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

Went to a small gun show today. Didnt really purchase anything of consequence, although I did, for $3, find a copy of the seminal work “Survival Guns” by Mel Tappan. Although a very dated work (originally came out in the late 1970's) alot of what he said made sense. He was, however, not shy of advocating that you needed at least a dozen guns. Now, thats not dozen as in “Four guns with tripple redundancy in case of breakage, loss, etc.”…no, ol' Mel thinks that you need at least a dozen…backup gun, hideout gun, working gun, big game gun, varmint gun, training gun, defensive auto, defensive revolver, etc etc. Now Im the first to tell you that any gun is better than no gun, but theres alot of overlap in gun choices….nonetheless, its still a good read. Since its so old theres no mention of the .40 S&W, Glock, SIG pistols, or any of that. He's very much of the Jerry Ahern school that says you need an AR, a 1911 and an 870. Which is fine and dandy but I think I'll hedge my bets with a few other choices.
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Picked up a few more mags for the FAL which gives me exactly 30 20-rd magazines. (Actually, I need 31…1 to keep in the gun, the other 30 for stoarge.) But, by and large, Im done buying FAL mags.
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Gardening season approaches. Shortly it will be time to start some seeds. Whats it going to be this year? Romas, peppers, chiles, lettuce, spinach, herbs, and whatever else strikes my fancy. This year I think I'll order up some heirloom seeds to use.
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Havent played with the mylar bags yet. Maybe tonight. When it happens, I'll post about it.
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I have to say, if youre an LMI and you want to work on some useful skills, geocaching is the pasttime for you….map and compass skills, GPS usage, sneaky thinking, tromping around in the outdoors, etc, etc. And lets not even think about the hugely useful skills you'll pick up. Never know when its going to be handy to leave something hidden in a location that only you and your LMI's can get to. And its, of course, a handy skill for arranging rendezvous and supply drops.

But, and I stress this, GPS is no substitute for map and compass skills. .gov can turn off the satellites or bring back Selective Availability (intentional errors in the GPS readings to reduce accuracy..it was only turned off a few years ago) at any moment. And we all know about battery life in our critical gear, right? It doesnt exist! So have the battery-powered goodie but be ready to not have it available.
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Quick Tip: Make a copy of your keyring. I dont mean make a copy of just a couple keys. I mean copy every key on your keyring, put them all on a ring or fob just like what you use now so its an exact duplicate. I lost my keys last week and it was a major mess. Easier to just go home, grab the complete extra set and have house key, truck key, shop key, bike lock key, etc, etc, already in one place and ready to go.
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Still need to go down to the bunker and straighten up. The shelving I put in has made a tremendous difference. I just now need to organize a bit better and utilize the freed-up space more efficiently. But, overall, Im okay with how it looks. More organization is needed, but I'm satisfied that things are 'good enough' if the situation calls for using the things there.