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Getting out of bed was a bear today. I think I finally dragged bottom out at about... 14:00 or 15:00. Whack! Getting to anything proved tough. I have the dishes soaking again. I did get out and finish cleaning the grill. More degreaser, more scrubbing with the steel bristles and scraper, hosing things down, and a final bit of work with an oven cleaner. I cannot say it is beautiful or new looking, but it should be clean. Oh, then I let it burn for about 45 minutes on high. That should remove any trace elements. I will cook on it a few times between now and next weekend to make sure things taste good and are safe. Chemicals can be nasty and long lasting.
I have enjoyed Sam and Sassy today. Sassy needs attention, Sam just wants it from time to time. They are still at it and I suspect another month or more. I am not sure how old Sassy needs to be before she is more a cat than a kitten. That might be required too. Sam comes to me when she wants out, Sassy when she wants a teet, company, because I make an odd sound or meow, or just because while running around she ran out of steam near me and noticed me. *laughs*
Tomorrow will be a little or nothing day too. I might do some laundry, finish any dishes if I do not do them tonight or what I do not do tonight, and straighten the house a bit. I am sort of keeping to my weekly schedule, if things might be done a day or three late, they usually get hit soon or late. How often should bedding be washed? Some people do it weekly, but that seems a bit heavy to me. I know nothing about these things. Then again, I think everyone else just makes it up too, so...
I ordered enough kit to fill 50 buckets for long term storage. I now need the food and the buckets. I will probably only buy 25 buckets and lids right now. The food will come in even slower. I am hoping to split things up so that I do "sets" of foods all together. Something, for me, is I would like a lot more beans (legumes) than what is suggested. Though I like grains, and I know the 'grain to legume' model, I also know I usually eat a lot more beans than that model would suggest. In a mix, I add about 50% of each. I am not sure what that means nutritionally, I only know that is how I like it. I also eat more than what is suggested. Then again, what is suggested is aimed at small people. I would lose serious weight and too fast on a 2k, even 2.5k diet. If I am active, in the heat or cold, doing work, traveling, or exercising, I need about 3.5k calories. If I get to 2.5k or less a day, I simply begin shutting down. Anyway, that part of my prepping is beginning.
I am having to consider both the life I have now and the life potentially to come. Getting my mind wrapped around it is not a simple thing. Understand that driving to the city, should that even be tenable, would be a days exercise both ways, there will be no gas. A medical situation could easily be fatal, there will be no medical. I saw what it took for them to even find what was bleeding and sew it shut when I cut my hand, and I realize how quickly and easily that happened. It does make me glad that I am not taking any medications, as well. You cannot stock up enough for that and who knows if it will ever be produced or available. Electricity will be down, so no freezer, so meats we are used to will not be available. Beef will be missed. Milk will be missed. Most "fresh vegetables" will be missed most of the year. Heating will be difficult. I have been thinking about figuring out how to add a wood stove, though there are problems with that. Wood, even here, would be a long haul. Even with the plethora of horses in this area, wood would be a problem. I would guess that using a wood burning stove to heat the place for the winter and cook, I would need 7 to 12 cords a year. Look, if production, some form of government, and other resources did not come back online within 6 months to a year, most of us simply would not make it. Biker gangs would kill everything that could sustain them within a reasonable reach and even they would starve and die relatively quickly. Only the military would hang on for an extended period of time, and most likely, they would not share. They might accept serfs to handle gardens and the like, or to replace troops, but they would not simply help. It would not be sustainable. Anyway... just rambling through some things.
Good night.
Solar oven/slow cooker. Solar concentrator cooker. Stove-Tec style rocket stove to cook effectively on miniscule quantities of wood. Thermos cooking. Raw sprouted grains and beans.
ReplyDeleteThermal underwear, layered clothing, creating shelter-in-shelter spaces for efficient small space comfort heating, passive solar heating, window solar heat collector boxes, solar hot water systems.
There are solutions.
Yeah if we focus on MZB's we might be inclined to despair. But even then as ex-military, I'm sure you have a few tricks up your sleeve. In J.W.R.'s novel "Patriots", the surviving band sent a small expeditionary force against an encampment taken over by MZB's. Because some of them had military background, they were able to orchestrate an effective attack that wiped the MZB's out. I suspect you and some of your better prepared neighbors out there could pull something similar off if it came to it...
More items I have to research. They are on the list, but the list is so large, honestly. Further, some of those things cannot be made post-TEOTWAWKI... mostly. Next month, with some spare change, I am hoping to buy a cooker, the fuel efficient kit (haven't priced it so will not swear to it), and if I have enough left over, a solar oven. Well, I mean October.
ReplyDeleteAs for the micro-areas, I am already considering that. I would love to seal off the stone parts of the house with inside-the-home outdoor (weatherproof) doors. This would be both security and micro-climate controls. I think the stone house would be much easier to manage and there is enough room for living space. Cooking and work could still be done in the enclosed areas that are out of the heated areas.
As for combat. As I have said, I will not swear to anything. The stuff is swimming in my head. Whether real or imagined, it is there. But the one thing I will tell you about combat is the one thing that should make everyone think seriously before considering combat... If you want to know combat, read a very simply set of books regarding strategy. Do not overcomplicate plans. Then, when called for, go do it. Why it works this time and not that has very little to do with skill, strength, endurance, or anything. Those things are good, can be helpful, add to the "tools", but it comes down to brute willpower to walk in and kill. You must already assume you are a dead man and let that go. There is no trick. I swear, that is what busted me... that realization. There is nothing different between what you do that is successful and what you do that ends in absolute failure. And failure can occur when combat was not even on the radar.
The trick, in other words is that there is no trick. That, my friend, is the stuff of nightmares. Well, my nightmares anyway. *shudders hard*