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

Signs of the times……

Customer comes into the shop the other day and asks me where the gold/silver dealer in town is. He heads over there and comes back with a sack full of pre-1964 silver coinage.

Another customer comes by and takes a dozen #10 cans of Mountain House off my hands.

Another customer comes by and wants to stock up on AR-15 magazines.

Ah, the natives are restless, my friends.

That reminds me, I put in an order for the Gamma Seal bucket lids last week and they arrived today. I need a bunch for myself but to get the good deal I needed to get a few dozen…so, I’ll have a post about it up in the next day or two and if anyone wants them at a good price, that option will be available.

Someone asked in comments about food storage. Not really sure what exactly the question is, and Im sure Ive covered this somewhere but I’ll post it again…

For me, food storage is in several layers:

Daily use – this is the stuff in the cabinets and cupboards in the kitchen. It isn’t long-term food (unless that’s the only way the particular food product is available) and is usually used up within a couple weeks. There is probably enough food there to last at least several weeks. Might get boring after a while, but you wont go hungry.

Pantry storage – this is the same as the Daily Use stuff but only items that have a longer shelf life. Its basically a bulk repository of Daily Use things. For example, I may keep three or four jars of pickles in the kitchen cabinets for day-to-day use. Pantry Storage is where the extra four cases reside. Same for things like canned soup…a dozen cans in the cupboards and a couple cases in storage. The kitchen is resupplied from this stockpile and whatever is removed is replaced when economically feasible. This way stuff gets rotated. If the supermarkets were to close tomorrow, this is where the food would be coming from.

Long term storage – this is where the MRE’s, freezedrieds and bulk things like corn, wheat and rice are stored. The MRE’s (a couple months worth) are for those wonderful times when a functioning kitchen just isn’t in the cards or for when its time to go, go, go. The freezedrieds are nice for their ‘put it away and forget it’ convenience. This is mostly food that doesn’t need to be rotated for quite a while.

Added up, the whole thing, for two people, works out to about a year. I normally don’t inventory the things in the kitchen so I cant really say how much food is there but its easily a couple weeks if you don’t mind eating from a limited menu. I do keep track of the other stuff though and know that theres about a years worth of foodstuffs, probably more if one were careful in their consumption. Those figures also do not take into account any last-minute purchases. (The kind where you see the writing on the wall and run down to the supermarket and snag as much as you can before everyone else.)

Im a huge fan of canned goods but they’re heavy and best suited for staying in one place. I keep the MRE’s and freezedrieds so we can have a portable food supply if we had to leave in a hurry. As far as canned goods go, I buy them by the case if I can and note the date of purchase on the lid of each can. It all gets stored on steel wire shelving well off the floor and away from heat sources (pipes, ductwork, etc) or cold sources (vents, windows, etc). The classic ‘store in a cool, dry, dark place’ is the goal.

The bulk stuff (corn, wheat, rice) either goes in 15-gallon blue barrels, or goes into a mylar bag and then into a 5-gallon bucket. Rarely, some foods will get vacuum sealed and then stored in the buckets. For example, the 30# of orzo I recently picked up was packaged in a cardboard box – probably the worst container for long term storage. I weighed the stuff out in 5# increments, vacuum sealed the 5# into a nice modular brick shape (do this buy putting the bag in a cardboard container like a cereal box and then draw the vacuum) and tucked it away in one of the ubiquitous 5-gallon buckets.

So, maybe that answers the question. Maybe not.

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

I had to head over to the other side of town to pick up some clamps at Home Depot for a carpentry project. (Im building some shelving units for a friends reloading bench). Since CostCo and SuperWallyWorld are fairly close to each other I figured I’d do a walk though and do some price comparisons.

WallyWorld wins on grape juice and canned vegetables. CostCo wins on Chicken broth, canned fruit, and apple sauce. Differences were kinda niggling….seventeen cents a can on vegetables, that sort of thing. But when youre buying a case of 24 at a time, it can add up. And, with the economy looking grim, every penny helps, y’know?

I enjoy going through these warehouse food stores because I love the bulk packaging. I also appreciate the things you dont find in every store. One item I found today that Im somewhat excited about is Welch’s grape juice concentrate. I loves me grape juice. Normally, you buy frozen concentrate and leave it at that. Here, however, we have room temperateure Welch’s grape juice concentrate packed in, essentially, a pop can. Makes 48 oz. with an average cost of $0.03 per oz. Thats 25% cheaper than any other form of Welch’s. Plust the room temperature thing is nice too. Shelf life is about a year, so I’ll pick up a dozen later this week.

Speaking of shelf life, ain’t technology grand? I was in CostCo and they had the chick there doing the food samples. Product in question was hash brown potatoes from dried. Reconstitute them for a half hour in hot water and fry ‘em up. They were damn good. So I wander down the aisle and find them. Hmmm…no expiration date. Wonder what the shelf life is. Flip the package over, find the company’s toll free number and whip out the cell phone. Got my answer and made a note to buy these things on my next trip. (One year shelf life, by the way, but I expect that with proper storage it should be at least several times that.

At t his rate, my post apocalyptic breakfasts are going to be better than the breakfasts Im having now – corned beef hash, hash browns, scrambled eggs, grits, oatmeal and orange drink. Hell, I dont eat that well when there isn’t a crisis.

Also found vacuum sealed packages of Italian risotto which I may have to try. As I understand it, risotto is a laborious project in the kitchen requiring much attention but it looks like an excellent meal with a shelf life that appeals to me.

.22 ammo came down a bit. Last check at WallyWorld it was $12.50. Girlfriend picked some more up the other day and said it was about a buck below that. Still….signs of the times, man.

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

I am very curious to see where all this economic doom-n-gloom winds up. Theres no shortage of opinion and conjecture out there. You’ve people saying that this is the slide into economic disaster of unprecedented magnitude, and you have others saying that this isn’t as bad as the media makes it out to be.

Fun thing about economies is that it seems like you dont need facts, you can have the facts make themselves. For example, a bank may be 100% solvent, but if you start a good enough rumour that it isnt then people start pulling out money and the bank collapses – self-fulfilling prophecy. I wonder how much of that is going on right now. People say the economy is tanking because of [reason], so people put thier money elsewhere and as a result the economy does, in fact, take a hit. Im sure the Bilderberger Trilateral Zionist Illuminati UN Freemason CFR Vatican conspiracy theorists believe that this is all the work of one person out to destroy the economy.

Or, it could just be the normal and fairly predicatble result of years of unsound fiscal policy and practices.

Whats it mean to me? I have almost no investments, I dont carry any debt other than a fixed rate mortgage,  and I sure dont have thousands of dollars in the bank depreciating. On the other hand, I need gasoline, food, electricity and other consumer goods just as much as the next guy. (Well, maybe not quite as much.) Fuel prices will go up, food prices will go up, purchasing power goes down, etc, etc.

These are going to be interesting times to look back on. Im curious to see how it ends, who the winners and losers will be, and what things will look like once all the dust settles. I predict larger .gov involvement in finance and economic matters as well as some sort of new .gov agency dedicated to ‘helping homeowners’. No problem so bad that a new .gov agency can’t make it worse.

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

Cooking dinner last night, the girlfriend pulled a can of corn out of the kitchen cabinet and remarked that it was the last one. My reply, naturally, was “No its not, theres another dozen or so stocked away. I’ll pull a half dozen bring them to the kitchen, and when it goes on sale I’ll resupply our stocks.”

See, that’s why I buy things the way I do. We use something up, replenish it from our stored supply, and when it goes on sale we restock that supply. In the meantime, theres still plenty on hand in case things go south in a hurry.

Speaking of food, the folks from HippieMart called. They did shoot me a price on dehydrated whole milk. Surprisingly, the source is local. Really local. Like six blocks from here local. So Im going to wander down there later next week and find out if I can have a sample of their product and get some information…specifically, what kinda packaging.

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The big news today was that gold briefly broke the $1000 mark, the Dollar Index briefly dropped below 72, and oil hit $110 a barrel.

Whats this mean to me? It means that I expect fuel prices to continue with the attendant increases in goods because of increased shipping costs, foreign goods (like gun parts) will go up in price (American dollar price, that is), and its apparent that people are continuing to lose confidence in the economy.

The short version? Prices go up, prices of foreign goods go up, your dollar buys less, people are going to start circling the wagons soon and its gonna be a tough time to be selling luxury goods. On the other hand, if you’re situated fairly well this may be a good time snag yourself bargains on things you’ve been wanting.

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Spring is in full swing here in Montana, which means that its 60 degrees one day, 35 the next, and the nights are always about 30 or less. In short, it’s the beginning of bicycle season. And, hey, at $3.10 a gallon why wouldn’t you find alternate transportation when your work is only nine blocks away. I purchased a mountain bike about five years ago for $500. At the time I thought it was an outrageous sum for anything that didn’t have a motor or a trigger. However, in retrospect, you get what you pay for and other than the occasional over-the-handlebars chain issue the bike has served me quite well. If you don’t have a quality mountain bike I urge you to acquire one.

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

Doom n’ Gloom Patrol:

A couple articles I came across while perusing the interweb. First one is about the increase in food prices. The article says that there is no one reason, but rather that a variety of reasons happening all at once are responsible. Whats interesting is that its more than a ‘prepare to pay more’ article. It examines one of the repercussions which is that with more of a person’s income going towards food their disposable income is reduced and that could have economic repercussions as well.

According to the article, eggs are up as much as 30% and chicken by 10%. This mates nicely with the letter I got from Mountain House saying that dairy prices were pushing the prices of their freezedried foods up this year. Im glad I did the group buys last year and got a goodly amount of the stuff before the prices went up.

Reasons for the increases vary from climatic issues (A flood here, a drought there), the demand for biofuel (and I saw that one coming a mile away), etc, etc. The upshot is that its costing more to fill your belly while its costing more to fill your tank.

While I have seen some increases locally (and believe me, I keep track of this sort of thing) its not been too bad because I usually buy in bulk, buy on sale and use coupons. Plus, the deep freeze makes a big difference. I think theres about 30# of chicken tucked away right now at last years (and the year befores) prices. (In addition to the stuff in the freezer, theres also a pretty healthy quantity of freeze-dried chicken and dehydrated eggs. As Ive said before, I am NOT going through the apocalypse as a vegetarian.)

The lesson here is that a) its not just you, prices are indeed going up and b) the smart thing to do, if you can, is buy now for later use.

Next article up is about inflation, hyperinflation and the hows and whys. Again, it doesn’t really say much that you cant figure out on your own – as a currency devalues theres a rush to spend it on things that will keep their value as the money devalues – but its still an interesting read. Theres the classic stories about workers in the Weimar getting paid twice a day to keep up with the galloping inflation, wheelbarrows of money, buying anything you can before your money becomes worthless, etc. Interesting stuff.

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Put another set of shelving in the bunker the other night. Its starting to get a bit more organized but its still kinda cluttered. Nonetheless, it still gives me a case of the warm fuzzies to sit amongst my gear and supplies and think “Damn, I could live a long time just offa whats in here”.

I’ve been dragging my feet on taking an inventory of things because its just such a bloody tedious project. But, with the elections looming, I need to make informed purchasing decisions and I cant do that if I don’t know what I already have and what I need. So…I’ll draft the girlfriend, give her a clipboard and have her give me a hand. Good experience for her, too….I think that while she has some idea of what we have theres a goodly amount of stuff she may not be aware of. More than once we’ve gone somewhere and I’ll produce a piece of gear and she’ll say “Where’d you get that?” and I’ll reply “From the bunker. We’ve got like ten of them.”

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

The spare G3 stock sets I ordered from Cheaper Than Dirt arrived the other day. A little scratched up here and there but, dammit, that’s just character showing through. Heres what I got for $9.99:

• 1 Forend
• 1 Forend pin
• 1 Pistol grip
• 1 Buttstock with recoil spring assy.
• 1 Buttstock pin

And they slipped in a leather sling as well. So, I spent some time with the Dremel tool fitting them to the thicker barrel of the PTR and now they fit fine. Snug, but fine.

One set went to one of the LMI because, honestly, I like being able to give little gifts like that but also because he could stand to have a spare stock set in case anything happens to his OEM set. Or, if he just wants to get creative and make up a desert or winter camo set.

Gun show this weekend in Hamilton! Picked up a few goodies that I’ll recount later but for now Im just happy to have gotten a *very* good deal on  a bunch of AR mags. Damn but I love me gun shows. Theres a couple military surplus dealers there so you never know whats gonna come home and wind up on a chelf in the bunker.

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

New rations supposedly in the field within the next few weeks.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Don Egolf remembers what Army chow looked like when he served in Germany in World War II: a tin of scrambled eggs and bacon bits that he pried open with a tiny can opener.

On Wednesday at the Pentagon the 102nd Infantry Division vet pocketed one of those irksome little openers, the P-38, as a souvenir. Then he dug into the latest in combat cuisine, a plate of blackened catfish, teriyaki chicken, little french toast squares and pumpkin cake – no opener needed.

The Army offered up samples of the food as it rolled out its newest innovation – special packets of easy-to-eat, high-nutrition, high-calorie foods designed for mobile forces. The chow, mostly bagged finger-type foods that soldiers can just tear open and eat on the run, will be available in the field next month.

That’s not the way it was in his day, Egolf noted.

Man, I remember one of the first MRE’s I ever saw. It was around 1985. I distinctly recall a brillo-pad looking object that, I am told, was a freezedried hamburger patty.

The meals have substantially improved since then.

For reference’s sake, probably the best source for info on MRE’s is, unsurprisingly, MREinfo.com. I am fascinated by the MRE’s from other countries. I would like to try the Italian and French MRE’s, and I feel sorry as hell for the Russians. The Brit MRE’s might be good but if its anything like British cooking……

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

Make no mistake about it, these are Chinese-interesting times we are in. Oil is up, dollar is down, metals are way up, and theres uncertainty in the air. Its going to be ugly, its going to be uncomfortable and its going to be filled with alot of stress and sleepless nights, but in the end it will, like every other economic crisis, pass. Im no expert, but Id say that if you dont have one of those doomed adjustable rate mortgages, you have a job, youre not carrying huge amounts of debt, and youre disciplined enough to be careful how you spend your money youre probably going to be just fine.

That is, of course, no reason not to be careful. Losing ones job is a fast ticket to  Desperationville. Hence, todays acquisition.

The folks at HippieMart (Motto: “Can we carry that out to your Volvo/Subaru?”) called to tell me my 30# of orzo was in. Dutifully, I headed down there and picked up three 10# boxes and took them home. Hey, interesting fact: 30# of orzo will not fit in the usual 5-gallon bucket mylar liner. Twentyfive pounds fits just fine, however. So, 25# of orzo safely tucked away in the bunker against the day when there just ain’t enough money to go around, or there aint enough food to go around, or both.

Fortunately, the girlfriend is 100% on board on these matters although, to be fair, while she sometimes will retrieve stuff from the bunker I dont think she’s actually aware of exactly whats in there. Nothing illegal, of course….just some stuff that might make someone scratch their head and say “Dude..seriously…you really think youre gonna need that?” Better to have it and not need it, my friend…

The guys at HippieMart also said they can get me 10# bags of whole egg mix. That would be nice but I need to figure out how to repackage it. I’d like to trundle it up to the local Mormon cannery and use their facility but theyre probably sticklers about not canning anything that they don’t provide. Speaking of, my local Mormon cannery is not open to heathen infidels like myself…gotta be one of the collective. Fortunately, one of my customers who shares my interests said that I could tag along with him next time he goes. Now its incumbent upon me to start nagging him every time I see him.

Alternatively, I could just get my owning canning stuff. eBay seems to have a fairly decent selection. And it would let me do some very creative things like canning ammo (or guns) and mislabelling them as something innocuous like fruit cocktail or something. Admit, that would be pretty cool.

But, my budget isnt ready for that sort of expense.

Anyway, so Ive got an addition to the Bucket O’Food collection. A little more peace of mind, and thats always nice.

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

Note that with the continuing decline of the dollar against other currencies, most notably the Euro, the cost of spare parts from outfits like HK, Sig, Glock, etc, are probably going to start creeping up. Any parts you need, buy ‘em now because either theyre going to be more expensive at a later date or they may not be available at all. Most likely, both.

The girlfriend and I have PTR-91 HK-clones (HKlones) and find them to be excellent guns. One of my buddies has a genuine HK91 and we shot them side by side, swapped parts, etc. and the PTR was just as good as the HK. Since the Germans switched over to the G36, theres a buttload of G3/HK91 stuff on the market but it aint gonna last long. If you have a CETME, PTR or, you lucky bastard, an original HK I cannot stresss how you need to get your spares now. Right now. As in  “open-a-new-browser-window-this-minute-and-start-shopping” now.Cheaper Than Dirt has OEM telestocks for $160 (backordered at the moment, of course), stock sets for ten bucks (which includes the recoil assemblies so that easily ten bucks of parts right there. Im getting a half dozen sets for spares and making a couple sets of winter camo), mag pouches for ninety-nine cents (fits FAL mags too) and a bunch of other goodies.

Spare parts can be had from  http://www.robertrtg.com/g3.html  … great selection!

We’re actually coming into an era when whatever parts you have on hand now may be all that you can ever have…because of legislative reasons (laws banning imports), logistics reasons (HK no longer makes G3 rifles AFAIK), economic reasons (dollar vs. Euro), or any other reason. It would be insanely frustrating to have your $1000+ rifle sidelined because you couldnt spend $5 for a spare firing pin spring. A hundred bucks will get you enough parts to keep your HK running well into your childrens lifetime. Spend the money. Im a notoriously cheap SOB and if I’m willing to spend money on this sort of stuff you can take that as the most sincere form of encouragement and statement of faith.  Where lies a mans fortune, there lies his heart.

To be fair, Hk guns dont seem to break too often (despite an acquaintance of mine having some faith-shaking parts problems with one of his USP40’s). However, machines are made by men (well, made by machines that were made by machines that were made by machines that were made by men..you get the idea)  and men sometimes have a few too many beers and show up at the gewehrwerks on Monday with a little less comeptence than normal. So…lets have a few spares.

Summary: Its getting worse before it gets better. Buy the spare parts now while you still can at reasonable prices.

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

I don’t like hippies…by and large theyre unattractive, smell bad, think every problem is solved by using my money, and live in a child-like fantasy land of unicorns, socialized medicine and VW minivans. However, once in a while one of these patchouli-scented annoyances will succumb to the dark side and actually, you know, try to make a living by getting into business. Ben and Jerry of Vermont ice cream fame spring to mind. Our local ‘health food’ store is actually an outstanding example of this. Selling ‘organic’ food, ‘fair wage’ products, and all the soy variations a human being could possibly want this place is actually a very slickly packaged, extremely upscale supermarket. Its demeanor belies its clientele. I go there for exactly two reasons:

First: Entertainment…. to get a rise out of outraged liberals when I wear one of my conservative t-shirts through the place. Secondly, they have an outstanding selection of bulk food. By bulk food, I mean they have bins full of rice (about thrity different types), grains (another dozen or so varieties), at least twenty dfferent types of beans, all sorts of flours, etc, etc. More importantly, they’ll sell that stuff in bulk at another 10% discount.

So, I was down there today ordering up 30# of orzo. I know what youre thinking..I’ve got 100+ pounds of rice, what the hell do I need rice shaped pasta for? Well, lately I’ve been experimenting with pasta/rice combinations (and that , my friends, is enough carbohydrates to make Dr Atkins explode in a greasy cloud of…whatever he’s made of) and figured since pasta stores reasonably well I’d see if its economical to stock up.

However, while I was there I threw a few curve balls at the customer service chick. (Who, contrary to my expectations from a hippie emporium like that one, did an outstanding job of being attentive, helpful and accomodating…must be a capitalist at heart) I asked about availability of powdered whole milk, tomato powder/crystals, dehydrated butter, dehydrated sour cream, etc. and please let me know if these are available in #10 cans, mkay?

“Making backcountry meals?”, she asks.

Hmmmm.

“Getting ready for summer. Fire camps.”, I reply.

She nods her head in agreement. “Gotcha”, she says.

Because as much as a Reagan-loving, gun-toting, money-grubbing, Commie-hating, meat-eating, sexist, free-thinking dude like myself may be out of place there I’d be even more out of place if I’d said “Nah, just a paranoid survivalist.”

So, I’ll go wash down some new buckets with bleach, break out the mylar liners and slap a Gamma Seal on them later next week. I know for a fact theres about 40# of pasta stuck away for normal everyday use, but it’ll be nice to have the orzo. Its excellent for soups, pilafs, and a few other dishes.

So..if you have a decent hippie market near you it might be worth checking out their bulk food section if they have one.