The Modern Viking

Gear, survival, disaster preparedness, and DIY on a budget

[themodernviking]

Gypsy

You know why you have challenge and answers set up? So when someone comes into your apartment while your in a half asleep mental state they don't get put down hard. Example:The other night I heard the door jostling around and open when my internal clock said no one should be coming in. I was up and racked my bedside firearm as I called out the challenge, heard the correct answer and verified the person. Maybe I'm just paranoid but current mental states allow me to feel better doing things this way.

[nod-goblin-nico]

Hunh, should started with the finished product.

ANYWAY, you broke or near broke and want something cheap and protieny?  Got spare time but don’t want to put too much effort into cooking?  Like beanie-weenies?

This is a thing I’ve been making, whole process takes about twenty minutes give or take, and not a whole lot of effort.  Price wise, I bought everything to make this about eight times for about twenty bucks.  

Ingredients:

Can of baked beans or pork’n’ beans. 

3 slices of bacon, cut in half.

Chunk of onion- exactly how much is to your personal preference.

2 (ish, depends on how much weenie you want in these) hot dogs

1 egg

Some shredded cheese- if you’re really looking to save money, buy it by the block and then shred it yourself, or just cut slices off and then cut those slices up if you don’t want a cheese grater.

Seasonings- whatever you’d like.

You can, of course, add more chopped veggies, I’d suggest mushrooms or peppers tomato to add into the egg.

Tools:

Medium-sized skillet

Stove

Chopping board

Spatula.  Heatproof.

Knife, spoon (or fork, I don’t care)

Bowl (eating out of type, I tend to reuse stuff so that I don’t need to clean more stuff)

Steps:

Like I mentioned, I’ve done this a couple of times, so I have my bacon pre-cut and then tossed into two separate baggies, so I never have to worry about raw/cooked contamination except for when I pull the bacon out of the bag.  Anyway, heat up the skillet to medium high, and throw on three half-strips of bacon.  Mostly trying to get grease out of them, but keep an eye on it.  

While the bacon’s cooking, get your hot dogs and your onions.  Cut them up however you’d like.  I split the hot dogs length-wise, then cut them up so they’re smaller and distribute better, and I cut the onions fairly small.  Around here, the bacon should finish up, so pull the slices out and set them on the cutting board, but don’t pour out the grease or drain them pieces.

Crack an egg straight into the skillet.  Yes, you could pre-scramble it, but that would defeat the idea of minimizing cleanup.  Add some chopped veggies to the egg, here I just used the onions but you can of course, add anything, and season as you like.  I just grabbed what stuff my roommate has, so ended up being some kind of steak dry rub and seasoned salt.  Whatever, find what you like and use it.  Dry seasoning only.  Then I break up the yolk over the white, which should have a cooked film on the bottom, and spread the yolk around. Once that’s done you should be able to flip it, and cook the topside.  Once that’s about done, flip it back over and sprinkle it with cheese, if you’d like.  Quick flip after the cheese has melted in a bit to set it in and finish it, then pull the egg to your serving bowl.  Not shown here, but as soon as you take the egg out, throw the other half of the bacon strips in the skillet.

While the bacon is cooking, chop up the eggs with your spatula, nice and small so they’ll spread out through the beans.  Crack a beer or whatever, you’ve got a minute or two.  This is also a good time to start preparing some carbs- in my case, I just made toast.  Beans on toast, motherfuckers.  My actual suggestion is rice.  Here’s a secret- it’s pretty easy to make “real” rice in the microwave, you don’t need to pay for “microwave” rice.  The trick is having a good casserole dish with a lid.  Just put about equal amounts of rice and water into the casserole dish, put the lid on (I don’t wash the rice first, keeps extra starch which I like having), and then microwave it for… uh… Well, you microwave it until all the water has been absorbed into the rice but the rice hasn’t dried out.  If you microwave it too little, microwave it more.  If you microwave it too much, add water and then nuke it again.  You’ll figure it out.

So that bacon’s done now, pull it out, again not draining it or pouring out the grease- that stuff’s delicious.  Now, you’ve got a couple options again, and this depends on personal taste.  I put the hot dog pieces in first because I like them to char a bit, and I like my onions to still have bite and not completely caramelize.  While I’m waiting on the hot dogs to char up and soak in grease, I chop up the bacon.  Then add the bacon bits, chopped onion, and chopped egg.  Here’s where to add dry seasoning- this time I added sage and some creole seasoning because why not?  Mix that around while it cooks for a minute or two.

Once that’s fired up, open up your can of beans, but don’t completely remove the lid.  Pour all that reddish bean juice into the skillet where everything’s cooking away merrily to give everything else a chance to soak up some flavor.  This is the perfect time to add liquid seasonings, I use gluten-free soy sauce (it tastes better, use it) and Worcestershire sauce.  Stir that all up and let it simmer for a minute, then pour in the beans.

Turn the heat down to medium-low, let that simmer for another couple minutes, then pour that shit off into your serving bowl.

Then eat it.

It’s pretty solid and this has been keeping me going for a few weeks here.

[ozarkbear]

We made it after close and a few drinks. It’s called how to shave your wood.

[themodernviking]

What to do when Papa Ebola comes to Town

Ebola, Ebola, Ebola. Everybody’s freaking out. Cant find a Hazmat suit on Craigslist to save your life. I’m a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry with twenty years experience. Here is some real advice on what works and what does not:

1. Keep away from infected people. Most cases are contracted when family members or health care workers care for the sick without protective personal equipment (PPE). Also by handling the dead. Ebola is fluid transfer based, NOT airborne and it AIN’T GONNA GET airborne. A village in Sierra Leone stopped new cases cold by the simple method of maintaining chairs three feet apart outside a home for visitors. That simple. You CAN get it from sweat from a symptomatic person by touch or shaking hands; don’t do that.

2. Wash your hands you filthy beggars! Soap kills Ebola. Alcohol and bleach do too. Same protocol as per cold season. Wash hands thoroughly and often, don’t touch your face; sanitize as soon as you come home and wipe down surfaces. Ebola won’t last long on surfaces without fluids but this will help with casual transfer. Again majority of cases involve intimate touching of the sick when caring for them and the messes they create.

3. General consensus is if you are not showing symptoms you cannot get someone else sick. Symptoms include 103 or higher fever, copious sweating and diarrhea, then vomiting and bleeding. Patient usually dies of fluid loss or high fever. If these can be managed recovery is about 50%. Time from when you contract the virus to onset of symptoms can be up to three weeks. Keep a thermometer handy.

4. Don’t bother gathering your own PPE. If you ever used a condom, that’s PPE. You have to actually wear it, be able to perform wearing it properly, and dispose of it after use properly. You can’t reuse a Tyvek suit any more than you can reuse a condom. Non sufficient PPE will just give you a false sense of security and lead you to mopping up poo wearing naught but gloves. Bad idea. Two nurses with all the training and resources of a hospital did not do it right. Improper PPE is like bringing a .22 single shot to a gun fight; run instead.

5. Be prepared for a bug in. Sierra Leone shut their entire country down for three days to get a lid on this. People ran out to the market, panicked and probably rubbed up on infected people. If they call an isolation period be pre positioned to not have to go for that one last item to the stores. It will be chaos. Bad situation in your city may lead to you having to bug out one night; very bad situation will find you on the wrong side of an armored quarantine line.

6. Lastly, STOP FREAKING OUT. Ebola is on a par with HIV to contract; the difference is speed and lethality, and the patient being messy. Absolute key is to simply avoid touching people you don’t know, be aware of the symptoms and don’t treat it like a boogeyman. I am much more concerned about social unrest that will stem from people looting for food and Purell and shooting people that have the flu. Remember, it’s been ‘rampant’ in third world West Africa for months and with a population of millions it only has claimed about 5,000 lives. It can be mitigated.

   (submitted by E.F.)

[0xfffff16-deactivated20210107]

Fundraising and a little something

So… Here’s a chance to win a Kobold Phantom Tactical.

Check it out.

[andrewwadenunn-blog]

Hey Friends,

Greetings from Erbil. I’ve made it and have successfully taught a classroom of about 21 freelance journalists mostly from Kurdistan, but also with freelancers from the UK, Switzerland, the US, France, and even Palestine. While most of the local journalists had a great deal of experience in conflict, many of the foreigners had very little experience in hostile environments. A few had previously seen colleagues, fighters or civilians wounded in conflict, one having been wounded previously himself.

This couldn’t have been possible without the support of my friends, colleagues and perfect strangers who are also interested in doing good for others. My training team, who I had never met before arriving here, was simply incredible and I feel that this experience bonded ourselves to one another; student to teacher, teacher to student. I learned more from my class than they possibly could have learned from me.

My life took an unexpected turn just after leaving “home”, and now I essentially do not have a home. With that said, I will be staying in Kurdistan for much longer than I had previously planned. It really seems to be safe here. I am picking up on the language, and have made very many new friends here in Kurdistan. Any continued support that anyone could give would be greatly helpful for restarting, again, in my new life.

[themodernviking]

Water Purification (A quick look)

I'd venture to guess that anyone who's spent time hiking, camping, or paddling with their parents in the last 30 years knows "The Deer Story." The way I remember it, unsuspecting hikers #1 and #2 are heading through the woods when #1 decides that he needs to refill his water bottle. He then proceeds to dip into the babbling mountain brook nearby and take a long, cool drink. #2 needs water too, but is a little concerned with the supply (Where is it coming from? How clean is it?), and decides to wait until later. Lo and behold, a few minutes up the trail, the pair comes across a deer lying dead and bloodied in the stream; the same stream that hiker #1 just drank from.

The moral of the story is that water is a shaky proposition in the backcountry. Just because you're miles from nowhere doesn't mean that your water supply can't be polluted, infested, or worse. And in this age of toxic waste leaks, unpleasant bacterial and viral infections, and all sorts of nastiness, there really is no good reason not to carry something to purify your water.

The most common waterborne problems in the United States are Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and E Coli; all nasty little buggers that can quickly add an unpleasant footnote to an otherwise fun trip. Beyond the borders, you can add at least a dozen more threats ­ including Salmonella, Hepatitis A, and others ­ so whatever water purification method you choose needs to be able to kill as many of these as possible. As with anything, these methods all have their pros and their cons, so it's important to learn as much as you can about the options on the market and make informed choices to best meet your needs.

Boiling The classic backcountry purification method, it's long been held that boiling water for ten minutes (plus a minute for each 1,000 feet of elevation) will kill anything dangerous in it. It's more or less true, and it remains the simplest and most foolproof way to purify water. And since you're going to be bringing a stove and cook pot along anyway, there's really nothing extra to pack. But, the sterile taste of boiled water, the time it takes to heat and cool the water, and the fuel that the operation requires, leave it as a last resort for most people in this day and age.

Filters At once the most popular and least effective treatment solution, no self-respecting gear head these days can venture out the front door without the de rigor hand pump water filter. The good news is, as long as the filter's pores are small enough and the element is kept clean, they are generally effective against most bacteria and parasites. And since many also come with a pre-filter screen, you can even pump directly from a water source and avoid contaminating your bottle. The result is a quick, easy solution that doesn't alter the taste of your water.

The bad news is that filters are largely ineffective against viruses. Not generally a concern stateside, but if you're traveling abroad, a filter alone is generally not the best choice (although this can be countered by treating the water with iodine as well as filtering it.) And remember, the current crop of pump filters still only filter the water, they don't purify it. An easy solution, but far from perfect. (The exception, of course, is the First Need Deluxe, a filter-style pump system that's actually rated as a purifier and meets EPA standards against cysts, bacteria and viruses.)

Iodine/chlorine drops Quick and effective, chemical drops can kill most viruses, bacteria, and protozoa except for the ever-popular Crypto. Their high portability factor ­ just a few drops can purify gallons of water ­ make them a tempting and popular solution for paddlers and backcountry hikers alike. But, there are a few caveats that make chemical treatment less than ideal.

The first is taste. Iodine in particular leaves a strong, metallic taste in the water. It's not so bad for cooking, but drinking it straight can be a little tough to stomach. There are ways around this (Kool Aid, citrus flavor, etc…) but it's important to consider what you can tolerate taste-wise before you head out on the water. Second is its effectiveness. Chemical solutions are largely variable depending on the water temperature and the amount that you're purifying, and also often require the water to be pre-filtered to remove sediment or cloudiness. This means that it can literally take hours to treat a large sample of water. The third problem depends on the person drinking the water. While rare, it's not unheard of for iodine and chlorine to trigger reactions. Plus, chemicals like these are not things that you want to build up in your body. Using them as infrequently as possible is generally a good thing.

Inactive against Crypto ­ an increasing threat in U.S. waters ­ chemicals that can cause problems in the body, and variable effectiveness are enough to convince me to keep the chemicals at home. But, that said, drop solutions are great as an emergency backup method. And the tiny bottles certainly won't take up too much space in your gear bag.

So, there you have it. Three water purification methods, three sets of pros and cons. It's far from a black and white situation, so the best thing to keep in mind when shopping for a backcountry water solution is that nothing's perfect. Choose the method that makes the most sense for what you're doing.

-Gypsy

[operationzeus]

Please help this Soldier get his life back together. Anything you can give is helpful, this man is starting over from square one.

[packconfig]

Team Rubicon Week: Part 02

This is the second post of our Team Rubicon (TR) feature week following the launch of our fundraising patch check it out here. These images have come directly from TR and again show the great diversity of packs being using by the team.

The in the first shot a guy is lifting a heavily packed REI XT 85 Pack, whilst he is wearing a 5.11 All Hazards Nitro Pack in Sandstone. His waist rig seems to have a number of camouflaged (possibly Highlander pattern) pouches which work well with the Sandstone colouring. He has a big carabiner attached to the front which is holding his gloves, but would be great for quickly retaining items. He also has a forward mounted GoPro. 

The lady in the second image appears to be the owner of the pack we featured yesterday (found here). The TR international team seem to often carry two packs in this manner, we’ll see a few other examples later on this week. To find out more about Team Rubicon and all they do, check out their about us page here.

Don’t forget to check out the Pack Config Fundraising patch here and make a pre-order to help support TR. The cost of a pack of 3 or 4 patches has also now been discounted to make it easier for your to order more!

[themodernviking]

Beat the Heat with Home Made Electrolyte Mix

Those days where you feel absolutely burnt out from working in the heat or you eat something that didn't agree with you and decided to purge all the hate from your rear end in liquid form, dehydration becomes a real concern. 

One of the easiest ways to remedy dehydration is with an electrolyte mix, such as Gatorade, Powerade and even chocolate milk. But if buying a 1.50-4 dollar bottle of sugared up water that you have to get another one of when you need it, or 6+ dollars for a box of only a few powdered drinks, or buying a case of them and drinking them like water, you could literally just be throwing money away just the same as if you were drinking soda instead of water. 

There are a lot of recipes online to make this, and they usually make them 2 quarts at a time, and over sugar them. 

this recipe is easy to make, easy to remember, easy to keep on hand, and best of all, CHEAP TO MAKE. 

Dehydration is a lack of water in the body, along with electrolytes, or the chemicals that help electrical impuleses go through the water in your body, as well as lack of minerals. 

All you need is regular sugar, sea salt or regular ionized table salt, and a packet of flavoring, like kool aid, NIce! drink flavors, and even MIO drink flavoring. Citrus based flavors add in a little help in breaking down the acids produced when you exercise, so those are good to mix in, plus they taste good.  

You can also add a crushed up tablet of potassium if you need it.

For a 1 quart/1Liter bottle you need: 

a pinch of salt or about 1/8th a teaspoon 

1-2 Table spoons of sugar

One flavor packet for 6-12 oz water

That's basically it. Don't use too much salt or you'll dehydrate yourself and it'll make you feel worse, and it won't taste great.  Too much sugar and you could give yourself a sugar crash when it wears off. You can make these on your counter top in a bottle or cup. You can also get pill baggies and fill them up with this mixture to take them on the go for hiking and trips. 

It's not a lot of salt 

Make sure you add the salt and flavor before the sugar so you don't over fill it. 

Don't overfill the bags, when they're too full they'll pop open and that makes for a huge mess. Keep them a little thin so they don't take up a lot of room and stash easily. 

I use this recipe  almost constantly, in summer, and even winter. I've used it with other people who were dehydrated and it fixed them up almost immediately. Once you get a formula down that you like and that works for you, you'll be able to just pour in the ingredients right into your bottle.   

You can strip it down to just a pinch of salt and some sugar, but it won't taste as good. With flavoring, it's sweet enough that you'll want to keep drinking it, but not so sweet it makes you sick of it. 

Now, I mentioned that it's cheap to make. Stacking up against regular Gatorade single serve pouches, which run around 6 dollars for a box of 10, making it yourself, you buy the salt, sugar, pouches, and flavor packets, with the pill baggies being the most expensive item. 

Altogether, you can spend about 15 dollars, 3 for sugar, 7 for the baggies, 3 for 3 boxes of 10 flavor packets and a couple dollars for salt, and you can make about 30 drinks in various flavors. That's assuming you don't have any of this in your house. If you do have a partially working kitchen, you probably half salt, sugar, and maybe even some flavoring. 

You could really spend about 8 dollars, get the baggies and the flavor packets, and still make at least 10. Then you just need more flavor packets since the baggies come in packs of 100. 

It's a lot cheaper than buying Nuun, Gatorade or mass buying bottles of Powerade and Gatorade. It also cuts down on how much plastic you throw away since you can reuse the plastic baggies until they're destroyed.  Compared to Nuun at least, I've found making my own powder is much more effective than just buying it; Nuun was a watery, almost tasteless mix that I didn't feel any better from. My own mix perks me up with only a few sips and gets me back in the game right away. 

It packs really well, and when you've used it, the baggie stores pretty much flat. 

Keep hydrated

[ozarkbear]

There’s a lot of good info here for all of my outdoorsy friends and if you ain’t outdoorsy just ask if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to explain.

[themodernviking]

If you have any questions go ahead and ask I'm an avid backpacker. I can give you a list of thru hikes and shorter that I've done. There's a lot of super good information here that y'alls can use. -Gypsy

[themodernviking]

All Fed Up with Nowhere to Go (The Less Than Ideal Prepper Part 2)

            As you may know, we had a bit of a cold snap [in some areas] earlier this week. A foot of snow and -10 temperatures brought half the country to a standstill for a short time. Afterwards, I was out on a weekly grocery run when I realized there was no bread and no fresh meat at all in the store. A young couple saw this at the same time. The young woman asked, "But what are we supposed to do now?" They obviously had never been in a situation where the store just did not have what they wanted. After getting home, I crept to my basement and lifted the lid of my chest freezer. Gazing at my hoard of frozen beef as Smaug lords over his  treasure, I said, "What indeed... BWAHAHAHAH!"

(No I really did. Felt very self conscious coming out of the storeroom with my wife there.)

            This yet again drove home the need for food security. In my mind it is the number one priority, because in any emergency you are going to need a stockpile of food. I have found it helpful in times of underemployment, dipping into food supplies to ease the cost of the kitchen. Hopefully times of plenty return before these stocks run out!

            I did a very small, informal survey of some people’s food supplies (either by asking or snooping.) I have always heard that the average home has only three days food in it. I still don’t buy that. Sure, my bachelor friends were on the low end with half a pizza and a case of Pabst in their fridge, but ones with families tended to have two weeks to a month on hand. Interestingly, a trio of brothers I know who claim to be Preppers would be out of food within a week, maybe two. When it’s all said and done, I would put an average at more like two weeks. After that it would get dicey for most people.

            Of course, that all depends on when was the last time they got a resupply in. My youngest son shops only once a month, when his check comes in. Catch him on the 25th instead of the 5th and it looks a lot different. So some people will feel the pinch of a disruption within a few days, others a few weeks; very few could go even for two months with just what they have in house. The looting that seems to spring up around the third or fourth day in a crisis (Katrina, Watts) tends to be more economic than survival oriented.

            Again, I say I prefer a bug out strategy to a safer location with food stockpiles prepositioned there. But this assumes passable roads, workable vehicles, and someplace specific to drive to. This may not always be an option. I think, realistically, that many people will have to shelter in place even though that isn’t their first choice. Therefore even if you do have a bug out plan, having supplies on hand to stay put is also necessary.

            When to stay and when to go? This question is one of the most debated in survivalism. I subscribe to the Ragnar Benson school of thought: Don’t be a refugee. Period. If you have a place to go to, a REAL place that is yours, then that is not being a refugee. But packing everyone in the Explorer and heading for Canada, that’s not a plan. You are usually better off on your home territory, where you know some of your neighbors, where you know the little details that might help you find what you need. If your crisis is localized (earthquake, storm) I would definitely stay put. The country will mobilize even if it takes a week or two. If it’s nationwide but unsafe to travel (pandemic) I would again stay in place as long as possible. National economic collapse will take a few days to steamroll, something like that would be time to drive for the hills.

            If I get the choice I would evacuate my family to my bug out location. We have a farm set up to be a sustainable, survivable retreat location. My family has the skill set to make this work. It’s a realistic alternative to staying in the city, and even with the merits of being on home ground, don’t kid yourself. I don’t think the city will be pretty if your crisis lasts more than two weeks. But if you think squatting on someone’s land out in the country will be a nonviolent, well fed alternative to a city crisis, think again. The majority of land owners in the country are armed and have a fanatical territoriality about defending their family land from outsiders. Hordes of hungry city folk will not find a warm reception in the woods. If you don’t belong there, I advise you not to go unless it is just that damn bad in town. DON’T be a refugee!

            There is also the matter of what type of food people have on hand. Let’s say there is a pandemic and leaving your home for the foreseeable future would be bad. Also assume the power went out (electricial engineers have families too.) Here’s how to eat:

1. Cook as much refridgerated, then frozen food as you can. Hopefully you have a barbeque grill or at least a camp stove. Laying in a big bag of charcoal at the end of summer just for this purpose is not a bad idea. Cook it all up well done. If you have a supply of salt, sprinkle a good portion on both sides of meat and rub it in. Salt helps prevent spoilage. Wrap it /bag it up tight in whatever you have handy, then put wrapped packages in tupperware if possible or at least a tight fitting container. Put container in coolest place in the house. Try this out with an experimental roast and see what happens.

2. Supplement the meat with whatever greens you have in the fridge. Clean out the fridge and freezer if you don’t think the power is going to come back after three days. Get ahead of the smell. Otherwise open the door as few times as possible to keep the cold in. My chest freezer in the basement has a lower compartment where I have ten gallons of ice frozen up hard. That should buy me some extra time and give me some drinking water for later.

3. What you are not eating (at first) is anything in your pantry or cabinets. Eat up all the perishables first to the exclusion of dry goods like pasta, rice, all that crap in the cabinet you never really get hungry enough to eat. Now you eat it.

4. Dead last to eat is canned goods. They keep the longest, they are by definition already cooked (you can eat anything straight from the can), the most portable and tradable if need be.

            A note on water: While you need it more than food to live, water tends to fall from the sky where I live. Food not so much. Your water heater has 30 to 50 gallons of drinkable water in it. See the valve at the bottom? Drain valve. Get a hose and/or a pan and there you go. If there is time, fill up bathtubs with water for flushing toilets. I keep some gallons of water stored but not much. Also think about secondary sources. We have a 150 gallon fish pond in the backyard we hand dug (By we, I mean me.) My wife’s ornamental pond is my reservoir with a little boiling.

            By the time you are down to your canned goods, you have to be thinking of a resupply. If it is a regional disaster, resupply will come from the rest of the country. If it is a national persistent disaster, you have to grow your own or trade for it if possible. By the time you are out of food everyone else will be too. Think of your stored food as a means to an end. Either the crisis gets under control and things get normalized, or you are able to get a sustainable food source going. If neither of these outcomes happen when the last of the cans are gone, you have what we call a problem.

            As the Less than Ideal prepper, have a starting goal of three months of stored food. More would be better, but we have to budget and we have to start somewhere. It has to be food you will actually eat and can actually cook with the lights off. 50 pounds of rice is of little use if you can’t boil water. Ideally get food staples you eat regularly and can fold into your regular eating plan. When I buy peanut butter, for instance, I take it downstairs and swap it out with the oldest peanut butter I have. Then we eat the oldest in the kitchen and nobody is the wiser (after dusting it off).

            I have a 3 level strategy. The kitchen holds our ‘normal’ food. Since it is heavily reinforced with staples and canned goods from the basement, just what is in our kitchen is good for 2 to 4 weeks depending on when the last shopping trip was. The basement has about 3 months of canned goods, rice in 5 gallon buckets, dry goods, plus the freezer. I fret about this being low, but it’s low because I have prepositioned another 3 months food at my Dad’s bugout farm. So my stocks are split evenly between where I want to be and where I am.

I keep all this in the open in a storeroom downstairs. This way, I can quickly grab cases, load up a car and go. If I was staying put, I would transfer all this reserve food to hiding places around the house. It would take less than an hour either way. If someone forces my house or sneaks in, they can get the upstairs food but they are less likely to get the hidden downstairs food. Thieves will leave when they get a portable score, but tend to keep searching if they are coming up empty.  You don’t want the risk of breaking and entering for no payoff. So give them some decoy food to steal and everyone’s happy.

            Food can be hidden all sorts of places. A paneled basement is excellent. Nobody will take the time to unscrew the panels from the walls! So is the housing of a washer and dryer. Pull out a dresser drawer and find the hollow space underneath. Load up a storage tub marked Easter decorations. Behind books on a shelf or even better behind a false back in the shelf. In a true emergency, you can hide multiple caches of supplies around the house, so that nobody could loot all of them. Use your head.

Find Part 1 here. 

[packlite]

Do you want a GORUCK GR1?

[wildsurvival]

[gmsurvival-old]

Why you should have at least one metal water bottle in your kit.

[themodernviking]

This is super useful as it pertains to the prepper and outdoor life style you can also do this with just questionable water and I'm willing to say most times that you'll be ok.

-Lukus

[hikingdreams]

[themodernviking]

This is pretty close to how I pack almost every trip though I’ve changes some of the gear due to different places and skills that I go or have.

-Lukus

[minuteofangle-deactivated201601]

I put the clothes at the bottom. Rarely do I need them in the immediate.

[themodernviking]

That’s why I said that I kind of pack like this. I also carry a hammock not a tent so my clothes end up there and my hammock on the top in a compressed state.

-Lukus

[hikingdreams]

[themodernviking]

This is pretty close to how I pack almost every trip though I’ve changes some of the gear due to different places and skills that I go or have.

-Lukus

[themodernviking]

So today in my WFR course my wound came open again and vroke down and stitched it up innit pretty?

-Lukus