It used to be a thing that you could cook heat your canned food, say, some Chef Boyardee for example, by putting the can in boiling water. When the food was heated all the way through you could open the can and eat. No muss, no fuss.
The change in this practice started a while back when cans were starting to incorporate plastic liners in them to help keep the cans from rusting and avoid flavor issues from the contents of the can reacting with metal….you can see this most notably in high-acid foods like tomatoes and pineapple which will eventually react with the can in a way that leaves a black ‘mold’ in the can.
This article seems to suggest that if there is an issue with the cans used these days, the negative impact is as minimal as the risk you get from microwaving your food in a plastic container.
I suppose that in a crisis, two or three days of canned ravioli heated in boiling water will do you far less damage than not eating at all, but I think I’m still inclined to just have a quality mess kit and a way to clean it. I am curious, however, about retort pouches. Obviously MRE’s are designed from the ground up to be heated in boiling water. But what about things like pouches of tuna and chicken from the supermarket? Just as boilable as MRE’s? Or are we back to worrying about plastic liners becoming part of our GI tract?
On the other hand, most foods that are canned are already cooked and simply need to be re-heated to be tasty. That doesn’t mean they can’t be eaten cold…just means they won’t be as enjoyable. And ‘not enjoyable’ beats starvation any day of the week.
A few posts back I mentioned that I had bought a new bunch of Scepter water cans.
Any new plastic container is going to have ‘that plastic smell’. Also, you don’t know where that container has been or what its been exposed to in its time at the warehouse. So, the smart survivalist will clean these things out if for no other reason than to at least get rid of that unappealing strong plastic smell.
Ten bucks up at CostCo gets you about 14# of baking soda. You don’t need 14# of baking soda to wash out a water jug, but more is better, right? I err on the side of overkill, so I fill a gallon pitcher with hot water, dump in about a cup of baking soda, stir well and dump it into the water jug. Seal it up loosely so water can escape a bit and get the threads of the cap. Shake vigorously, shake some more, and then finally shake it vigorously. I give it about 30 seconds of violent shaking so I can feel the water hitting all the sides of the jug. Don’t be gentle.
Now, if you’re just doing one jug, you can dump out the mix and then rinse the thing out thoroughly with cold water from a hose. But, since I’m doing more than one, I’ll dump the mix into the next jug and repeat the process. I’ll do this for two or three jugs and then use some fresh baking soda/water mix.
Keep in mind, when you dump the water/soda mix out of the jug it will leave traces of baking soda on the inside that will eventually dry to a powdery film. This is why the rinse with clear cold water afterwards.
By this method I either totally eliminate the plastic smell, or reduce it to virtually nothing. And, of course, I’ve now cleaned out the inside of the jug. If you’re a suspenders-and-a-belt guy you may want to disinfect or sterilize the jug afterwards. Thats pretty much the same process but using water/bleach instead of water/baking soda.
And, finally, when it’s time to fill these things you can add all sortsa ‘water preservers’ or bleach to promote storage life. Its my understanding that municipal water (“city water”) is fine to store right out of the tap since it has already been treated by the municipal water provider.
I should also point out that I do this for any large plastic container that I am storing something edible in. My buckets for rice, wheat, etc., also get this treatment. In that case it is imperative that you make sure the bucket is completely bone dry before you fill it with your food product. After cleaning I usually let the bucket/container sit in a dry place indoors for a few days to completely dry out.
Can I get away with not doing any of that and just fill the things up without going through that effort? Absolutely. But this is stuff you’re putting away for a rather dire circumstance. When that dire circumstance occurs (or is occurring) aren’t you going to want every confidence and advantage possible? Of course you will…so spend the ten minutes and do the work. Future you will thank you.
I have a Springfield Armory 1911 (my only 1911, in fact) that I bought used many years ago….I’m talking back in the late 80’s or very early 90’s. It has a Baughman ramp front, target rear, full length recoil guide, extended beavertail, adjustable trigger, and at least another half dozen modifications. The previous owner had all this work done because when SA made this thing you couldn’t buy the gun with all those options. Back when this gun was born your only real choices were if you wanted a parkerized or blued copy of a GI 1911. Maybe there were one or two options available like different sights but that was about it. If you wanted all those other bells and whistles…well…you had a trip to the gunsmith in front of you.
Nowadays you can just pull a SKU out of SA’s catalog and get a pistol with even more and better options right off the shelf.
I mention this because I was re-reading an old blog post of Tam’s about the cost of custom guns. The things that she put into a custom .300 Blackout rifle are things that are, to a degree, now available ‘off the rack’ from several different makers. Notably, my Ruger .300 Blackout comes with a threaded barrel, an adjustable trigger, can take detachable magazines, has a good stock, a solid attachment point for optics, optics-ready bolt handle, and a few other features that, for the time period she as doing this in, were ‘custom’.( Her .300, though, is much prettier than my .300 . I wonder if she still has it.)
But what those two guns have in common is that the features we wanted, insisted on actually, eventually wound up becoming ‘standard features’. Other good examples would be pistols from the factory now coming with optic cuts already done. The sudden craze of every rifle barrel from a manufacturer being threaded. Adjustable triggers on everything. It goes on and on.
It used to be that a bespoke boomtoy was so personal and unique an item that it was practically a persons ‘signature’. Elmer Keith’s No. 5, Patton’s Ivory handled SAA, Diaz’ Winchesters, etc. And now, someone somewhere is making exact copies or at least guns that have all those features. Even my BBQ gun isn;t really unique since its a cataloged item with machine engraving…rare, yes. Custom? Absolutely not.
I have one bespoke gun and it’s story is very similar to Tam’s – I bought a bunch of clapped out Mausers from Sarco back in the late 80’s, threw away the stocks and barrels, and cleaned up the actions. I bought a brand new 29″ stepped military barrel in 7×57, put it in, added some Williams receiver sights, blued the whole mess, dropped it into an old commercial Mauser stock of ancient vintage, and made an ugly rifle that I thought was perfect. It doesn’t win any beauty contests but I love shooting it.
I’m not sure you can call anything made of drop-in parts custom, but the most recent might-be-custom gun I have is the Glock I put together a few months back. There isn’t a single thing thats ‘custom’ about it except for the combination of parts which is probably not terribly unusual. But, it’s certainly custom to me.
Custom guns never really ‘pay off’ in the long run. You’ll never get your money out of them, but you do get a higher degree of satisfaction and pleasure, I think, than you would have gotten out of the plain Jane version that was ‘off the rack’.
But it is interesting to note that what used to be considered custom years ago is now, to a degree, mainstream…or at least avaialble on a non-custom basis.
I received a rather early Paratus gift in the mail last week. I’d like to thank the individual who sent it, and assure them that they are, indeed, on the card list.
Paratus, the holiday of survivalists and for survivlists, is September 20th 2024. So, you’ve got about seven weeks to get ready. Everything you ever wanted to know, and didnt want to know, about Paratus is here at the world famous Paratus FAQ.
I’ll be ordering up cards here in a week and going through my Paratus card list. IF you got a card from me last year AND your address has changed – you need to give me the new mailing address.
And, as always, Paratus is what you make it to be. Make some plans, get together with friends, ask your gear suppliers about a Paratus sale, and, most importantly, spread the word to your survivalist friends….the more traction this thing gets the sooner we get to Paratus day sales at PSA and Atlantic Firearms.
I have often said that there will be no prize handed out after the apocalypse to the person who survived using bargain basement or ‘repurposed’ gear. Whether you ride out the apocalypse with washed-out 2-liter pop bottles of water or you ride it out with expensive purpose built five-gallon jerry cans, the results, if you survive, are the same. No one is gonna say ‘wow, you were a better survivalist than this guy’. If all you can afford is 2-liter pop bottles thats one thing, but if you purposefully cheap out when you don’t have to…thats kinda handicapping yourself from the start.
I mention this because I picked up ten new Scepter water jugs the other day and, lordy, they are not inexpensive. At the same time, the local Winco sells camping-style blue water cubes for 1/3 of what the Scepters cost. But, to me, in addition to the rather rugged build of the Scepters there are two other things that appeal to me – portability and adaptability.
What you see here, my friends, are what we survivalists back in the day bought for our bugout kits – an ALICE pack and frame. Here we see just the frame. We also see, mounted on the bottom of the frame, a cargo shelf. We also see two military camming load straps.
Those military-style cans, like the Scepter, are made to fit on that pack cargo shelf. You secure them with the straps and you can now carry that 40# jug of water on your back. That cargo shelf also works for cases of ammo as well.
Another reason I prefer the military style water jugs is the super wide mouth on them. It makes filling and dumping easier , and it lets me reach in there to clean the darn things.
But that super wide mouth also has another advantage. Do you know what a stirrup pump is? It’s a small hand operated pump used in conjunction with a bucket of water to fight fires. They made zillions of these things in Britain during the Blitz for putting out fires after the bombing raids.
The brass part goes inside your water container, usually a bucket, and you stand on the u-shaped metal footrest. With your foot holding the pump in place, you work the handle up and down. The pump ejects water on both the downstroke and the upstroke. Range is about thirty feet or so. One person can use this but its best used as a team. Where does the jerry can come in? Glad you asked:
A handy way of being able to deal with small fires in a crisis. Just the ticket for small grass fires or wetting down an area ahead of a fire.
As I said, unfortunately that sort of utility doesn’t come cheap. But, for me, I’d rather spend the extra money and get something that I have confidence in and that has the portability and utility issue going for it.
On a side note, it was a nightmare getting that stupid pump. Original ones from the WW2 era are available on surplus sites and if you replace the hoses and gaskets they might work just fine. I found this thing in the catalog of a firefighting supply company and they had to import it from Germany. And I had to wait about a year and a few months to get it. Major pain in the ass, but a very nice product. Theres a blog post all about it here.
Remember the coworker I mentioned a few posts back? She finally got power up at her place restored Sunday night. She’s having car problems and her and her husband are sharing one vehicle. I offered to give her a ride home and to reclaim my loaned gear.
As I was driving her outta town I saw, literally, a mile of stumps and matchsticks where the powerlines used to be. Apparently once one or two go, they yank down the others. The wires were laying by the side of the road like garden hoses on a summer day. Some power poles snapped a few feet above the ground but it looks like some were snapped at ground level. It was a mess.
I did see quite a few power trucks and crews driving around so, despite the ‘the power company gives all their money to shareholders and not into maintenance’ ranting from the left here in town, progress is being made. But…those boys have really got their work cut out for them. I hope the folks out there are treating them right.
My new water cans arrived yesterday. Even though I personally suffered zero problems at my house because of this event, that doesn’t mean the possibility isn’t there. I had a half dozen of the Scepter water cans on hand in the basement. I just upped that number with another ten. Why that many? Three reasons: First, why not? Second, it makes it easier for me to help people that I choose to help (enforced charity, rather than charity-by-choice, is not charity), and finally, at some point I’ll need to be stashing some of these at an off-site location…could be Commander Zero’s Post Apocalyptic Bunker O’ Love And Lingerie Proving Ground, or it could be at a friends outbuilding along with a Pelican case of gear and some fuel cans. Regardless, they seemed like a good idea.
I really need to get my little hideaway set up and online. I am rapidly losing my ability to let living around these useless people not get to me.
A few years back, I read a piece on crisis management and why people screw up so badly, over and over. The writer, who is some sort of expert on the subject, said the chain of denial reasoning goes like this:
It won’t happen.
OK, it’s going to happen, but not to me.
OK, it’s going to happen to me, but it won’t be that bad.
OK, it happened to me, and it was so bad, there was nothing I could have done about it anyway.
This commenter is absolutely correct. As a disaster progresses, the unprepared go though those stages and never imagine that their level of suffering is inversely proportional to the amount of personal responsibility they’ve undertaken. The larger overall problem, I suppose, is that no one wants to take responsibility. In my town, like many other places, we have a huge amount of homeless people causing all sorts of problems. The lefties in town demand that we provide all sorts of services and accommodations for these ‘neighbors’. But, if you ask what about the responsibilities of the homeless to actively take part in their redemption…well, you’re clearly lacking empathy. The notion of taking responsibility for your situation is just not on the radar for these people….its all about the feels. Empathy, compassion, solidarity, etc, etc.
When it’s 2am and there’s no electricty, your water pump is dead as a doornail, there’s a puddle forming under your fridge, and the kids are telling you theyre scared….which would you rather have…empathy or a generator, some stored gas, and a few flashlights?
I really don’t want to be a misanthrope. I think that people are not fundamentally bad, but they are dangerous, not just when when they’re scared. It’s just downright foolish to ignore that the other person’s self-interest will usually trump yours. Men In Black was a popcorn movie but it had this nugget that will be forever making the rounds on the internet:
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
And, worst of all, their vote counts as much as yours or mine.
I cannot get my heavily fortified little slice of Montana fast enough.
Bottled water is available for free at one of the city buildings for people who have no water. Keep in mind that Walmart, CostCo and every supermarket in town is open and doing business. I just got back from WalMart and a 20 oz. bottle of water is $0.15….fifteen cents a bottle.
I am unable to believe that anyone is incapable of affording bottled water at fifteen cents a bottle. I mentioned this online and was told that its the difference between gas money to get to work or having water to drink. I am absolutely slack-jawed at the stupidity of this comment. But I’ll bet those same people who feel a fifteen cent bottle of water is ‘unaffordable’ bought craft beer, weed, cigarettes, or McDonalds today. To put that in perspective, 120 ounces of water, almost a gallon, comes out to six 20-oz bottles at $0.15 ea. Or, in other words, a six pack of drinking water is about a dollar. Skip one beer, one joint, one chocolate bar, or one can of pop out of a vending machine and you’ve got the resources to buy enough drinking water for the day.
Sadly, this town is full of people who absolutely refuse to take any accountability or responsibility for their well being. The second one thing, big or little, goes wrong, the reflex of these parasites is to turn to .gov. And if you question them about their helplessness and their lack of willingness to fend for themselves, you get tagged as ‘lacking empathy’.
All this to say that I really have given up on the unprepared strangers around me. If you can’t be bothered to take steps to be prepared to take care of yourself, or worse yet you can’t be bothered to take steps to ensure your family’s safety and security, then I am absolutely uninterested in covering for your abdication of personal responsibility.
Sure, I do help out my unprepared neighbors or coworkers but those people aren’t strangers to me. And I try to nudge them in a direction of more preparedness afterwards. But these idiot mouth-breathers who can’t even be bothered to have a flashlight and a case of bottled water? Screw them. They’re part of the problem.
One of my coworkers is still without power, which means she is also without water. She’s been coming into the office and taking our spare 5-gallon water cooler bottles and bringing them home. I asked her how much water was she going through that she needed this many. And her response was….waitforit……”It takes a lot of water to flush the toilets.”
:::shaking my head:::
I grabbed an empty garbage can from under my desk and said “Follow me please”. We walked down the hallway to the maintenance closet where the slop sink was. I filled the itty-bitty wastebasket with about a gallon or so of water.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show you how to flush a toilet with a bucket. Lets go.”
We walked into the bathroom. “Throw some toilet paper in there.”, I said, pointing to the bowl. She did as I asked.
“Ok, now watch. Slowly and then all at once.” I slowly poured the bucket into the bowl and then dumped the rest in. The water swirled, and -whoosh-, water and TP disappeared. I turned to her, “Ok, that’ll do the job and it uses a lot less water than filling the tank and flushing. Got it?”
After I got back to my desk, I forwarded her the YouTube video you see above.
It’s not her fault, I suppose. No one ever taught her this sort of thing, and its not the kind of thing that it ever occurred to her to investigate on her own. But, still, five-gallons of Culligan drinking water that we pay a guy to deliver should not be used to flush the toilet.
Shes also cooking on her grill but needs propane. Because I’m a soft touch, I pulled two barbecue bombs from my stash and four Scepter cans of water and brought them to work over lunch and loaded them in her truck. (Her husband is outta town on a job for the week and she’s left wrangling kids and job.)
We shall see if I get them back or not.
As for me, I’m using this learning opportunity to reinforce a few things. I’m picking up another couple flats of bottled water to distribute among my freezers, and I just ordered a bunch more Scepter cans.
Interestingly, there are still large parts of town without power. Normally power is very seldom disrupted for more than 24 hours. I’m reading that a major substation took some severe damage and that may be the contributing factor.
Me? I’m happy as clam. Power never went out in my neighborhood and even if it did I have the brains to have planned ahead. I’m reading the local Reddit threads and am unsurprised at the amount of absolute dumbasses who say that they fully expected Northwest Energy (NWE) to drop the ball on this situation but, despite expecting this sort of thing, had no plans in place to mitigate it.
I know this is familiar country to you and I, but here’s some observations:
If you have any empty space in your freezer, it should always be filled with water bottles. I see people talking about how they need to buy bags of ice to keep in their powerless freezers and while that works, as that ice melts your freezer turns into a swamp of thawing food and ice water. Bottles are easy, self-contained, and you can drink them when they are no longer frozen. It’s the best way to store extra water and increase the thermal mass of your freezer at the same time. And, in non-crisis times, they are cheap cheap cheap. I just picked up a couple flats of water bottles at CostCo last week and distributed them through my freezers.
My boss couldn’t’ get to work because she couldn’t get her electric garage door open. Those of us with a y-chromosome know the solution to this, but for the rest of you – that little T-handle hanging on a rope from your garage track will disengage things allowing you to manually pull your door up/down.
Anytime it looks like there might be a loss of power, start charging your devices. Or do this. Or charge from your car. Or have a USB charger that runs on AA batteries.
Have cash. ATM’s arent gonna work and you don’t want to be driving around town any more than you have to.
I have a few people in my office who are very screwed…no water, no electric…unable to shower, cook food, have air conditioning, do laundry, etc, etc. You have an alternate method, right? It may be an unpleasant alternative…taking a shower with a garden sprayer, for example…but its better than nothing at all.
Will people learn anything from this? No. Invariably, they’ll tell their ‘war stories’ about how the suffered mightily and when I politely ask them if they’ll be buying generators or doing anything else to mitigate a repeat performance of the event they will say “Oh no, this sort of thing almost never happens”. Even though it just freakin’ happened.
And that, mi amigos y amigas, is why, collectively, we are doomed. People like you and I are outnumbered by orders of magnitude by these idiots. But they have the numbers and the collective gene pool of humanity will suffer because of it.
