Started about 6 quarts of spaghetti sauce in the slow cooker to can tomorrow.  Weeded the garden and spent some time with my neighbor and her boyfriend.  We chatted some bout prepping, she was an on the fence prepper before COVID, defiantly one now. 

"Defiantly" or "Definitely"?  Either works. 

lol, spelling correctly is always optional with me!    

Day 3 - Work light reviews

As I alluded to yesterday, I had a review coming.  Well, it wasn't just one review, it was four! (click the link above to read them all)

I'm a bit of a light snob and all of the lights that I just reviewed are ones that I would recommend (with some caveats, as noted in the reviews).  Work lights aren't specifically preparedness related, but since 3 of the 4 are battery powered, they're certainly useful in situations where you don't have power.  And overall, lights are good to have.  The prices run anywhere from about $17 for a single Warsun or Innofox light up to a list price of $200 for the Lutec (I got it on sale).  I keep a Warsun or Innofox in both of my vehicles, since they make an excellent side-of-the-road light for tire changes, repairs, or other emergent situations. 

Well yesterday day 3 I went through all my flashlights and changed the rechargeable batteries/charged them. Also smoke detectors got fresh rechargeable batteries.

Picked up a 8 oz. piece of cheese and some (solid) coconut oil from Wally World Added it to paraffin to see if it will make the wax softer for cheese waxing.  Cut the cheese into 4 equal parts, one for waxing, one to go into straight vinegar, one to go int straight olive oil, one for reference.  I'll post results in "Adventures and Misadventures in Food Storage."

Day 4 - Basement clothing bag

A little over a week ago, we had a string of powerful storms blow through my area, including six (last I'd heard) confirmed tornadoes.  I headed down into the basement of my house when the weather radio started issuing warnings, stopping to grab a book that I was reading, my phone, and some shoes.

Once down in the basement, I prepped a USB light where I could quickly plug it into a one of my power stations if the electricity went out (it had flickered several times by now).  My basement is 2/3 finished, so I was "roughing it" on a comfortable couch, in a carpeted room with good lighting, including a wall sconce just above me to provide just the right angle of light for reading.  I already have a weather radio down there, which I plugged in and set to the proper station for ongoing updates.  Then a friend from our CERT called to chat about the storm, so I didn't get back to the book before the storms had passed.

Anyway, it reminded me that it would be a good idea to pre-stage some clothing down there, in the event that I had to take shelter quickly (violent weather, active shooter, etc.) and didn't have time (or the presence of mind) to grab things as I went.  The basement is my main storage for preps, camping gear, and workshop tools, so I was already set for food, water, toiletries, and even bedding (the couch I was using is actually a nice futon and I've got all the sheets and blankets for it in a storage bin underneath).  The biggest thing to make sure that I have is some shoes, but I figured the whole shebang wouldn't hurt.

Here's what I packed, using a cheap "string backpack" that I'd gotten as a freebie a few years ago:  shoes, jeans, socks, underwear, shirt, 1/4 zip sweater, and a handkerchief.  All of it fits, but isn't in my top-tier of daily wear.  Yes, it all fits in that bag, but just barely!

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Quote from: EBuff75 on September 04, 2023, 01:03:33 PMDay 4 - Basement clothing bag

A little over a week ago, we had a string of powerful storms blow through my area, including six (last I'd heard) confirmed tornadoes.  I headed down into the basement of my house when the weather radio started issuing warnings, stopping to grab a book that I was reading, my phone, and some shoes.

Once down in the basement, I prepped a USB light where I could quickly plug it into a one of my power stations if the electricity went out (it had flickered several times by now).  My basement is 2/3 finished, so I was "roughing it" on a comfortable couch, in a carpeted room with good lighting, including a wall sconce just above me to provide just the right angle of light for reading.  I already have a weather radio down there, which I plugged in and set to the proper station for ongoing updates.  Then a friend from our CERT called to chat about the storm, so I didn't get back to the book before the storms had passed.

Anyway, it reminded me that it would be a good idea to pre-stage some clothing down there, in the event that I had to take shelter quickly (violent weather, active shooter, etc.) and didn't have time (or the presence of mind) to grab things as I went.  The basement is my main storage for preps, camping gear, and workshop tools, so I was already set for food, water, toiletries, and even bedding (the couch I was using is actually a nice futon and I've got all the sheets and blankets for it in a storage bin underneath).  The biggest thing to make sure that I have is some shoes, but I figured the whole shebang wouldn't hurt.

Here's what I packed, using a cheap "string backpack" that I'd gotten as a freebie a few years ago:  shoes, jeans, socks, underwear, shirt, 1/4 zip sweater, and a handkerchief.  All of it fits, but isn't in my top-tier of daily wear.  Yes, it all fits in that bag, but just barely!

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Lose the shoes. Have a pair of sturdy work boots . In the event of a catastrophic nature event you will need them.  The day after the Northridge earthquake , I was back at work servicing Grocery, Liquor and Drug stores . That had been severely  damaged by the quake. The amount of sharp, pointy things covering the ground inside the stores and outside was  insane. Tornados, derechos and floods would cause the same hazards

Quote from: flybynight on September 04, 2023, 06:10:13 PM

Quote from: EBuff75 on September 04, 2023, 01:03:33 PMDay 4 - Basement clothing bag

A little over a week ago, we had a string of powerful storms blow through my area, including six (last I'd heard) confirmed tornadoes.  I headed down into the basement of my house when the weather radio started issuing warnings, stopping to grab a book that I was reading, my phone, and some shoes.

Once down in the basement, I prepped a USB light where I could quickly plug it into a one of my power stations if the electricity went out (it had flickered several times by now).  My basement is 2/3 finished, so I was "roughing it" on a comfortable couch, in a carpeted room with good lighting, including a wall sconce just above me to provide just the right angle of light for reading.  I already have a weather radio down there, which I plugged in and set to the proper station for ongoing updates.  Then a friend from our CERT called to chat about the storm, so I didn't get back to the book before the storms had passed.

Anyway, it reminded me that it would be a good idea to pre-stage some clothing down there, in the event that I had to take shelter quickly (violent weather, active shooter, etc.) and didn't have time (or the presence of mind) to grab things as I went.  The basement is my main storage for preps, camping gear, and workshop tools, so I was already set for food, water, toiletries, and even bedding (the couch I was using is actually a nice futon and I've got all the sheets and blankets for it in a storage bin underneath).  The biggest thing to make sure that I have is some shoes, but I figured the whole shebang wouldn't hurt.

Here's what I packed, using a cheap "string backpack" that I'd gotten as a freebie a few years ago:  shoes, jeans, socks, underwear, shirt, 1/4 zip sweater, and a handkerchief.  All of it fits, but isn't in my top-tier of daily wear.  Yes, it all fits in that bag, but just barely!

You cannot view this attachment.

Lose the shoes. Have a pair of sturdy work boots . In the event of a catastrophic nature event you will need them.  The day after the Northridge earthquake , I was back at work servicing Grocery, Liquor and Drug stores . That had been severely  damaged by the quake. The amount of sharp, pointy things covering the ground inside the stores and outside was  insane. Tornados, derechos and floods would cause the same hazards

I thought about it, but I didn't have any old boots to include.  This is an edge case anyway, so I didn't want to spend any money buying new things.  Thus, everything was just old stuff that I pulled out to set aside in this bag.  My thought was: any kind of shoes are better than bare feet! 

Day 4:
Not much prepping-related today.  I replaced the batteries in my smoke detectors and got my 10,000 steps in.

Day  4 I didn't do anything, hell i didn't even get dressed. Is R&R prep related?


Day 5 I got my hunting license for the season.

Quote from: Rednex on September 05, 2023, 06:12:14 PMDay  4 I didn't do anything, hell i didn't even get dressed. Is R&R prep related?

Yes!  In fact, if you read the list that I put up with ideas in it, one of them was to take a personal day!  Everyone needs a break now and then, regardless of societal pressures to always be doing things / being productive.  Screw that!  Take the day off and feel good about it! 

Day 5:

Took NT2C's seasonal tire pressure check thread to heart and checked the air pressure in my car and motorcycle.  The car's donut spare was low, as was my rear motorcycle tire.  

14,384 steps

Day 5 - Maintenance, repairs, and updates on the Suburban

You know, a smart person would have waited for the cooler weather that is arriving, um, now.  Instead, I worked on the truck this afternoon and again this evening, when it was in the 90s with high humidity...  But, "nobody tells me how stupid I can be!" (and if you know where that quote comes from, I'm impressed!)

The new air filter arrived today and I removed the old one.  I also spent some time cleaning and polishing the backup camera.  The image had been fairly hazy and while it's not perfect, it is quite a bit better now.  There was a broken plastic tab on the hatch trim which left a piece loose so that it caught on the side every time it was opened.  Fortunately, the trim tool set that I bought a few years ago came with a variety of replacement bits and one of them was a perfect fit.  A bit of trimming to the frayed edge of the trim and it opens fine.  I also cleaned up the tape reside left over from the loose piece being taped down and also removed the goo on the windshield from some old stickers. 

One of the things I really dislike on the truck is that it came with very dark tint.  It's so dark that it's very near to being limo tint.  Which means that even in broad daylight and without my sunglasses on, I can barely see out the back window.  At night, any vehicles behind me are reduced to dim blobs where their headlights are.  At some point I'll have the tint removed (I may do most of it, but the back window has the heater elements and the passenger rear window has the radio antennas in it, so I'll leave those to the professionals), but that's off in the future.

So for now, I swapped in some LED reverse light bulbs and bought a package of LED interior lights.  Those are all installed, with the exception of the bulbs for the puddle lamps under the mirrors.  It was dark and starting to rain and those are the hardest covers of all of them to get open.

LED interior lights.  MUCH brighter than it used to be!
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LED reverse lights and license lights
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I also have new HID headlight bulbs for my car, but didn't have time to do those tonight.  The ones in there right now still work, but they're original and have likely lost over half of their output (the car is 18 years old and has almost 150,000 miles on it). 

Oh, and the Partphoner work light was awesome for doing this work!  I set it up behind the truck to see how to do the taillights, license lights, and the cargo area light.  Then I moved it up to the doors while I replaced the 1st and 2nd row lights.  I didn't use it for the air filter because it had started raining by that point and the light isn't waterproof.  So I did the old standby: hold a pocket flashlight in your mouth while you work! 

EDIT TO ADD:  Forgot to finish explaining about the tint.  It's so dark, that I _have_ to use the backup camera at night, as I can't see anything out the window.  Thus, cleaning the camera lens and installing brighter backup lights.  

The Interior LEDs are for a similar reason.  With black leather seats and carpet, plus the dim incandescent lights that came with the truck, trying to see anything inside of it at night was sort of like looking for a black rock, at the bottom of a well, in a cave, at midnight, when it's cloudy, during the new moon, with a black bag over you head, while wearing a blindfold, and you're blind.  *checks list off on fingers*  Yep, that's about right.

Pressure canned 8 pints of corn and pickled 3 quarts of hot banana peppers.  

Note: an easy way to clear your sinuses is to forget to wash your hands after pickling hot banana peppers - I seem to relearn this lesson every time...  

Quote from: Z.O.R.G. on September 05, 2023, 08:56:37 PMPressure canned 8 pints of corn and pickled 3 quarts of hot banana peppers. 

Note: an easy way to clear your sinuses is to forget to wash your hands after pickling hot banana peppers - I seem to relearn this lesson every time... 

I have one of those sort of lessons that I keep forgetting and then relearning each time:  After you've added the seasoning to the fajitas you're cooking, don't breathe in the steam! 

Day 6 added used boot's to my truck( I just got new one) and checked trucks GHB,

Day 6: 
Added $200 to my hidden cache of, er emergency cash.  That gives me about $800, including the $200 hidden in my car.

15,897 steps.

Day 6 - Rotated food / water in vehicles

I made a grocery run tonight and picked up some stuff for the vehicles.  Each of them now have at least a dozen bottles of water (the truck has 24, since there's more room), a half-dozen Millennium bars, a 1lb bag of trail mix, some Wint-O-Green mints, a tuna snack pack, and some Nature Valley protein bars. 

The food isn't really meant for anything more than, "crap, I'm hungry, but I don't have time to stop somewhere and get food," and isn't really intended to be for survival.  I'll probably prep my winter kit sometime this month and that'll have more in it, since a potential scenario for those is to survive for several days if I were to get stranded in a storm, but that's a post for another day.  

I'll check to see if any of the old food & water can be consumed, or if it's been frozen / baked into oblivion from living in my car / truck for the past year.  That's a rough environment to survive!

Day 7: 

Went through my motorcycle GHB, a trimmed down version of my car GHB, all in a largish fanny pack.  Maybe a bit too slimmed down.  I had only one light source in there, so I subbed out the headlamp for a smaller, CR2032 powered model and freed up some room for a single AAA flashlight.  And shelter supplies solely consisted of a lightweight nylon tarp, some paracord and a contractor (i.e. heavy duty trash) bag.  I have a spare emergency bivy sack (glorified mylar space blanket that's folded over and sealed on the sides and bottom) that I think might fit in there.  Plus, the food supplies need rotating, so more food shopping again this weekend.

16,648 steps.