New Preppers guidelines

Questions come in from what I consider normal average people
that are now beginning to realizing they need to become better
 prepared in other words, New Preppers.

Where would I start?
By educating yourself with a few good informative books.
Discuss what is needed physically and mentally with others
that have been doing this for awhile.

There are lots of different food lists
One that I recommend to cross check your other list ideas is:

http://www.yourfamilyark.org/foodstoragecalculator.htm

As we know, everyone has different likes and dislikes. So common
sense tells us to double what we really like, and leave out what
 we hate.

The basics can be reduced to these categories
Water
Grains
beans
vegetables
sugars
fats and oils
starches
cooking essentials
dry milk products

Old survival books from the 60's told us to have
250 lbs of assorted grains in our shelter
75 lbs of beans
65 lbs of sweeteners
2 gal. of cooking oils
2 lbs of baking powder
2 lbs of baking soda
10 lbs of salt
2 lbs of yeast

That was what each adult needed to help them survive off the
land for a year. We have become more spoiled or sophisticated
since then.

As I said earlier, we know what we like to cook with or eat
and our stockpile should reflect those likes. For example
I like to cook with cream of mushroom soup. So if I had only
one can of this soup to cook with in a weeks time,
I would need 52 cans of cream of mushroom soup.
Simple calculations. I like to cook with Rotel so there is
another minimum of 52 cans.
How often do you want to eat green beans, or carrots?

Our food calculations branches out if we plan on catching fish
 for food. Or hunting deer for food.
Then comes fishing tackle and hunting equipment into our food plans.
You shouldn't calculate that without including your first
aide kits and should you have double the
recommended amount in case something bad happens
or you need to have things to trade
with other survivalists.

Consider those good books and think outside the box
while your options are still all available.
Toilet paper, tooth paste, all the different types of soaps
What are you prepared to do without?
What are you prepared to keep on hand?

How often are you willing to live off your stocked up supplies
and not go to the store for a week? Make your own bread?
Don't wait until you must survive on your skills to work with
your skills and improve your skills. The time is now people.

Thoughts from the Oklahoma Survivalist Network yahoo group

Gloria Youngdeer

This week in Oklahoma

This weeks Oklahoma Survivalist Network have been discussing Caches. What and where to store extra gear at home, and away from home.

We have discussed and agree we all have our vehicle survival boxes and our bug out bag setting ready if needed, and our supply of extra food and other long term needs if the stores are empty.

The home cache is a supply of food and tools in the house that would permit you to exist in your home for a determined amount of time if all outside support ends. If the grid goes down, communications are jammed or dead, the water is cut off, and fuel sources are gone. When would such an event happen, surprisingly enough our standard of living is built on a thin egg shell, it could happen at any time by many different means. Here in Oklahoma we have seen first hand how something like a ice storm, tornado, and flood conditions can wipe out your entire lifestyle in one day.

To prepare for a storm or other disruption of living norms we need to lay in a supply of food, water, fuel, in the home that we can survive for at least one month. We can not continue to rely on the government to provide for us. This was made painfully evident in a ice storm that knocked out our power for two weeks. Instantly there was a run on the stores, and no one had anything needed for survival. The stores shut down due to lack of electricity so even if they had what you needed, they were not open to provide it. The ATM's were out.

For our survival mind set, this was a wonderful exercise to challenge us and see how we can improve our abilities to live well in such conditions.

We learn early that with Oklahoma spring storm conditions, we need to frequently run to the cellar. Most all older homes have one, but for those who have abandoned grandma's farm and moved to the cities have lost much of our ancestors survival knowledge.

So our generation is having to retrain ourselves. The safest one in our city homes is usually an inside bathroom. No windows and a small space with sturdy walls.

converting your bathroom into your safe room and your home into a better prepared facility means you will do some converting.

Emptying the cabinets and

• stocking them with water,

• water purification devices,
  
• a camping stove
  
• a brand new can of fuel for the stove (brand new because they are sealed for placement on store shelves and usually don't leak unless punctured),
  
• food,
  
• flashlights and batteries,
  
• your family first aid kit,
  
• a couple of changes of "roughing it" clothes,
  
• a battery powered A.M./F.M. (and CB or ham ) radio and a set of walkie talkies incase one leaves the shelter.
• your cellular phone
  

You do not need to purchase special "backpacking" foods for this cache, just your ordinary canned foods, stews, soups, etc. Just consider it a pantry in a strange place. You can keep your bathroom stocks (extra toilet paper, etc.) in a hall closet with only a couple of rolls in the cabinet.


You will notice I did not mention firearms. Special secret caches can be created in the bathroom like removing the medicine cabinet, creating a recessed shelf behind it and put the medicine cabinet back on the wall. So by undoing the mounting screws you have access to what was hidden.

I am not going to pretend to be an arms expert and tell you what you need in your cache for protection. My personal caches have 22 long rifle rifles and handguns for protection. These are choices you will have to make on your own. You will also have to make the decision whether or not to have firearms around if you have children. These are moral topics I do not care to go into.

Water is one of the most important needs in emergency situations. Under normal circumstances I would have a gallon per day per person on hand. If this small safe room is where you will run too in a bad storm or other situations, you might want to change the locks on the door. If the rest of the house blows away, you have your emergency supplies there with you. If you are trapped for the expected 72 hrs before organized rescue arrives, you have what you need there with you.


If you are expecting to still have the house or other building as a shelter then you need to take into consideration the need for insect repellent as you can not always expect the windows to still be intact. Be sure to have this in your first aide kits.

Here in Oklahoma, we have the best of both worlds, chiggers, mosketos, ticks in the summer. and ice and cold in the winter so you need to have your sleeping bags and cold weather protection available.

In the case of storms or other natural phenomena the building may be nothing more than a shell, some standing walls, or just a slab. So, you should also have tents available for setting up inside what is left of your home.

This brings about a point we need to cover. The home cache in areas such as a tornado zone need to take into consideration the possibility of the home being destroyed. So, your first (in closeness to the home) external cache should be right there in your yard. If you examine pictures of disaster stuck areas one thing you will notice is that usually the lawn is still there. Trees may be broken off or bent over but from the grass down is still intact. So, I suggest that you have a duplicate cache in terms of time of survival on the supplies at hand. In other words, if you are keeping a months supply of food and water in the house you should have a months supply of food and water (purification) in the external underground caches in the yard.

Food in the external caches should be of more compact and even portable foods like backpacking meals. The caches in your yard are right there where you can keep an eye on them so the care of a remote location is not necessary.

PVC pipe tubes work well. Besides the tubes you can use a variety of other water tight items.

Just shared thought about a large subject with many different correct answers. If your in the neighborhood, stop by and join us.

Gloria Youngdeer
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Oklahoma-survivalists-network/