EverydayPrepper.com

Please go to http://www.everydayprepper.com for all future updates.

Under Construction – Almost done!

I’m almost done on the site. It’ll take a little bit more time this weekend and then I’ll launch with a new look. I’ve also got some exciting news planned for next week so tune in or be left out.

In the mean time www.everydayprepper.com is the site to visit and subscribe to from now on. All the content has been moved over and I’m only going to post this message and maybe one more on the old site.

Quick update on the site

www.everydayprepper.com will be out of service for a little bit while I move the blog to another server later this week.  You can still visit by going to everydayprepper.wordpress.com

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Interesting Article

I found the following news story quite interesting.  It makes me wonder how many innocent people have been jailed over the years.

Trial by Fire – did Texas execute an innocent man?  By David Grann

Cast Iron Maintenance

Cast iron dutch ovens and skillets were used widely in the country for some time and only recently have they started to become second hand cooking instruments.  Unfortunately for many people they have never had the pleasure or even desired to have the pleasure of cooking with cast iron items which has lead to a lack of knowledge in how to care and maintain them.  Unlike your stainless steel pots and pans cast iron can’t just be left in the sink overnight until you can get to the dishes later.  It must be cared for and properly maintained but if you do so it will out live you and your children.

So in an effort to help everyone with their cast iron items I have rounded up some cast iron maintenance videos and tips pages.

• Cookware — From stainless steel pans to cast iron and anodized
• Cast Iron Skillet: How to season and protect your cast iron
• Basic instructions for your cast iron
• This guy humors me…
  Cast Iron Part 1: The Collection
  Cast Iron Part 2: The Seasoning
• How to season cast iron
• Cast iron by Jackie Clay
• Friday – Cast Iron Pots

The Government Can

To funny not to post. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2eh6f5Go0

Water – Let’s try this again

So I’m cheating tonight.  When I first started this blog I did some post on water purification and water storage and not many people saw them.  Personally I feel water is one of those things that folks underestimate the importance of so I’m going to give y’all a second chance to get this information.

Water Purification

Water Storage

More Water Bob Info

NOTE: Some links maybe broken after a year.  Sorry but that’s the nature of the internet and that’s why we print good stuff off.  Get it now while it’s still available.

Gear won’t save you – Knowledge will

In case you haven’t seen the news Ed Wardle host of Alone in the Wild has been airlifted out of Alaska after friends were became worried about him.  Thankfully precautions were taken and he was rescued in time before any real damage was done.

Many people have railed against him for not knowing what he was doing and not being a survival expert but I give the guy some credit for attempting to live in the wild for 3 months by himself.  It’s not like he has had no training, he was an outdoors man, has been to the top of Mt. Everest twice, has been to the North Pole, has traveled all over the planet and even had some training from “survival experts” in order to prepare for this ordeal.  Read his bio, he had some pretty good things going for him and I believe he was a good choice for the project.

So what went wrong?  Well from what I’ve seen online (which are only clips from various episodes) he had plenty of gear including a dutch oven, a rifle, a shotgun, a fishing pole, snares, a portable electric fence to protect from bears and many other things so I think if gear could have saved him it would have.  I actually found it funny when I looked at some of his gear because I have some of the same things.

What went wrong was a basic lack of knowledge when it comes to foraging and living off the land.  Many of us have the same pipe dream that we will just be able to walk into the wild and survive after a collapse with only a backpack and gun but the reality is that there are going to be a lot of backpacks with nice gear in them laying next to a corpse in the woods.  If you don’t know how to gather food from the woods then you are in trouble and you will starve to death.  Now is the time to learn to live off the land.  Now is the time to grow a garden, gather your bounty and even save some seeds for next year.  Now is the time, not later when it’s a real life or death situation.

Food is all important and without it you will die.  Don’t plan on grabbing your edible wild plants book and heading into the woods and expect to live.  He had one of those books and even with it nearly starved to death.  Edible plants and Poisonous plants look similar sometimes and even with a book it’s hard to decided what is safe.

This show looked promising and if they release it on DVD I’ll probably buy it because I can learn from his error almost as well as I can learn from my own.  This is your wake up call, even those who are well prepared with gear might not make it.  Learn useful skills now while there is still time to do so safely.

Book Review: One Second After

Today’s book review will be on the book One Second After.  This book tells the story of what could happen if an ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) hit America today.  Right up front I’ll tell you that I’m bias toward this book because it picks a subject that I love and that’s the EMP.  My initial preps started after reading Lights Out and ever since I just love a good EMP story.

EMPs have always worried me because they actually don’t kill that many people to begin with.  Some might die if their pacemakers or other internal gadgets get effected but the majority of the people that are currently living will still be alive but dieing slowly due to starvation or other issues created by the lack of modern conveniences.  This puts everyone in a real bad way and that’s what this book looks at.

How does almost the entire population of America still survive after all electric, water, sewer, military and government is nonfunctional?  Well the simple answer is they don’t and if you read this book you’ll understand the logistics of the decisions that are going to have to be made by someone if/when this actually happens.  It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, it’s not popular and not everyone will agree but certain decisions will have to be made and the people who make those decisions will have to live with the consequences.

As many other reviewers have pointed out one of the biggest things to learn from this book is “STORE FOOD“.  As all authors do Mr. Forstchen picked a nail (food in his case) and hammered it throughout the book.  Food is arguably the number one problem in this book and I’ll grant that it probably should be considering that most people don’t even have a weeks worth of food on hand.  After reading this book I can tell you it motivated me to reorganize my food storage and take a realistic look at just how long my family could live off of it.

Another big problem that he faces in this book is medicine both for the young and elderly.  Mr. Forstchen doesn’t sugar coat anything in this book and tells it the way it probably would happen.  People die and there is nothing you can do about it if the medicine is gone.  We live in a great age where life has been extended by medicine but in the event of an EMP (or any national level disaster) medicine will be cut off and lifespans will drop back to what they were in the 1800s.

While I’m trying not to give away anything in the book I will tell you that the writing style is very good and very gripping.  In a previous post I talked about how drawn into the book I became and honestly I became very attached to the characters.  I even shed a few tears during the story at one point (yeah I’m man enough to admit I cried a little).  Overall I was very impressed with his ability to tell a story and share some good information at the same time.  I actually finished this book in 3 nights and waited until now to review it because I was still thinking about everything that had happened during the book.

Stars: 4.8 of 5
Conclusion: Although you won’t find any gear list in this book, you will find a thought provoking read that makes you look at your preparing in a new more realistic light (or at least that’s what happened for me).  I recommend this book to anyone interested in good survival fiction or prepping in general.

Leather Viking Shoes

After the collapse everyone will eventually need some new shoes right?  How about making some of these Vicking Shoes?  OK, yes they are girly but would you walk up to a 6′5″, 250 lb. guy with a big sword and shield and tell him he has girly shoes on?  No, I didn’t think so.

http://earthandliving.blogspot.com/2008/08/viking-shoes-tutorial-sort-of.html

http://earthandliving.blogspot.com/2008/09/shoe-tutorial-part-2.html

So go have fun and make some shoes while you still can…