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

Lurk around the discussion boards long enough and you’ll see the same questions being asked over and over and over again. One that turns up regularly is the ‘how (or where) do I meet like-minded individuals?’ This is a pretty good question. If you ‘come out’ to the wrong person you can easily wind up being known as ‘that survivalist whacko’ or, worse, wind up compromising an uncomfortable amount of your privacy and security. But, while there is a certain amount of stereotyping of the ‘lone wolf’ type of survivalist, it’s often more practical and simply more enjoyable to have people you can discuss this sort of thing with without them looking at you like you’ve lost your mind. Although survivalists are often pegged as anti-social (and, to be sure, some are) I like having a small group of like-minded individuals I can talk to about things and feel comfortable speaking my mind.

For example, I enjoy being able to kick back at the range, plink with .22’s and chat with my buddies and kick around ideas like propane vs. diesel storage, freezedrieds vs. air dried, .308 vs. 30-06 for sniping, etc, etc. and not feel like I have to watch what I say lest I be considered a kook of some sort.

That is what we call ‘acceptance’. Its genuinely nice to be able to be yourself around other people without having to worry that your coming off like some sort of paranoid whacko. Additionally, aside from the social aspect, its beneficial to have a few friends or social acquaintances who share common goals. It certainly makes bulk purchasing easier. When I did the bulk purchases of Mountain House last year there was no way I could make the minimum order on my own..but by bringing in my like-minded friends and acquaintances it was possible.

So, how do you find these elusive and secretive people? I’m willing to bet money you already know a few. I’m only going to go by my own experiences, so this is not an all inclusive Guide To Detecting Survivalists. Its just whats worked for me in the past.

First off, I never actively seek out these folks. Its always been that I knew them through some other interest and then later discovered we had a shared interest in preparedness. The internet makes this sort of thing a lot easier since you can actually ‘meet’ these people on forums and then later get together ‘in real life’. In this regard, I’ve had two people just walk into the shop, introduce themselves, and say they knew me from the internet.

Fella I knew collected guns and liked to shoot. Right off the bat, we had that in common. But I noticed his choices of guns were…interesting. What clinched it was that he bought everything in pairs. That’s pairs as in ‘one to use, one as a backup’. Hmmmmm. We’d chat a little about politics and discover we were pretty much on the same page. From there it was a short trip to talking about preparedness-related topics and finding that we both had more than a passing interest in that sort of thing. Through him, I met one of his longtime friends who was also ‘one of us’ and in that way formed a little nucleus of like-minded friends.

The Mormons, naturally, already have a head start in that direction and I’ve met several of them who would definitely fit the bill as ‘well prepared individuals’. I’m not a member of their faith (or any faith for that matter) but I’ve found that doesn’t seem to matter too much when talking about preparedness. A nice bonus is that lately they’ve been very generous and let me use their canning facilities.

There are plenty of people I know whom I would suspect to one degree or another are more prepared than your average individual. Customers who come in and buy AR mags by the dozen are a good example. Since Im in a gun-centric business that’s my barometer. If I worked in, say, a bookstore I’d probably notice the folks that buy books on things like food preservation, first aid and medicine, and that sort of thing. Books, by the way, are almost always an excellent indicator of a persons interest. Loan out a copy of Lucifers Hammer or Alas Babylon and get some feedback when the book is returned. Odds are that’ll tell you all you need to know.

Like any other demographic, theres ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Personally, I don’t think anyone who prepares, to any degree, against the uncertain future is ‘bad’. However, Im far more likely to be social and interact with someone who has a bunker full of guns, food, fuel, spare parts, clothing, medical gear, etc. than with someone whose sole benchmark for ‘preparedness’ is how much camouflage clothing and ammo they have. Yes, I can be a snob. The guy who thinks firepower is all its gonna take to come out on top of any crisis is probably someone I don’t really wanna hang out with.

So, you probably already have several friends and acquaintances (especially your shooting buddies) who are like-minded individuals and just don’t wave it around in front of people. Quietly observe, ask a few casual questions about their opinions on things and maybe you’ll be surprised.

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

Video

Business Week ‘Mormon Index’

A filler piece about how the demand at Mormon food handling facilities has gone up and how the trepidation about the economy is to blame. Interesting to note that about ‘5%’ of the people using the services are not actually Mormons. :::waves:::

Dean Ing wrote a few books about a post-apocalyptic America where the LDS church, being the most organized and well-prepared section of the populace, became the ruler of a theocratic America. (For those who are curious ‘Single Combat’, ‘Wild COuntry’, ‘Systemic Shock’….a trilogy.) While Im sure there are individuals and small groups probably better prepared than the Mormons, Id bet that theres no single block of people approaching anything like their sheer numbers.

As I’ve flogged the idea before, lemme flog it again – if you can wrangle an invite with a Mormon friend, or if your local cannery allows unaccompanied non-members, you’d be doing yourself a disservice not to take advantage of the opportunity to use their facilities. Its also a good opportunity to network.

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Florida had itself a not-a-hurricane. The news was full of the usual stories about people evacuating and roads being jammed full. It seems that its standard practice to insert a fast paragraph somewhere about someone determined to ride it out. The article I read had one guy saying he wasnt worried…he’d built his home out of concrete, knew what it could handle, and had a generator ready to go. Sad thing is, guys like this are mentioned because they are the exception. How can anyone posibly live in a place that gets these things every year and not think that it might be a good idea to prepare for them? For crying out loud, the state even gives used to give sales tax exemptions to encourage people to buy the gear they need!  Just from an economical standpoint you would think .gov would find it advantageous to have people prepared so that they can not need .gov services.

The cycnics among us will point out that thats exactly what .gov wants – people needing their services. Lest they discover that perhaps they really can live without Big Brothers benevolent hand in their lives. Hmmmm.

Lemme tell ya kids, if I were governor you can bloody well believe that ‘Emergency Management’ or ‘Civil Defense’ or whatever you wanna call it would be a totally different ball game.

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Okay, as a nice change of gears to something more pleasant, lets have a link to the fabulous Swiss civil defense programs and their poured-concrete testimonials to optimism.

Life continues apace. The new pressure canner arrived today. It’s a monstrous construction with a very steampunk look to it. I think it looks like some sort of small nuclear device. Since Im a fan of function over form, I don’t really care what it looks like as long as it does what I want it to. Now that it has arrived I can work up another batch of the soup that girlfriend seems to like so much. At this point I put half into containers in the fridge for immediate use and the other half gets put back in jars for much later consumption. This is interesting because, up to this point, she would absolutely not eat the same food two days in a row. Its one of those little quirks that drives me absolutely nuts. However, she’s been eating this soup everyday for the last couple weeks. Go figure. Regardless, now that the pressure canner, with its increased capacity, is here I can make a couple huge batches and get them put away so I don’t have to make any more for a month or so. And, of course, if theres anything else I wanna put up I’ll have that ability as well.

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Which reminds me, I found a use for all the wooden ammo crates I have sitting around here. I tore the bottoms off, filled ‘em with dirt and used them as forms for raised beds to grow vegetables. The tomatoes look good, the cukes didn’t do so well, but the lettuce mix is taking off like a rocket.

(Get it? Lettuce..rocket..arugula…trust me, that joke killed at the greenhouse.) I really meant to put in a nice garden this year but somehow it just never happened. I really, really want to get some peppers and tomatoes going. One year I planted about thirty or forty tomato plants and they did great. Realistically though, lets check some math – a 28 oz. Can of crushed tomatoes costs me, on sale, one dollar. Just the canning jar and lid to house that much garden grown tomatoes would be more than a dollar so, as long as the supply lasts at the supermarket, it makes more financial sense to purchase and store canned tomatoes than to grow them. However, the key thing here is the term ‘as long as the supply lasts’.

As long as the supply lasts, it is cheaper to purchase many things than it is to grow/produce them from scratch. Take hunting for example. I can pay $2.69 per pound for beef. Killing a deer, and that’s assuming I get one on the first day, cost fuel, ammo, cost of a rifle, lost income for the time taken off to hunt, processing for the meat, etc, etc. Factoring in those costs shows that, as long as beef is available at $2.69/#, it probably makes more sense to simply make a trip to the supermarket and load up the freezer.

There are, naturally, intangible unquantifiable elements involved that make it ‘worth it’ to some people. Mathematically it makes more sense for me to buy beef than to hunt deer. However, the experience of being outdoors in the fall, the ‘lottery ticket’ feeling of hope and optimism when looking for deer, the satisfaction of eating something I killed myself, and the quality time by myself may be worth the costs. Same for gardening and growing my own tomatoes.

Of course, when the supply is not assured then all bets are off. At that point it doesn’t matter what the item in the store costs, or what the cost of procuring it yourself is, when it isn’t available anywhere at any price.

There is also, naturally, a bit of satisfaction in knowing that if you had to you could produce your own vegetables and get your own meat. And, as I mentioned, theres some personal satisfaction and enjoyment in doing things the hard way. I won’t say I enjoy watering the plants, but I don’t dislike it either….it’s a simple task that gives me pleasant results. I certainly don’t enjoy running a rototiller and doing stoop work, but I enjoy being able to walk into my yard and pluck a pepper or tomato off the plant and have it on the cutting board a minute later.

So, next year I really, really need to be serious about things and get the damn yard rototilled early, start the seedlings early, and have things ready to go by our last frost date (which is usually around June). Goals: tomatoes, peppers, onions, and various herbs.

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

The new pressure canner should arrive tomorrow, if the UPS tracking information is to be believed. I am enthused. I am also curious where the hell Im gonna put the bloody thing since it may take the title of Largest Kitchen Gadget. I mean, I’ll find a place for it, sure….its just…big.

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Heres an interesting article about leaky underground FEMA fuel tanks. The fact that the tanks themselves are leaking isnt noteworthy to me. Whats noteworthy is why those tanks are there in the first place. Years ago the girlfriend and I looked at buying one of these communications bunkers and it had originally been equipped with a 3000 gallon fuel tank. The tank had been removed when the place was decommissioned but you could see the hole where it used to be. So, if a person were to get ahold of this list of tanks that need attention you would also have, de facto, a list of hardened facilites and sites since no one was gonna dedicate a resource like fuel and storage to a facility that would crumble at the first bit overpressure. By the way, if you have Google Earth the coords for the bunker we looked at were 46° 4′53.63″N 112° 6′56.83″W. If you go to the 3d perspective you can see the hill it was on commanded a view of the entire valley. The 75′ radio tower with platform for microwave dishes would have made an uber sniper roost. Sadly, there wasnt a drop of water on the place…it had been designed as a remote unmanned facility so a well wasnt put in. A shame, ’cause those 12″ thick walls, reinforced concrete and steel blast shutters were mighty attractive.

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Speaking of pressure canner, here’s a link for those interested in the subject: National Center For Home Food Preservation

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

The big Missoula Gun Show was this weekend. Its the biggest in the state so attendance is de rigeur. I was trying to be a good boy, I really really was. But, sometimes things happen.

I was walking along the aisles and a casual acquaintance from previous shows called to me from behind his table. I said hi and we chatted a while. As I was chatting I started playing with some of the stuff on his table. Specifically, a Browning HiPower. Blued with Pachmyer grips, adjustable sights and comes with seven magazines. Price? $475.

You like the HiPower, he asked?
Yeah, I have a few, I replied.
Make me an offer. Im in a bargaining mood.

Now, I had no desire to get another P35. I already have a few. But, just to be polite we did the dance some more.

I dunno, man. I’d just lowball you and then your feelings’d be hurt.
:::shrugs::: Worst I can do is say no.
Okay. How about $400?, I think ’surely he won’t take $400 for a genuine Browning…’
Done.
And in my head Im thinking…’crap, I dont think I even have $400 on me. I wasnt expecting him to go for it!’. So I quickly borrowed $50 from a friend and took away my new pistol. Its a used but very clean later model HiPower. Belgian/Portugal, although my other ones are Belgian/Belgian. This one would be a nice candidate for a little tweaking over at Cylinder & Slide…mostly, I like the guns ’stock’ but I would swap out the sights and add a bit more pronounced safety lever.

So I put away my new toy and wandered arround promising myself ‘no more purchases’. See, Im a cheap guy and no matter how good the deal I always have guilt and buyers remorse afterwards. And yet….

Sitting on a table was a Ciener Atchisson .22 conversion for the AR-15. Actually, there were TWO. One looked older than the other. One was missing the magazine. Hmmmm…wouldja take less for the pair, especially since one is missing a magazine?

Next thing I know, I have two AR-15 conversion kits in hand. (Actually, one is an M16 kit since it features the parts necessary for functioning in a full-auto. [note that the parts dont make the gun full auto, the gun has to be fully automatic to start with]) Wandered a bit more and -surprise- found a guy selling these magazines. So, I’ll probably keep one kit and sell the other to help defray the costs.

Last item I picked up was a 14″ .44 Mag. barrel for my Contender. That was really a luxury purchase but it’ll be nice to haul around in the woods this year instead of a nine pound rifle. Currently I have a Contender carbine in .30-30 with a Choate stock and it weighs maybe four pounds. Its a delight to carry in the woods for long periods. But, a gunnie needs something to play with every once in a while and the price was right.

Other than that, there were no real interesting purchases. I did unload a few cases of MRE’s. Since I got dealer status with Mountain House I found that a case of MRE’s takes up a space that can hold much more days worth of food using the MH product, so I figured Id thin down my stash of MRE’s a bit. I singlehandedly lowered the prices of MRE’s at the gun show.

Took the P35 to the range and it shot wonderfully. I forget how much I like those things. I carry the Glock but thats because of its durability and price. But, the Glock has no real character…which is fine for what its intended to be – a simple functional tool – but the P35 has some style and character to it. Too bad theyre (normally) so expensive.

The .22 conversion kits were tricky. They need to be cleaned very badly and I think I need to experiment with different types of ammo. The bulk Federal didnt doo a very good job of cycling things. I very much want to get these kits running smoothly.

Today is my day off from work so Im off to Goodwill to stock up on canning jars at $0.15 ea. My new canner will arrive Thursday.

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

Well, I managed to break the handle on my pressure canner the other day. The pressure canner is still functional (and safe) but next time I exert some significant elbow grease to unlock/lock the lid Im probably gonna tear the handle off. So…time for a new pressure canner it seems.

Unfortunately, the one I would like to get is about twice the cost of the one I just broke. However, it really is a case of getting what you pay for. The one I want doesn’t use a gasketed lid so theres no issue of storing a spare or checking for decay/damage. Also it’s a bit bigger and more heavily made. Oh…and the handles aren’t as fragile.

Why a pressure canner? The obvious reason is to allow me to can things for later (perhaps much later) consumption. Oh sure, it can also double as an autoclave for sterilizing things or as a vessel for distilling water but its main purpose for me is canning. How else would you preserve something you grew or killed without a freezer?

If you haven’t explored the notion of home canning, I recommend you at least pick up a book or two on the subject. The guys who crank out those ‘For Dummies’ books have one on canning and food preserving, and it’s a pretty decent book.

In addition to a pressure canner (which is the most expensive part of the whole proposition) you’ll need jars, lids, bands, tongs and a few small kitchen tools you probably already have. Assuming you don’t break or damage the jars and bands (which are reusable) the only real consumable are the lids which are a strict one-time use item. However, you can buy ‘em in bulk at a lot of internet sites and that drops their cost down considerably.

In terms of ease of use, well, these things have been used by rural grandmothers since FDR was introducing state sponsored wealth redistribution. How hard can it be? There are several good books on the subject and although it may appear intimidating it’s actually very simple…just tedious in some ways. Its very much like reloading…a lot of prep work, a set routine that needs to be followed, and then a finished product that can hurt you very badly if you mess up.

Obviously the main thing is to not do a poor job and wind up killing someone with a heaping helping of botulism at dinner. While that is certainly a possibility if you screw up, those sorts of mistakes are generally easily spotted. All the texts tell you what to look for to ensure that your jar of food has sealed properly and isn’t contaminated with some sort of biological nasty. I was extremely concerned about screwing things up but after the first couple batches I know what to look for and if I have anything less than %100 confidence in a particular jar it gets dumped.

What have I been canning lately? I picked up a recipe for a soup that the wife likes and seems to eat daily. (Getting the recipe is a story for another day and Im not permitted to share the recipe so don’t ask.) So..when I make up a gallon or two of the stuff half gets put away in the fridge for immediate use and the other half gets canned and put back on the shelf for later use. If she gets off work and is hungry and can’t wait for something to thaw, and doesn’t feel like cooking, she can grab a jar of the soup off the shelf, dump it into a bowl, nuke it and have dinner. No muss, no fuss.

The market for canning supplies is, as you may imagine, seasonal. Obviously the demand will be high during summer/fall when gardens are being harvested and all those cukes, tomatoes, beans and pie fillings are being put up. After that its pretty much a slump until next spring. (Although the market never really goes flat…theres always someone putting up canned venison or Christmas preserves or somesuch.) End of season sales sometimes occur giving the opportunity to stock up on lids or jars…keep an eye open.

As I was editing this (yeah, I do edit these things and I still manage to have the frequent grammatical train wreck…) a customer came in and mentioned that the local Goodwill store had canning jars. Hmmmm. I headed over there and, sure enough, they were unpacking several boxes of them. Some looked new, some looked used and only one or two seemed to have any indicators discommending usage (obviously you don’t want a cracked or chipped jar…esp. do not want chips on the mouth of the jar where the sealing takes place.) All looked like they could use a trip (or two) through the dishwasher (if the dead bugs in some of the jars were any indication.) Prices were $0.15 for the small and $0.29 for the large. So…I’m gonna have to head back there later when I have the truck and pick up a few dozen. On the way back I checked out the other ‘thrift’ store a few doors down from me. Large jars were a couple bucks each…so, as you can see, theres something of a bargain going on over there at the Goodwill.

And, I have been recently informed that for my birthday (which is today, actually) someone will be getting me the pressure canner I wanted as a gift. Serendipitous, that.

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

Someone commented asking why I was worked up about the Mountain House supply issue when I have been going to the LDS cannery. Valid question, I suppose. Quick answer: one has stuff that the other does not.

The LDS cannery is limited to dry goods. That means no meats. MH at least has chicken, beef and pork available. And, while I can appreciate the streamlining that would occur in my logistics if I were to become a vegetarian, that just ain’t gonna happen.

In case no one has ever been to one of these cannery facilities before (and I hadn’t ever been to one until this year) here’s a fast rundown of whats available: 3 different beans, nonfat milk, rice, sugar, wheat (hard and soft), apple slices, carrots, macaroni, oats (regular and quick), onions, potato flakes, spaghetti, refried beans, coca mix, flour, pancake mix and drink mix.  You can buy the stuff in either #10 cans, mylar pouches, or in bulk (25# sacks).

Not a bad selection, but you can see how it could get a bit boring and perhaps a bit difficult to work with in terms of variety.

Now, supplementing the stuff from the cannery with some freeze dried ground beef, some canned tomatoes and a few spices and you can whip up a Bolognese sauce for spaghetti, a cacciatore, or a half dozen other dishes. So, yeah, the LDS cannery offers a good selection of staple goods…I just want a broader selection to expand my menu planning. Some facilities will allow non-members to use them, some will not. (The one I went to was not open to non-members.) However, they may allow a member to bring a guest…which is how I’ve been going. If you can find a buddy or acquaintance who is a church member and get them to bring you along as a guest, I highly recommend it.

You might want to keep in mind that as things get more interesting in the world, access to the LDS facilities may get tightened up so that resources are always available for members….so the sooner you get there the better, most likely.

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Speaking of putting things into storage, I did a casual inventory of a few things the other day and surprised myself in that I was short in a couple areas (and long in a few others, which didn’t surprise me). Most glaring was that I had about a bit less .22LR ammo than I thought. Fortunately, I had enough in the ‘shootable’ ammo category to transfer to the ‘storage’ category and get me back up to where I want to be. (Normally, we buy two bricks of .22 ammo every time we hit WallyWorld. That ammo gets put on the shelf with the ammo we normally use for plinking and whatnot. When it starts to pile up [since we don’t get out shooting as much as we’d like] into a quantity exceeding 5k rounds, 5k gets pulled and moved into storage and whatever is left over is allowed to accrue until it hits 5k rounds again. In this manner a good deal of .22 gets socked away.)

Other than the .22 ammo everything was pretty much as I expected although one or two food items were a bit lower than what Id like them to be. Easily fixed with a quick trip to the store, though.

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I’ve been reading a book lately Im going to go ahead and recommend. “Island In The Sea Of Time” by S.M. Stirling (ISBN 0-451-45675-0). Stirling is the geek who wrote the ‘Dies The Fire’ trilogy that started off well and ended absurdly. Succinctly, Stirlings books involve modern society getting thrown back into a Middle Ages (or earlier) level of technology, for whatever reason. Invariably, the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism…the nerds with the plywood shields and swords playing King Arthur) wind up becoming the saviors of the world by virture of their ‘swordsmanship’. Its easy to get the impression that the author got his ass kicked a lot in high school and decided to write a book where the SCA geeks become the heroes. Anyway, the premise of ‘Island’ is that for the typical ‘reason that is never explained’ the island of Nantucket, with buildings, occupants and everything else, vanishes from the twentieth century and winds up in 1250 BC. Its an interesting story about modern society forced to adapt to having no resuplly, limited fuel, no outside food sources, etc. as well as having to deal with hostiles (within and without) and form a local government. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. And, true to the authors penchant for SCA geekiness, theres a bit of that. But as people like myself lament in these sorts of books ‘why the hell don’t these people fashion simple blackpowder firearms???’, in this case they do exactly that which, to me, shows a certain amount of real-life logic.

Anyway, it’s a good read and I recommend it. If nothing else its an excellent form of entertainment to second guess the story and ask yourself how you would cope with the lack of [ammo/electrical power/flush toilets/propane/toilet paper/etc].

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I sold a customer a PTR-91 a few weeks ago and he ordered a couple of the OEM surplus HK G3 .22 conversion kits that have been on the market lately. He brought it by today for me to look at and get some pictures of. The kit comes in a fitted wooden case and consists of a barrel sleeve and insert, bolt assembly, 2 20-rd mags (weighted to feel like full .308 mags) and a cleaning kit. As it turns out HK did at one point offer an HK91 conversion kit in addition to the G3 conversion kit. Whats the difference? The HK91 kit was meant for semiauto guns and has a ‘tail’ on the bolt assembly that is not present on the G3 (fullauto) .22 conversion. As a result if you pull the bolt handle all the way to the rear with the G3 conversion in a semiauto gun, the hammer will hang up and you’ll have to disassemble the gun. Not a big deal, simply pull the bolt back far enough to chamber a round and let it go.

Lets talk math. The kit is approx. $500. That, my friends, is a lot of money. However that’s also what you would expect to pay for 1000 rounds of quality .308 ammo these days. So for the cost of 1000 rounds of .308 you can have a kit to shoot ammo that costs $12/1000.

Put another way:
$500 = 1000 rounds of .308, next 1000 rounds is $500
$512 = kit and 1000 rounds of .22, next 1000 rounds is $12

Whats the purpose since recoil and ballistics will be different than when using .308? First of all, familiarity. You can practice snap shoot drills – bringing the rifle up, quickly getting a sight picture, flipping the safety off and taking a shot – for about 1/20^th the cost of doing it in .308. Its an excellent way to practice trigger control and sight pictures and get the immediate feedback that is only possible with life-fire.

Still gotta get the Ruger built up as an AR trainer, though.

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

This showed up in snail mail today:

This is an update on Oregon Freeze Dry’s #10 can situation. Because sales remain high, we continue to be unable to meet all #10 can needs. OFD is allocating as much of our Production Capacity as possible to this market segment, while still allowing us to meet requirements in other markets.

Unfortunately, we cannot open sales to all previous dealers, nor are we accepting new dealers. We continue to sell allocated quantities to our long-time, largest customers/distributors.

We expect this situation to remain through most of 2009. At this point, we are not able to predict when we can open up sales to all dealers.

In addition, we feel as a company we have not been strict enough on dealer requirements, and it is important dealers are only established Preparedness Market and/or Camping related Businesses. We also intend to have a stronger Suggested retail Pricing Program to eliminate ongoing discounts. Due to these concerns, OFD will implement two new programs:

• Wholesale Delaer Requirements
• Minimum Retail pricing Program

Prior to re-activating each account, new and Current Dealers will be required to re-qualify based on the new program requirements.

Read into this what you will, folks. Some people say this is because .gov has ordered a huge purchase of food from these guys. That seems awful unlikely since .gov already has long-term food ordering programs in place for their MRE contracts. What this is is OFD seeing the opportunity to make some big bucks in a hurry by eliminating some discounts and getting rid of the nickle-n-dime dealers that made small orders. Nothing wrong with that, its just good business to them. What it means to you is that the natives are restless and if you havent gotten your needs squared away in this department you better do something about it soon before this stuff is unavailable at any price.

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

And 60# of Hard Red Wheat later, we are back…

Smaller crowd at the cannery this time, but thats cool by me. I stick out less that way.

Out of sugar, but wheat was to be had and I took a dozen #10 cans of the stuff. Also grabbed a can of apple slices to incorporate into my next wheat cereal cooking adventure. This is my third trip and each time I try to make a good impression with the volunteers running the place so that at some point I may be able to come by unaccompanied. This time I was actually given some ‘literature’ to take home. I like to think this means they think well of me.

Turns out they do, as I suspected, have a couple smaller electric can sealers that they let members check out for their own use. Hmmmm. This would be exceptionally handy for thos times when I want to can something that they do not normally can up there. (And they wont let you just bring in a 50# sack of whatever to can.) Be nice to have some of the dried whole corn canned. Same for some pasta and other dried foods.

So…still likin’ the Mormons.

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

‘Nother trip to the cannery this evening with those fun-lovin’ Mormons!

Seriously, if it werent for the religious aspect, Id be right there at the front of the line during the membership drive.