Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Wake up, check TV to make sure Nothing Important is going on, continue with the day….

Winter is about halfway over and although nearby locales experienced a couple power outages this season, we’ve been relatively lucky here and not had any disruptions…might be a first. Doesnt mean anything though…still have to wire up an uninterruptable power supply and a low-wattage light for emergency use. While Im at it, I do need to pick up a few more 5-gallon jugs of kerosene too.
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Lately I’ve been drinking Coke in 20 oz plastic bottles rather than cans. I save the bottles, fill them with water and use them to line the edges of my upright freezer. If the power goes out, they’ll help keep things frozen and then they also double as an extra source of water for washing up, flushing toilets, etc, etc.
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Need to do some sort of website update this weekend. Should have plenty of time since I expect things to be slow around here what with the Super Bowl tomorrow….

Wake up, check TV to make sure Nothing Important is going on, continue with the day….

Winter is about halfway over and althouhg nearvy locales experienced a couple power outages this season, we’ve been relatively lucky here and not had any disruptions…might be a first. Doesnt mean anything though…still have to wire up an uninterruptable power supply and a low-wattage light for emergency use. While Im at it, I do need to pick up a few more 5-gallon jugs of kerosene too.
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Lately I’ve been drinking Coke in 20 oz plastic bottles rather than cans. I save the bottles, fill them with water and use them to line the edges of my upright freezer. If the power goes out, they’ll help keep things frozen and then they also double as an extra source of water for washing up, flushing toilets, etc, etc.
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Need to do some sort of website update this weekend. Should have plenty of time since I expect things to be slow around here what with the Super Bowl tomorrow….

Picked up a cz52 yesterday. Its built like a tank and fires the very zippy 7.62×25 cartridge…its very high velocity makes it a…challenge…to body armour. With a steel core bullet or the proper pointy shape it would probably zip right through. The price was right and cheap handguns are the next best thing to money in the bank. In fact, think about this… no matter what the economy there are four things people will always want: food, weapons, medical treatment, and sex. If youre in any business that caters to those four, well, my friend you have a recession-proof business.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the land of NYC or Chicago, the man among the unarmed sheeple with a lousy .25 auto would be king. Handguns are a delightfully compact form of currency. Obviously, theres the drawback of them possibly being used against you but if your trading with strangers you would normally only do that from a position of overwhelming force anyway.

I’ll probably clean this thing up, get a couple spare mags, a sealed tin of 500 rounds of ammo and pack it up for long term storage. (Or, as one of the LMI call it “the mylar nap”.)
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Speaking of mylar, I picked up the other 25# bag of dried corn I ordered. Tonight I’ll dump it out into a bucket, inspect it for foreign material, and put it in the deep freeze for a few days as insurance that anything in there will be dead, dead, dead. Then it’ll go into the mylar bag along with a buncha dry ice to displace the oxygen. Then the mylar bag is heat sealed and deposited in an airtight 6-gallon bucket. Anything that can live through that isnt from this planet.
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What does a body do with 50# of dried organic corn? Well, first thing he does is order another 50#. Then it gets used to make cornmeal for things like polenta, corn muffins and cornbread. (And, kids, warm cornbread with clover honey is just too damn good…) Why not store ground cornmeal? Keeps better as a whole kernel. Way I figure, once it goes into the mylar bag, and assuming container integrity is not breached, it should last at least into the next decade.

The grains are the last of the really long-term foods I need to purchase. And, interestingly, they are the cheapest. 100# of wheat is less than $40. 100# of corn is about $55. #100 of rice is about $25. Naturally, theres other food items in storage to go with these things since it would otherwise be a remarkably bland diet. (Although whole freakin’ nations exist on nothing but beans and rice….)

aldoushuxley has a lovely post that, sadly, is Friends only regarding his insight into where he sees the economy going and what investments strategy (if you can call running like hell a strategy) will minimize your losses. What I like most about aldoushuxley is a) reading about his dating life and b)his position on gold being the best way to preserve your wealth. (Preserve..not increase, but *preserve*).

Zero has gold. Not much. Gold is expensive stuff. (Although it was cheaper when I started buying it..the fact its price has gone up so much as people flock to it to protect their assets should tell you something.) And, of course, golds lesser cousin, silver. Invariably, those of us in the ‘preparedness community’ look on silver/gold in one of two ways:
Its a great medium and the closest thing to a universal currency
or
You cant eat it or shoot it, so its worthless

I subscribe to the former line of thinking. Short of a nuclear explosion in every major American city at the same time, we’re not going to have a Mad Max world overnight….nope, I think your going to see a slide into a dystopic situation akin to Soviet Moscow, Bosnia, Argentina, or anyplace in Africa – food lines, checkpoints, rolling blackouts, rampant corruption and crime, etc, etc. And in situations like that, a little gold goes a long way to getting you through that checkpoint, out of that cell, or to the head of the line.

More realistically, there will be times when checks and credit cards are worthless. Happens all the time. Hurricanes and floods knock out power and all the credit card machines are offline. At times like that, cash is king…but cash can lose its value, gold seems to just keep chugging along.

So, I play it safe….the usual goodies – food, water, ammo, meds, gear, etc…and some silver/gold. Never know when your going to need a universal currency.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Zero Deed For The Day yesterday – ordered up a couple 50# sacks of Montana Hard White Wheat, and picked up 25# of dried corn with another 25# on order. Also picked up a lovely Made In USA 8″ Dutch oven to fit my small Volcano stove. (Those stoves, by the by, beat the hell out of any hibachi that ever lived and are definitely a good tool for cooking in the post-apocalyptic world. Heres their website..check em out) And I also picked up a hard carrying case for my Coleman Dual Fuel lantern…(yes, we can light the night using kerosene, gasoline, coleman fuel, or propane.)
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Need to pick up dry ice today to fumigate the dried corn before sealing up the Mylar bags. I suppose you all know about the joys of CO2 bombs, right? You get a 2-liter pop bottle, fill it about 1/4 of the way with warm water, pour in a buncha crushed dry ice, screw the top on tight and run like hell. The things explode with a very authoratative boom.)
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Reminds me, I need to cure/treat that dutch oven tonight. A smokey job, but I can do it outdoors……..

Zero Deed For The Day yesterday – ordered up a couple 50# sacks of Montana Hard White Wheat, and picked up 25# of dried corn with another 25# on order. Also picked up a lovel Made In USA 8″ Dutch oven to fit my small Volcano stove. (Those stoves, by the by, beat the hell out of any hibachi that ever lived and are definitely a good tool for cooking in the post-apocalyptic world. Heres their website..check em out) And I also picked up a hard carrying case for my Coleman Dual Fuel lantern…(yes, we can light the night using kerosene, gasoline, coleman fuel, or propane.)
==============
Need to pick up dry ice today to fumigate the dried corn before sealing up the Mylar bags. I suppose you all know about the joys of CO2 bombs, right? You get a 2-liter pop bottle, fill it about 1/4 of the way with warm water, pour in a buncha crushed dry ice, screw the top on tight and run like hell. The things explode with a very authoratative boom.)
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Reminds me, I need to cure/treat that dutch oven tonight. A smokey job, but I can do it outdoors……..

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I was thinking, whats the best substance/material to use to preserve the rubber gaskets on ammo cans (or other waterproof containers?)

I don’t want to seal the container permanently, I simply wish to maintain the integrity of the gasket and keep it from drying out.

I was thinking some type of silicone or something. Any ideas?

I was thinking, whats the best substance/material to use to preserve the rubber gaskets on ammo cans (or other waterproof containers?)

I don’t want to seal the container permanently, I simply wish to maintain the integrity of the gasket and keep it from drying out.

I was thinking some type of silicone or something. Any ideas?

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

As much as I hate health/organic food stores due to their being bastions of soak-the-rich, kill-your-tv, fellow-traveller liberalism, they do tend to be a good source for 50# of hard red winter wheat and other grains to go into storage. Since I found out yesterday that a local vendor has the somewhat-difficult-to-find 15-gallon blue water barrels it only seems to prudent to pick up a couple and get another hundred or so pounds of wheat to go in them.

Why wheat and not flour? Well, wheat stores alot better and is a bit more versatile…you can crack it for bulghur or making cereals, grind it a little finer for mush, or grind it even finer for flour. You can also sprout it if your in need of some freshe greens.

Anyway, I called Dean headquarters bastion of failed liberalism and asked if they had wheat in 50# bags. Sure wnough…$22/50#. Reasonable. So I’ll pick up a hundred pounds later today and that shall be my Zero Deed For The Day.

As much as I hate health/organic food stores due to their being bastions of soak-the-rich, kill-your-tv, fellow-traveller liberalism, they do tend to be a good source for 50# of hard red winter wheat and other grains to go into storage. Since I found out yesterday that a local vendor has the somewhat-difficult-to-find 15-gallon blue water barrels it only seems to prudent to pick up a couple and get another hundred or so pounds of wheat to go in them.

Why wheat and not flour? Well, wheat stores alot better and is a bit more versatile…you can crack it for bulghur or making cereals, grind it a little finer for mush, or grind it even finer for flour. You can also sprout it if your in need of some freshe greens.

Anyway, I called Dean headquarters bastion of failed liberalism and asked if they had wheat in 50# bags. Sure wnough…$22/50#. Reasonable. So I’ll pick up a hundred pounds later today and that shall be my Zero Deed For The Day.