30 Days of Prepping - 2024

[majorhavoc]

Prepmas Day 4: Made up another wallet sized card with all my prescriptions.  CVS pharmacy staples a sheet of peel off adhesive labels to every medication refill.  One goes on the actual pill bottle, but for reasons unknown to me, there are several others that are left unused.  One of which contains your name, RX number, medication and dosage.  It's the perfect size to fit across the width of a credit card sized piece of stock.  Up to six of them will squeeze onto the card.  I actually have two of these made up already.  One lives in my wallet and another is in that Surviveware 72-hour Emergency Go Bag I reviewed earlier this year.  But I didn't have one for my original emergency bag: a get home bag (GHB) that lives in my car.  So that's where this one will go.

A record of all your prescription medications, along with other important papers, is an important prep for emergency situations where you have to evacutate (bug out) in a hurry.  It can be the difference between getting vital, life sustaining medications during a prolonged emergency, or having to take your chances doing without.

(Opsec note: I've temporarily covered up my name on the individual labels in the picture below.  If you want to try to make out the actual medications, knock yourselves out.  We're amongst friends here, so I'm comfortable with y'all knowing that I have high blood pressure and since I'm an older guy, I also have prostate issues. ) 

[EBuff75]

Prepmas Day 4: Made up another wallet sized card with all my prescriptions.  CVS pharmacy staples a sheet of peel off adhesive labels to every medication refill.  One goes on the actual pill bottle, but for reasons unknown to me, there are several others that are left unused.  One of which contains your name, RX number, medication and dosage.  It's the perfect size to fit across the width of a credit card sized piece of stock.  Up to six of them will squeeze onto the card.  I actually have two of these made up already.  One lives in my wallet and another is in that Surviveware 72-hour Emergency Go Bag I reviewed earlier this year.  But I didn't have one for my original emergency bag: a get home bag (GHB) that lives in my car.  So that's where this one will go.

A record of all your prescription medications, along with other important papers, is an important prep for emergency situations where you have to evacutate (bug out) in a hurry.  It can be the difference between getting vital, life sustaining medications during a prolonged emergency, or having to take your chances doing without.

(Opsec note: I've temporarily covered up my name on the individual labels in the picture below.  If you want to try to make out the actual medications, knock yourselves out.  We're amongst friends here, so I'm comfortable with y'all knowing that I have high blood pressure and since I'm an older guy, I also have prostate issues. ) 

I really like that idea with the labels!  I've got a typed out sheet, but that's just a list of my medications / supplements so that when I get asked during appointments (doctor, dentist, ophthalmologist, etc) I can just hand them the list.  But it makes sense to have the Rx number as well. 

[EBuff75]

Day 4 - Clean / rearrange garage; download offline copies of Wikipedia and others; camping light testing

I spent several hours this evening working in the garage, cutting up old boxes to put in the recycling, hanging tools (I've got a whole box of assorted hooks), and generally tidying things up.  I've been putting off actually putting up hooks for some of my power tools, like the leaf blower and string trimmer, but since I've got hooks that will work for those, I might as well get things a little more squared away.

I also confirmed that with some judicious rearranging, I should be able to move my motorcycle over to the space in front of the car so that I can work on it. 

I've been meaning to download an offline copy of Wikipedia for a while.  How long?  I purchased a 1Tb SSD during last year's Amazon Prime Days for it, but hadn't even gotten around to opening the package until today...  Unfortunately, about 4 hours into the Wikipedia download, it failed, so I'll have to try it again overnight.  The downloads of iFixit and Wikihow were successful and Project Gutenberg will be done in another hour and a half.  I also have a huge file full of various .pdfs that I'll add to the drive.  If you're interested, the downloads can be found here:  https://download.kiwix.org/zim/  Just look for the "en" listings for English and download the "all" file of your choice (no pictures, limited topics, etc.).  City Prepper did a video about it if you want to see how to go about everything. 

The drive will work with my phone, my old phone, any of the three laptops that I have here, plus my desktop (and probably a few older desktops that are in my computer "graveyard" as well).  I've already installed Kiwix on several of those as a way to access the files.  I might also put the files onto memory cards as well, just to cover my bases.

Unfortunately, I can't access an external SSD on my Kindle Fire, but that's because Amazon really limits a lot of Android functionality on their tablets.  I could work around it, but it's probably not worth the effort.  What I might do is pick up a cheap Android tablet that will work properly with it and then put it aside in a Faraday cage of some type with a few other items (power bank, solar panel, radio, old phone, USB light, flashlight, etc.).  That'll be another post if I get that far.

As for the light testing, I'll post about that when it's done.  I'm checking the runtime right now, as well as confirming the internal battery size on one that's recharging.  I bought a 3-pack which let me test one each for high output and low output, while still having one left that was fully charged to compare their light output to as the batteries run down. 

Spent 20mins on the exercise bike tonight.  Nothing too strenuous, as I'm out of practice / shape for biking and don't want to be too sore tomorrow.  Of course, the first thing I had to do was put in new batteries, as the ones in it were dead (my bike is an oddball in that it doesn't have a way to power it other than 4 D-cell batteries, which are just used for a small LCD screen and to position the resistance magnets). 

My (fairly inaccurate) watch recorded 2881 steps today.  I'm still trying to decide on a replacement, but I'm leaning toward the Garmin Venu 3s.  Unfortunately, that's the most expensive of the ones that I'm considering.  Figures... 

[EBuff75]

Day 5 - Wikipedia download (finally!), apps set up, files copied to drive

Turned out that the boot drive had gotten filled up and that was what was causing the download to fail.  Spent some time today cleaning up my computer and then the download went fine.  Moved the files over onto the SSD, along with a big folder full of .pdfs of various survival-related books and such.  Then I installed Kiwix on my laptop.  Still going through some cleanup on my old phone, but it might be too old for Kiwix to work anyway (it's an LG G4 from back in 2015). 

Did another 20 mins on the exercise bike tonight.  During the time on the bike I was listening to Riverdance.  Forgot to mention that yesterday while I was working in the garage I listened to The Ventures Play Telstar and to Oceanlab. 

Edited to Add:  I was able to install Kiwix on my old phone.  For whatever reason, I couldn't push the app to the phone from the Google Play store, but once I finally got the phone reset / recharged, it was able to load just fine from the phone.  Man it's weird going back to that phone after getting used to my Samsung over the last few years!

[majorhavoc]

Prepmas Day 5: Sampling old food stores

Repeat after me: "I will rotate my food preps on a timely basis.  I will rotate my food preps on a timely basis.  I will rotate my ..."

I'll fess up to what I suspect a lot of us are guilty of: I'm not as conscientious as I should be ensuring my emergency food preps are up to date.  Sure, I talk a good line here on the forums but the ugly reality is a lot of my kit is way past its expiration date.  But a true disaster won't time its arrival for when you finally do get around to renewing your food stocks.  So in the spirit of authenticity, I sampled the oldest DIY food ration packs I have on hand.  Here's one from <ahem> March, 2016.     



Note that the plastic vacuum bag isn't pulled tight against the contents - a tell tale sign that I didn't properly heat seal the vacuum bag on my Food Saver. This happens more often than I'd like to admit.  Also, this was before I discovered oxygen absorbers. 


Opening up to reveal the contents.


Ritz peanut butter sandwich crackers, a Nutrigrain bar, Ocean Spray Craisins (dried cranberries),  chewing gum, Swiss Miss Pumpkin Spice hot chocolate mix, Wallyworld brand powdered beverage mix, a Werthers hard caramel candy (not visible in this pic), an individually packaged wintergreen Lifesaver and - what this whole kit is built around - a 5 Minute Chef Spaghetti and meat sauce self-cooking meal.  Wanna guess which of these ingredients survived 8.5 years of imperfect storage in a damp, semi-heated basement?

I'll spare you the suspense. The cardboard box of Craisins and the chewing gum were each a soggy mess that were giving off a foul, profoundly unwholesome odor.  They went straight into the trash.  I did try the Ritz PB crackers, but literally spit those out of my mouth.  And had to repeatedly rake my tongue against my upper teeth to clear that botulism-inducing yuck out of my mouth.  The Nutrigrain bar was fine - some of the moisture from the fruit filling had permeated the "crust" so the texture was different, but it was completely edible.  The Werther's hard candy had morphed into a soft caramel, but otherwise was yummy. I didn't bother with the Lifesaver or the powdered drink mix, but I don't doubt both were fine.  That left the 5 Minute Check Spaghetti entree.  The decidedly not-airtight box listed the best buy (impt: best "buy", not best "by") date of 15 MAY 2016. 



The inside of the box has a reflective inner layer that serves as the "oven".  The contents consist of the food product in a sealed black plastic tray (think: 2/3rd size Lean Cuisine-type microwave meal), a white styrofoam tray, a completely unsealed (ie: exposed to ambient air) heating element, a small pouch of salt water, and instructions (ETA: and a package of disposable utensils and a paper napkin).  The instructions direct you to place the heating element in the styrofoam tray, add the salt water, place the entree face down on top of the heating element, and then slide the tray back into the box and let heat for 5 - 10 minutes. 

Now, a few weeks back I and a couple of other UFoZS forum members (here's looking at you @MacWa77ace and @EBuff75) bought some circa 2016 Sopacko Low Sodium MREs at a bargain basement price.  They weren't official military MREs but they contained several authentic milspec components, including the flameless ration heaters.  Even though those FRHs were sealed in airtight plastic bags, they proved to be completely expired, producing no heat at all.

Well, guess what?  This crappy, equally-expired civilian Chef 5 Minute Meal kit, with its completely unprotected heating element, fired up like a champ.  I mean this thing rocked - after 10 minutes in that reflective cardboard box, that spaghetti entree was piping hot.  Whatever voodoo magic juju Chef Meals uses in their flameless heating elements, they should be supplying those to the military, because it's clearly the superior product. 

Even more surprising, the spaghetti entree itself was completely enjoyable.  Even the gray little meatballs in the meat sauce, while not particularly appetizing in appearance, tasted fine and definitely added some much-needed "substance" to the entree, if you get my drift.

So that leaves the pumpkin spice hot chocolate mix.  I was really in the spirit of my mock disaster meal exercise at that point, so I acted as if I were contemplating the end of the world as I know it: I splurged by making it with hot coffee instead of boiling water.  And I will neither confirm nor deny that I might of splashed a wee dram or two (or three) of Evan Williams Bottled In Bond 100 proof bourbon whiskey into the mix. 

That was the best damn hot chocolate I've ever tasted! 

[MacWa77ace]

I wonder if you're losing the apparent vacuum due to some off gassing of meal components vs a failed vacuum seal?

I think your craisins may have exhaled and pillowed the bag. If that's the case reviewing 'what' goes into these is important. Freeze dried fruit vs dried. I'm not sure the max life of peanut butter but nuts with oils, the oils go rancid.

What is that spaghetti meal that comes with its own heater? All those candies and sugar reminds me of lifeboat survival.

[majorhavoc]

I wonder if you're losing the apparent vacuum due to some off gassing of meal components vs a failed vacuum seal?

I think your craisins may have exhaled and pillowed the bag. If that's the case reviewing 'what' goes into these is important. Freeze dried fruit vs dried. I'm not sure the max life of peanut butter but nuts with oils, the oils go rancid.

What is that spaghetti meal that comes with its own heater? All those candies and sugar reminds me of lifeboat survival.

"Dried" fruit was a huge no-no, for sure.  Agree now that freeze dried is the way to go.  Remember this was 2016. I always say that prepping is a journey and let's just just say I had a lot to learn back then.  I still do.

I really feel like the failed vacuum seal was user error. I still occassionally do it.  Most of the time it works great and the vacuum effect practically crushes whatever I'm sealing.  But occasionally and for reasons I can't explain, it just doesn't take.  Maybe there's a small section of the heating strip on my Food Saver that intermittently doesn't heat up. 

I think it's important to highlight our prepping failures.  Like I said, an emergency situation won't wait for you to get around to correcting deficiencies in your preps.  When disaster strikes, you're stuck with what you have, expired foods and poor storage methods be damned.  I wanted to show what it would be like having to make do with what you have on hand. 

And man: those Ritz crackers!  They seemed like such a good idea at the time but ... blech!!! 

And yes, the Chef 5 Minute meals came with its own heater and it was amazing, even after over 8 years.  The company doesn't seem to exist anymore, at least not on Amazon, which is where I remember getting them.  This is the closest equivalent I could find now.  I didn't pay anywhere near that price. 

ETA: Re-read your last question.  The candies are something that I added, along with the Nutrigrain bar, Ritz crackers, etc.  This was a DIY meal kit.  The Chef 5 Minute meal only came with the spaghetti entree.  No other food items were included with Chef 5 Minute meal kit.

[EBuff75]

Day 6 - Fly2Sky camping light review; rewatch 'The Book of Eli'

I picked up these lights last month to have some super-cheap lights that I can loan out at various events where CERT is working, or just to have something for a kid or a friend who just needs a simple light to use.  I got them for around $4 each, so it's not something that I'd be too concerned if it got broken or lost.  Here's the full review:  https://ufozs.com/smf/index.php?topic=2524

And tonight I re-watched 'The Book of Eli' which I hadn't seen in years.  It's still an interesting view of an apocalyptic future, although I really wonder how it is that any of the people in it survived without any plants or crops of any kind... (sort of the same way that I wondered how people had air to breathe in 'Reign of Fire' after the dragons in it burned everything wood/living on the entire planet...)  And for such a minimal score, it's impressive to me how impactful just a handful of chords can be (as soon as the movie started, I immediately flashed back on that music from the last time I'd seen it).

I used my treadmill for about 30mins of the time I was watching the movie.  I would walk for 10mins and then sit down for a bit.  I'm not a huge fan of treadmills, but it's better than just sitting down the entire time.  This is one of those low speed (up to 4mph) walking treadmills that are meant to be used with a standing desk.  I don't have room to use it at my desk, but it works just fine in front of the TV and can easily be propped up, out of the way when I'm done.  The only thing I wish was that it had a longer cord.  It looks like they don't make my model anymore, but it's very similar to this, if anyone is interested:  https://a.co/d/df3uTVg  The thing I like is that the walking area is long enough that I don't have to take tiny little steps to avoid going off of one of the ends.

[Rednex]

5th day worked on truck, changed batteries in smoke /carbon monoxide detectors.
6th day worked on truck, tested the "road side" repair state of the truck. Flat tire things like that. It got an F so i used an angle grinder to bring it up to a C.

[EBuff75]

Day 7 - New fitness tracker / smartwatch - Garmin Venu 3

Bit the bullet and spent a lot of money to hopefully get a watch that will last me for quite a few years.  The biggest selling point for me on this was the battery life, which can be up to 13 days!  I could've gotten a watch with even more (up to a month), but the screen on that one didn't have color or touch-sensitivity. 

Still working through all of the setup on it, but so far so good.  I wore my old Casio Pathfinder when I went to the store so that I could compare sizes.  I figured that if I could get used to the enormous Casio, that anything that size or smaller would be fine.  The body of the Garmin is just a touch smaller than that of th eCasio and doesn't have all the protrusions that the Casio has either. 

Hopefully this will now do a better job at tracking my activity levels than my old "Virmee" did.  One of the other big reasons that I went with this watch over the others that I had been looking at is that this one is supposed to be able to track stair usage.  I live in a 1500sqft, 2-story house, and I'm going up and down stairs all day long.  2nd floor is bedroom, office, and half bath.  1st floor is kitchen, full bath, living room, and treadmill.  Basement is laundry, pantry, workshop, and exercise bike.  I'm definitely curious to see how many stairs I do each day, because it's probably a LOT!

No exercise data yet, given that it's only mid-afternoon.  I need to do some yardwork though, so we'll see how what the new tracker registers after I get done with that. 

[Rednex]

Day 7 i didn't really do anything. Bleed the rear brakes on the truck, text people to help tomorrow to put bed on truck. Grocery shopping for bare necessities ( yes i sang the song from jungle book while i typed that). Had a friend come to visit.

[NT2C]

Day 7 - New fitness tracker / smartwatch - Garmin Venu 3

Bit the bullet and spent a lot of money to hopefully get a watch that will last me for quite a few years.  The biggest selling point for me on this was the battery life, which can be up to 13 days!  I could've gotten a watch with even more (up to a month), but the screen on that one didn't have color or touch-sensitivity. 

Still working through all of the setup on it, but so far so good.  I wore my old Casio Pathfinder when I went to the store so that I could compare sizes.  I figured that if I could get used to the enormous Casio, that anything that size or smaller would be fine.  The body of the Garmin is just a touch smaller than that of th eCasio and doesn't have all the protrusions that the Casio has either. 

Hopefully this will now do a better job at tracking my activity levels than my old "Virmee" did.  One of the other big reasons that I went with this watch over the others that I had been looking at is that this one is supposed to be able to track stair usage.  I live in a 1500sqft, 2-story house, and I'm going up and down stairs all day long.  2nd floor is bedroom, office, and half bath.  1st floor is kitchen, full bath, living room, and treadmill.  Basement is laundry, pantry, workshop, and exercise bike.  I'm definitely curious to see how many stairs I do each day, because it's probably a LOT!

No exercise data yet, given that it's only mid-afternoon.  I need to do some yardwork though, so we'll see how what the new tracker registers after I get done with that. 

Dang, wish I'd read this thread sooner.  That Garmin Venu 3 is essentially a Huawei GT3 and the GT4 blows the GT3 out of the water... and the GT5 is about to drop soon.  Oh, and the GT3 runs about $150 less than the Garmin.  Even the GT4 runs about $100 less.  The GT5 will be high when it drops but once it gets into circulation the price will come down.

We can chat more about them over in the watch thread.

[majorhavoc]

Day 8 (yeah, I've missed a few).  Attention to my food preps continues.  Last week I actually got a popup reminder on my work calendar for an activity I set up last year: "Rotate Food in Emergency Bags".  The Surviveware 72 hour kit was easy - the Datrex rations are good for another 4 years minumum.  But I swapped out the energy bars for fresh ones.  The food supplies in my GHB are a bit more varied:



See that package in the upper left, next to the Jif To Go PB cups?  That sure doesn't look good.



Not sure what happened here.  My vacuum sealing looked good for a change, and there weren't any boxed raisins, chewing gum or candies in there to introduce/attract moisture.  I've never had either oatmeal or hot chocolate go bad like that before.

Both the oatmeal and the hot chocolate packets smelled awful, but my money's on the oatmeal as the culprit.  So those went straight into the trash.  I'm curious about the hot chocolate mix, so after replacing them with fresh stock, I'm hanging on to them and will give them a closer inspection (i.e. taste test) when the mood strikes me. (just as soon as I replenish my stock of bourbon whiskey.)

I swapped out the fruit & granola bars, tuna and chicken retort pouches, and the Welch's Fruit Snacks with fresh stock even though they looked fine.  I'll eat those retired foods in the coming weeks/months.  I'm confident everything else is good for at least another year.   

I'm realizing that while the primary benefit of rotating food stocks is to ensure they're always well within their usable shelf life, it also forces you to inspect your food supplies closely, and spot any unexpected spoilage.  And hopefully identify what went wrong so you don't make a similar mistake in the future.

[MacWa77ace]

@majorhavoc that one pack has walnuts and raisons. Both suspects in the other kit. At least IMO.

How old is that kit?

We write dates and info such as weight and contents on our bags

[majorhavoc]

Thanks Mac.  If you look at the first picture, I do write the dates on the vacuum sealed bags.  It all begins as newly purchased stock, so I didn't pay attention to individual "best by" and "best buy" dates.  Since I was rotating those food supplies on an annual basis, I honestly didn't think it mattered.  Obviously, it did - for the oatmeal packets at any rate.  The replacement oatmeal I put into the GHB today (apples & cinnamon, exclusively) were all vacuum sealed together.  So if they go bad before Sept 2025 (next rotation date), at least they won't contaminate anything else. 

Does make you wonder, though: say the S were to HTF in August of next year, and I need my GHB supplies for real.  Spoilt oatmeal wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be a major bummer.

What's weird is I've been storing instant oatmeal of various varieties for several years and never had a problem until now.  Then again, my GHB leads the hardest life of all my emergency bags - it lives in my car.  So over the course of the year it's exposed to temps from -15 deg F to I'm sure well over 110 deg F in the hot sun.

Regardless, this is good stuff.  The exercise of going through food supplies on a periodic basis, discovering where preps can fail, your insights about the walnuts and raisins.  This is why we share - so we can learn from others and help anyone reading this thread avoid the same mistakes. 

[EBuff75]

Day 8 - Collecting and (trying to) process acorns

This is something that I wanted to try and it's a partial success.  I have a couple of huge pin oak trees in my front yard and several smaller (but still large) ones in the back yard.  They drop a ton of acorns this time of year, but I've never tried to do anything with them besides rake them up and dispose of them.

Yesterday evening, I collected about 2/3 of a gallon bucket of acorns from my yard.  They're actively falling from the trees right now, but I did avoid getting hit by any of them!  I tried to just pick out ones that didn't have any damage, caps, or obvious holes in them.  I brought them inside and float-tested them, which resulted in removing about 15-20% of what I'd collected.  I dried them off in a towel, then put them back into the bucket and put a fan on them.

This is about half of what I collected:
You cannot view this attachment.

This morning, I used a plastic cutting board and a tenderizing mallet (spiky side, to keep them from skittering off after the hit) and cracked about half of the bucket.  Quite a few of them still ended up being bad and were discarded, but I ended up with about two handfuls of them to test out.  Shelling and cleaning them was a loooong process!  If the acorn was good, I would pry the cracked shell apart and then try to pull out the meat inside in as large of pieces as possible.  I also removed as much of the "skin" on them as I could.  The best way to do this was to rub my thumb on it to try to get it to roll off.  The best comparison is that innermost skin on a garlic clove.

With that done, I boiled them four times to try and get out as much of the tannin as possible to reduce the bitterness.  By the fourth time, the water was much clearer.  In hindsight, I probably should've done one or more cycles, since there was still a bit of bitterness left. 

Boiling the nut meat:
You cannot view this attachment.

When I was boiling, I also added some salt to the water, since I planned to dry roast them.  Once I'd drain them the last time, I spread the acorn meat onto a baking tray that I'd covered with baking paper and then sprinkled them with salt again.  The instructions I'd found online said 350F for 15 mins, then add 5 mins several times as needed. 

They were... edible...  I ended up roasting them for about 25mins total and they ended up brittle and crumbly at that point.  There is still some bitterness left in them, which would possibly have been reduced by a few additional cycles of boiling.  Also not sure if I might've over-baked them when doing the dry roasting.  Maybe just 20mins would've worked better.  And the salt didn't adhere well, so they didn't have much flavor.  

Bag of dry roasted acorns:
You cannot view this attachment.

After several hours of effort, I ended up with less than 2oz of nuts which, while edible, aren't that good.  I ate a few and a friend of mine tried some as well, but neither of us were impressed.  Interesting, they smell a bit like spaghetti noodles with a hint of maple syrup!  Several articles mentioned the maple syrup smell / taste, but none of them had mentioned the cooked pasta smell. 

I have a book coming this week which is all about harvesting, processing, and cooking with acorns, including a number of different recipes.  I know that the preferred process takes a lot long (it involves drying them in the shell, then processing them at a later date), but I wanted to go through all of it to try it out.  I still have the other half of the bucket and the second time around should go a lot faster now that I have a bit better feel for how to get them out of the shell.  I'll see what advice there is in the book to see if I can improve things on the next try. 

No specific fitness item for the day.  My new watch recorded a little over 4000 steps, most of which were probably from me working on the acorns this morning!  I spent the evening hanging out with friends and now it's a bit late to be trying to fit in a workout.  I listened to a Bruce Hornsby album and then to a Beach Boys greatest hits album while I was working on the acorns.

[MacWa77ace]

Thanks Mac.  If you look at the first picture, I do write the dates on the vacuum sealed bags.  It all begins as newly purchased stock, so I didn't pay attention to individual "best by" and "best buy" dates.  Since I was rotating those food supplies on an annual basis, I honestly didn't think it mattered.  Obviously, it did - for the oatmeal packets at any rate.  The replacement oatmeal I put into the GHB today (apples & cinnamon, exclusively) were all vacuum sealed together.  So if they go bad before Sept 2025 (next rotation date), at least they won't contaminate anything else. 

Does make you wonder, though: say the S were to HTF in August of next year, and I need my GHB supplies for real.  Spoilt oatmeal wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be a major bummer.

What's weird is I've been storing instant oatmeal of various varieties for several years and never had a problem until now.  Then again, my GHB leads the hardest life of all my emergency bags - it lives in my car.  So over the course of the year it's exposed to temps from -15 deg F to I'm sure well over 110 deg F in the hot sun.

Regardless, this is good stuff.  The exercise of going through food supplies on a periodic basis, discovering where preps can fail, your insights about the walnuts and raisins.  This is why we share - so we can learn from others and help anyone reading this thread avoid the same mistakes. 

I agree, the military spends millions on testing stuff like this. We share info and experiences for free here using trial and error.
 
It would be interesting to track how long each flavor lasts to see which is the best for long term. What's the longest past expiration you've ever gotten out of those?

We've been storing bulk bought plain oatmeal [costco has 10lbs for $12 that we have been caching since it was $8] that we then transfer into vacuum sealed bags and put those in sealable buckets. This is cheaper than buying those Auguson Farms bucket of oatmeal even doing our own vacuum sealing and bucketing. We put them in small bags so we don't have to open and unseal 20lbs at a time. Had to buy specific rectangular buckets at a specific width and then the size bags that fit in them. Same for rice storage. Other dry foods we store in smaller bags in the same buckets.



An Oatmeal breakfast is preference of mine going back to my bodybuilding days where I didn't eat any processed food, and definitely nothing with simple sugars added. Oatmeal is a slow release complex carbohydrate food that is filling and gives lots of energy.

I haven't considered making custom individual B/O meals like that but would probably do the same thing in regard to separating the ingredients to be combined later. Some of those instant oatmeal packs have nuts or oils, and other additives like 'creamers' that could keep them from lasting a long time. They also add lots of Salt and Sugar for flavor.

5 days a week for breakfast I eat oatmeal with milk and bananas. [no salt no sugar added] So guess what my first 90 day food cache was. Oatmeal, powdered milk, and cans of freeze dried banana slices. LOL, aint no Pakalips going to interrupt my preferred breakfast meal. But that's all stored separately in buckets and cans. [I might be up to 6 months for 2 people now]

I haven't figured out how to store emergency food in my car yet. I'm sure the trunk gets to over 130 [ ] degrees in the sun in the summer in my AO. When I get to it, my next attempt is going to be a insulated cooler to help level out the temp swings in summer. I'm sure it goes from 130 to 80 in there in a 24 hr period. But I'm going to put a temp tracking thermometer inside the cooler and see what the max lows and highs are inside a cooler before I add contents. Right now I have to just carry the food on my EDC which doesn't work so well. Also for an IFAK. I keep a TCC IFAK under my seat but I don't think it gets that hot down there compared to inside my trunk. [i've stored a mag of 223 in my trunk for over 10 years now as a 'test'.]

[EBuff75]

Day 9 - Updated GMRS radio programming and conducted repeater check

I had previous posted about how our CERT group is losing access to the old police radios that we've been using.  As a result, we're switching over to GMRS, at least in the short term (we might get another set of police radios next year, but that's not a done deal yet). 

Last month I bought a TIDRadio TD-H8 and programmed it according to the radio plan that our group had published.  Right after that, I also conducted a radio test with the guy who is leading this effort and all was good, both with the repeater and in simplex (he's only about 1.25mi away).  However, I'd noticed a few issues with our radio plan which I reported to him (we're close to Canada, so we have to deal with the Line A / Line C agreement rules, which hadn't been taken into consideration.  As a result, he sent out a revised version of our radio plan, with changes to several of the channels in it.

Well, I finally got around to reprogramming my radio today and then tonight I got a message from our radio guy asking if I was available to do some testing (he had no idea that I'd just reprogrammed my radio, it was just a nice coincidence).  He'd gotten some new radios for him and his wife and wanted to try them out.  So I got my radio off the charging cradle and we talked for a few minutes.  Because we're reasonably close together, with the repeater, it's nice and clear.  

He also said that he's been in touch with someone in the area who is running a big 50w, 95ft repeater tower to see if we can get access to that as well.  It would be a nice backup to our smaller (10w) portable unit, particularly if we have any type of event where we're more spread out.  Of course, a big tower like that probably won't be active if the power is out (unless the owner has it on a generator), so our portable 12v repeater is still important.

So an unexpected prep-related thing for the day.  That's cool - it keeps me from having to come up with something else to do! 

And I think I'll go down and use the exercise bike tonight.  I'm re-reading the Dresden Files books and I can bike and read at the same time! 

[EBuff75]

Day 10 - Update prescription list, with copy for wallet and full-size copy with Rx labels

Thanks to @majorhavoc for this idea.  I tweaked my medications list to include a column with the Rx number and then made a small copy to go into my wallet next to my medical cards.  Then I printed a full-sized copy and stuck those extra CVS prescription labels on it.  That copy went into the binder of emergency information that I'm building up (not just personal info, but also things like phone numbers, maps, radio stations, response plans, etc.).

For some reason, my new Garmin watch decided that I was bicycling this evening when I was mowing the lawn!  That's a reeeaally slow bicycle!  Despite that, it registered 76 "intensity minutes" while I was working in the yard and measured it as 2800 steps.  It's always hard to get accurate counts for steps when you're pushing a mower (or a grocery cart), because there isn't any arm swing to measure.  I'd guess that most of those steps tonight were from collecting branches and running the leaf blower.

Last night I did get in about 20mins on the exercise bike and listened to some Vivaldi and Stravinsky while alternating between biking and reading.  The music selection for yard work this evening was Guns & Roses!

[EBuff75]

Day 11 - CERT meeting (radios, upcoming nuclear / radiological training, upcoming events)

We had our monthly CERT meeting this evening and the main topic of discussion was our new radio plan.  The guy leading things for the radios brought along his computer and programmed radios for several people in the group and provided an overview of why we're changing and what people need to do.  We discussed running our repeater off of the trailer batteries (the trailer has 200w of solar to keep the batteries charged) or one of my power banks in a pinch.  It only draws 36w so no problems there.

One thing I didn't know is that he's been in touch with people running some local repeaters and has gotten us permission to use those as well.  Also, due to recent FCC rulings on linking repeaters, several of them are also adding private repeaters for use by emergency response groups likes ours.  Once those are set up, we'll be given the information for them as well.

We also have some training coming up next week for nuclear / radiological event response.  This is being done by an outside group who will be in the area to do training for some first responders.  We were able to get a CERT-oriented session for several local groups and our last count was nearly 50 people who were planning to attend.

On top of that, we have our local Oktoberfest event coming up next week as well (yes, I know it's not October yet, the local one is always in September) and then next month we're helping out with the 'Movie In The Cemetery' event.  That one is a big deal for us, because not only do we handle parking, security, and first aid for it, we also provide lighting, mark all the gravestones near the road (so they won't be driven over), put up signs for the event (entrance, parking, vendor access, etc.), and usually we do some cleanup at the cemetery beforehand!  For an event that's only about 5 hours long, we put in a lot of work!

Given that our meeting went for over 2 hrs tonight, that's all I really got around to doing today.  Even my watch just gave me a message about it having been a stressful day for me!  Only 2818 steps recorded, which is higher than what I used to get with my old watch on a non-exercise day and right about in-line with it reading only about 2/3 of what my actual steps probably were.  Looks like the Garmin is doing a much better job of tracking my movements!