of a mile from the Hayward Fault for a long period of time. As far back as I remember, FEMA and the CA Dept of Emergency Services have recommended having 3 days worth of food & water on hand.  I was blessed to have been in a home where food was always available. I really can't remember a time when we didn't have food in the house.  In an emergency situation it may not have been exactly what we wanted, but I am sure between the freezer, pantry and cupboards we probably could have gotten by for a couple weeks, maybe longer. A habit I carried over when I had my own place. Back then no one stored water.  I don't even know if you could buy drinking water back then, the only water I recall being sold in stores was distilled water.

Back in those pre-internet days news was disseminated via the TV and Newspapers.  TV for the headlines, newspapers for the in-depth stuff. Mainly the Sunday paper. I was a voracious reader of the papers back then, often reading two or three a day.

I recall reading a newspaper article (which paper I've forgotten) after the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989. It stated that in the event of a major earthquake, the water supply to the area could be destroyed. The article stated that in that type of event, it would take 6 months to restore limited service to the area and two years to restore full service. That was probably the beginning of my "prepping", although I don't think that was a word back then.  :-)

We've seen time and time again when disasters have struck that the folks that were prepared did all right.  Others were stuck while the government mismanaged relief efforts.

My plan then, and now, is in the event of a localized disaster is to have enough on hand to last a few months. Somewhere within that time frame I am sure will be the opportunity to leave the area and drive to the home of a friend or relative outside of the disaster zone.  And I have them all over the country.  :-)

What is the essence of "simple prepping"? Simple  ;-)

• Keep the tank on the car full of gas.
• Have an emergency supply of meds.
• Have a few months of food & water on hand.
• Keep a reasonable amount of cash on hand.
• Keep a reasonable amount of personal hygiene items on hand
• Same for cooking items and such.

Some of these items are subjective and I will go into more detail in future posts.

You don't have to be a "Doomsday Prepper" to be ready for an extended emergency!

Hybeam Pop Up Lantern

Where I live power outages happen quite often. Sometimes they are at night and I only know about them when I get up in the morning and see the clocks on the appliances blinking at me. Other times they happen during the day and are an inconvenience but not really a problem as there is enough light coming in the windows. The ones that bother me happen at dusk or early evening when it's too early to go to bed but too dark to see. For those, I keep flashlights (yes, plural) very handy. I will say that I have always been a sucker for inexpensive tools, knives and flashlights.

Yes, I have good quality products too, but I like the inexpensive ones so as not to wear out my good stuff.  I know, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

A while back my mother gave me a Hybeam 2-in-1 Pop Up LED Lantern and flashlight. I said "Thanks Mom" and set it aside. One day prior to the last couple outages I saw the box sitting on my desk and decided to put some batteries in it and check it out. It seemed to work fine in both the flashlight and lantern modes.It has a Hi, Low and Strobe effects, which work in the order listed.

About a month later the power went out, the Hybeam was close at hand so I decided to try it out.  It worked great as a flashlight, both Hi and Low settings were plenty good enough in the house.  I decided to try reading using the lantern. For me, I needed the high setting to provide enough light to read. It took a few times to find the right place to set the lantern where I could read without the light hitting my eyes, but I've had to do that with other lanterns too.

All in all, I have to say I'm impressed with the performance of this little critter. It takes 3 AA batteries which should power it for quite a while. I put alkaline batteries in it, but will probably switch to rechargeable batteries when they wear out. I'm going to order a few more of these. I'm thinking 4, 2 for the house and 2 for the center console of the car but might make it an even half dozen so I can put a couple in the go box too.

There are many styles of lanterns like this, but this is the first I've tried and so I can only report on this particular one. If you're looking for a combo lantern/flashlight I can wholeheartedly recommend the Hybeam.

Everyone is a Prepper

Everyone is a prepper, whether they realize it or not.

Some are "Doomsday Preppers", getting themselves ready for "The End Of The World As We Know It", often acronymized as TEOTWAWKI.

Some, like myself, are what I call "Simple Preppers".  We feel it's smart to have a reasonable supply of food and other supplies in case natural disaster cuts off goods and services for a time.  How long varies by each person, having grown up in "Earthquake Country" I feel having anywhere up to 2 years worth of supplies isn't outrageous. Many articles have said it could take that long (or longer) to repair infrastructure after a major quake. I don't keep that much as I would leave the area as soon as I could if the infrastructure was that badly damaged.

Others keep the 3 day supply FEMA recommends and figure they'll be rescued by then. Trusting souls, aren't they?

Even if you don't think of what you'd need in case of an emergency event, I bet you're a prepper in other ways. Do you have a retirement plan? You're prepping for your "golden years". Do you have investments? You're prepping for future unknown events, whether good or bad.

No supplies, no retirement, no investments, no plans? You're prepping to fail.

So you see, everyone is some type of prepper.

Review of Mountain House Freeze Dried Ground Beef

As I said in this post I've been using some of the freeze dried products I have on hand to rotate the stock and to try them out. Today I'm going to talk about Mountain House Freeze Dried Ground Beef. It is fully cooked and very lean, as might be expected for a product to be stored long term at room temperature. The can contains about 22 half cup servings or about 11 cups of cooked ground beef., per the label. A web search shows a pound of uncooked ground beef is approximately 2 cups. 80% lean ground beef is what I use for most recipes that call for browning and draining off the fat (Pasta, chili, etc) so that would equate to approximately 1.6 cups of this product per pound and I would most likely round it down to 1.5 cups for a pound equivalent.

I emailed Mountain House about storage of the products after opening and was told to treat them like any other food, refrigerate for up to a week or freeze. So the unused portion was placed in a zip lock bag and frozen.

So far I've used it to make "quick and easy chili" and "one pot pasta". These are camping recipes I've used for some time as they take one pot, minimal prep and are ready fast. They are so convenient I now make them at home too. That's what happens as you get older. I plan on posting these recipes with pics in the near future.

The good points of this product are it's ability to be stored long term, it's low fat content makes it go further in recipes and it's ease of prep. It is real ground beef and has the taste and texture as such. So far it has worked fine in any recipe using browned ground beef that I've tried.

To me the only negatives are it's high price per pound (which is to be expected for a speciality product like this) and the fact it is only available in the #10 can. While that may be good for larger groups, in an emergency situation storing the unused portion may be problematic if there are only a few of you. I do wish Mountain House would make this available in the pouches with only a cup of product.

If this product in the current size available would meet your needs, then I would wholeheartedly recommend it.