Nobody Ever Expects The Zombie Invasion!

I should apologize in advance for my posting history last week.  It was a crazy week with me taking a major training course at work and it just ended up thrashing my days.  I honestly didn’t really feel like I had it in me to write.

I shouldn’t blame work exclusively though.  Recent events in the world such as the continued dollar weakness, economic faux recovery, debt financed government health care, etc have all led me to feel an intense urge to step up our preparation efforts a notch or two.  Am I the only one who feels that way?

It’s been a while since I’ve felt this pessimistic about things and the long term prognosis for society as we know it today.  I’m not predicting a societal collapse followed by the inevitable zombie horde invasion, mind you, but I do feel like many of the things I hold near and dear about this country are falling by the wayside.

I try not to go into politics too much here because I recognize that while many of us feel strongly about our political beliefs, those beliefs aren’t necessarily the same and going into them too much will lead to topic drift.  This is a preparedness and survival site, and one that is family oriented, so I try to keep it focused!

But the doom and gloom doesn’t just come from the world events, but also things closer to home.  While my job seems to be stable, people are dropping like flies around me.  I don’t have any sense of job security any more, and that’s saying something since I never really bought into the whole ‘job security as salaried employee’ myth.  It’s amazing how much stress that can add.

So I ramp up my preps.  And I work on financial independence.  And I prepare.  I take classes.  I learn.  My wife and I set goals and we work towards them.  Small improvements, every day.

What have you done recently?  If you’re not already doing concrete things to do what you can to prepare, why not?  What’s holding you back?

Don’t wait too long.  You might not have as much time as you think.

The broad answer is that there are two main things to consider when choosing a generator. What type of fuel does it use and how much power does it generate.

How much power does my generator need to provide?

I touched on this a bit in my emergency power post but I’ll go over it here briefly. The basic thing you need to do is figure out what you want to provide power for in an emergency, do the math on the overall wattage needed, add a buffer, and there’s your number.

Realistically, if you go get a a7-8kW generator you’re going to be just fine for almost all of your needs. But by all means do the math!

Rudy’s Tip: Generators have two power ratings … peak and sustained. You need to buy based on sustained load. Peak load is basically power that the generator can deliver for a short period of time as needed. Generally speaking this happens if you turn on a major appliance, etc. Be a careful shopper!

You can ballpark the burst load for most appliances by simply doubling the wattage of the appliance.

What about fuel?

There are three major types of fuel for generators: Gasoline, Diesel, and Propane.

Gasoline

Gasoline has some advantages. It’s easier to come by than diesel or propane. It’s cheaper than both in many places, though that’s not always the case. Gas powered generators are usually cheaper as well.

On the flip side, gas powered generators operate at a higher RPM speed, which decreases the usable life of the generator. Gasoline is rather volitile and is pretty darn flammable. And it has a pretty limited shelf life. Think six months to a year untreated, though you can get two years if you use an additive.

Diesel

Diesel has some advantages as well! It’s relatively common. For generator use you can get farm diesel which is usually much cheaper. Diesel engines run at a lower RPM speed and last a long time. Diesel is also far less flammable than gasoline and it stores for years, even longer when treated with an additive.

On the down side, diesel generators are more expensive, sometimes significantly so. They can be harder to find as well.

Propane

Propane is often easy to come by since lots of people use it for their grills. The major downside to propane is that it is highly flammable. On the flip side, it stores forever. Price wise, propane generators are about on par with diesel generators, but can be a bit harder to find.

Rudy, what would you do?

It’s a very personal choice and depends on your circumstances. Here are my personal thought processes on it:

I see no reason to NOT have a gasoline generator or two around. They’re inexpensive (you can get a high output generator for a few hundred dollars) and very versatile. Throw one in the back of the truck and you’ve got a great mobile power source.

I like both propane and diesel. For me, we have diesel available already and use it for heavy equipment as well as other vehicles. We don’t intend to use propane for heating our home when we build it. So as a result, diesel is the obvious choice for us.

If we had propane heat, I’d seriously consider buying a propane generator. It’s very viable, and I don’t have anything really bad to say about it!

If you want advice on your specific situation, please feel free to email me at rudy@preparingyourfamily.com and I’ll be happy to give you some one on one advice!

The previous owners left us a gift...

So if you’re following the story, you know that my family … well, extended family … has ended up with a slew of land. Honestly speaking it’s more land than we need. So what is the point of all of this, and why did we buy as much as we did?

The obvious reasons

Well, for one, it was available at the right price. It was hard to pass it up. As they say, land is the one thing they’re not making any more of. So considering that it was there, picking it up was pretty much a no brainer.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we didn’t buy it all at once. We bought it in more than one step and each purchase had a specific reason. It was fantastic how we got the opportunity to pick up contiguous land in more than one chunk like that.

The real reason

But the real reason why we bought as much as we did was to provide a future blessing to our families. This bears a bit more explanation I think.

While we all aren’t necessarily of the same mind preparedness wise, we all certainly have some commonly held beliefs and goals. One of those is to provide our children with a specific kind of life style that can’t come from a city or a suburban area.

We certainly can’t guarantee how our kids will grow up and what they’ll believe or want for their families but one of the key things we want to allow for is to be able to split off parcels of the land for our kids to have if they so desire. I can speak for all of my family when I say that we would love to have our kids and grand kids decide to follow in our footsteps.

Some people say this sounds like a compound or something, which I guess it technically could be. But more than anything, it is a family coming together and choosing to live near each other. Independent yet together.

Summing it all up

I personally can’t see a better situation for my kids than to be living close enough to walk to their grandparents and their cousins, aunts, and uncles. What could be better than that?

We looked in four or five different states, and looked at countless pieces of land.  This one was too small, this one was too close to town, this one had no timber, this one was on a hillside.  Until my little sister managed to find something that sounded interesting.

Enter the Mafia Loan

There was a gentleman who had moved into the area and bought a huge chunk of land that he intended to split with his brother.  This guy bought about 400 acres of land in a timber/pasture mix.  The land he purchased was an old homestead that had been lying vacant for years.

Well, unfortunately for him his brother backed out and decided not to move out there.  Leaving our poor land holder with a mafia style loan that he needed to get out from under.  That’s where we came in!

A hidden diamond

Turkey and Deer are all over ... apparantly so are bears!

We went out and took a look at it.  It looked pretty good, though there were a few question marks about it.  My dad and I walked the place with a local realtor who happened to also be on the county fish and wildlife board.  Turns out that this land is what he called ‘a hidden diamond’ and if we didn’t buy it, he might!

Long story short, we ended up buying a big chunk of the land, and some long time family friends bought another bit of it adjacent to ours.  The guy we bought it from offered a final 20 acre plot for sale a few months later.  We decided to buy that as well as it secured our access rights.

Now there was no part of land that still had easement rights through our land so we could completely control access as we saw fit.  All in all we’ve ended up with just short of 200 acres between all of us.

But what about the criteria?

Water:  The place has a seasonal stream, a pond, and well water is available, though deep.   We’ve had to dig a couple wells to 200ft in order to get a high flow rate.  In the years since we’ve purchased the place, we’ve since found an artesian well that supplies far more water than we all need, and are in the process of developing that and putting a water distribution system into place.

Mixed Timber and Meadow:  Most of the land is timber and sparse timber/meadow mix.  There is about 40 acres of pasture land that needs significant rehabilitation work.  There’s another 30 or so acres of dense timber which is marketable if we want.  Most of the rest was thinned out 15-20 years ago but remains good timber land.

Utilities:  We’ve brought power and telephone in at surprisingly low cost.  And we’re even on the edge of the range for DSL access so we can get high speed internet access.  Extra bonus points!

Seclusion:  We’re half an hour from the two closest towns and about an hour from the closest major city.  We’re off the beaten path and a few miles down a dirt road.  Generally speaking we’re pretty much completely out of the way.  Our land is surrounded by other large holdings, farms, and ranches, and there’s also state land and timber company land nearby.  Overall, we don’t expect development to come our way any time soon.

Sounds great!  How are you going to get out there?

Always the hard part, right?  At the moment we have a trailer out there that we spend vacation type time in during the summer months.  My folks have just finished their place and will be moving out there next year.

Next year my wife and Ihope to begin building a home with the intent of moving out there full time within the next couple of years.  I’ll certainly chronicle our adventures here.  One of the biggest things that we’re worried about is income.  As my career is technical in nature it tends to keep me in the urban areas I despise.  I’m working on that too, and if alternate income generation is of interest to folks, let me know and I can post about that a bit too!

The family disperses…

Fast forward several (ok, quite a few) years. My folks and my sisters now live geographically dispersed. The level of preparedness-mindedness (is that even a word?) varies widely, though myself and one of my sisters are relatively like minded, and one of my other sisters practices many preparedness skills without actually knowing about it.

Independent of one another, though we talked about it somewhat loosely, my sister, my parents, and I began looking for property for ourselves. Slowly but surely after talking a bit more with the entire family, we realized that what we REALLY wanted, preparedness mindset or not, was to have the entire family together on one large plot of land.

The search for the perfect land begins…

We all continued the search for the perfect land. The problem was that our vision of perfect differed somewhat significantly. Nonetheless, we continued to search. Our search was constrained generally to the North Western States.

We searched pretty hard, and really beat the pavement looking for the perfect land that met all of our common criteria.

What were the criteria used for the search?

Like I said, some of the criteria we used were wildly different. We all agreed upon the following though:

Water: Having some sort of water available was a necessity. It could be well based, but having some form of surface water was important.

Mixed Timber and Meadow: Ideally we wanted a mix of timber and meadow or pasture land. Some of us wanted to have livestock, others wanted the woodsy lifestyle. We wanted something that made both realistic.

Utilities Available: While being self sufficient is a great thing, having grid power and telephone was a necessity. If needed, we could pay to bring it in, but it had to be available

Seclusion: We didn’t want to be really close to town, but we wanted to be close enough to neighbors and not incredibly far out. 20-30 minutes drive to the nearest town seemed reasonable.

Off the Beaten Path: Like the last criteria, we didn’t want to be on a main road, or in a really visible location.

What was the result of the search?

Find out tomorrow! While you wait, tell me about what you would look for … or what you’ve already found!

You might manage if you live here...

I hate to burst your bubble but you can’t survive alone. Chances are you can’t even survive as a family. This assumes of course that a major event has occurred, something akin to the end of the world for all intents and purposes. If you’re alone, you won’t survive. Sorry!

No way! I can keep my family safe!

Sure you can. You’ll sit up in the upstairs window with your rifle, shooting at the zombie horde. Until it’s time to sleep. Or eat. Or forage. Or tend the garden. And what if the zombies can fire back?

The cold hard truth is that you can’t do it alone. Even if you have a big family your chances aren’t all that great.

You’ll do fine if you’re talking about a relatively low impact disaster. But if you’re dealing with anything at all that involves significant societal impact, you have to have more help than you currently have in your family.

So now what?

Band together. This can take a variety of forms. You can go join a commune with a bunch of like minded people. You can talk to your neighbors and get to know them. You can build a big house and double up. You can make plans to join up with another family if the balloon goes up.

Please plan ahead

You need to think about this. I know I’m thinking about it and have made plans around this. The benefits don’t only kick in if the world comes to an end. By making friends and banding together with like minded individuals you can leverage the skill-sets of everyone involved. You might be a great mechanic and your buddy is a doctor. The potential benefits there should be clear!

Food for thought

I hope this gives you something to think about. Don’t approach it in fear, don’t approach it with panic, but approach it realistically and make your plans.  This post is a kickoff post for a new series I’ll be doing that outlines my approach and will hopefully give you some good ideas!

Oh, and for the record, the likelihood of you being in your upstairs window plinking at zombie skulls is pretty minimal, but you never know…

We are blessed by those who come before

I have been blessed to have four wonderful grandparents, though three of them have now passed on. I feel particularly lucky as I have seen too many folks who did not have the kind of relationship with their grandparents that I was lucky enough to have with mine.

In particular I am incredibly lucky to have had two fantastic grandfathers who helped teach me what it is to be a man, to take care of my family, and to do what is right despite the cost. I would not be the man I am today without the examples of those who came before me.

Granddad

My Dad’s father was a career US Navy pilot who fought in World War II and Korea. He survived his plane going down in a crash that nobody should have walked away from … and brought his crew out with him. He was a presidential aide and a critical influence in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, without him the Blue Angels would never have begun their annual visits to Seattle.

Yet this man, selected for promotion to Captain and destined to be an Admiral turned down the promotion and left the Navy because it would have required undue hardship on his family. See, he never went to College and would have had to leave his family for a few years to get a degree in order to maintain the rank of Captain.

My granddad walked away from the career he loved because he loved his family more, despite the personal cost. This example was repeated over and over for the rest of his life. Do the right thing despite the cost. Be a man. Sacrifice yourself for the good of your family. Work hard. Take care of your responsibilities.

He was outwardly a gruff individual but if you got to know him you would realize that he wasn’t actually gruff at all. He had beliefs and opinions that he held strongly, and he wasn’t afraid to voice them. Or call you on it if he thought that you did something wrong. But this man would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He was always true to himself and his beliefs and that is something we should all strive for.

I wouldn’t be the man I am today without his example.

Grandpa

My Mom’s dad just passed away. Grandpa was a true Renaissance Man. Born to a family that was one of the first to settle in the Pacific Northwest, he could trace his lineage all the way back to the Civil War General George Greene.

When World War II began, Grandpa enlisted in the army and became a tanker. He landed at Normandy and fought under General Patton. He was machine gunned twice by the enemy. When he finally returned home, he met and married my grandmother. They spent their honeymoon on their new fishing vessel in Alaska.

Grandpa was at various times a school teacher, a journalist, a historian, and a fisherman. He had seven children and when he passed away he left behind almost sixty grand and great-grand children. It’s likely that he will end up with over 100 great grand children by the time we’re all done.

He always led by quiet example, and in many ways my two grandfathers were completely different. Yet oddly enough when it counted, they were the same. He taught me to fish, to cook over a fire, and how to be a jack of all trades.

But above all I learned from the way he lived his life. Family matters. Be a man. Teach what you know to those that don’t. Help everyone you can. Learn from everything and everyone. Hold true to your beliefs and values.

I wouldn’t be the man I am today without his example.

Learn from those who have come before

My grandparents all lived through the great depression. It changed, shaped, and influenced them in ways that not even they realized. The way of life that they adopted out of necessity is something we should all learn from. They wasted nothing, and made full use out of everything they had.

They were frugal but not cheap. They spent money on quality. My family eats at the same kitchen table my granddad bought when my dad was little and it’s in fantastic shape. Yet the bookshelf that you get down at the box store might last you a year or two.

They recognized the necessity of hard work. Nobody ever handed them anything, and they worked for everything they had. And they worked hard. Things are no different today. Living the kind of lifestyle my family, and presumably you the reader, have chosen is not easy. It requires work and sacrifice. Our grandparents knew the value and necessity of these things. Do you?

In closing…

If you are lucky enough to still have grandparents around, learn from them. Listen to what they have to say, to the stories, to their advice. Learn from their experiences. And above all, pass it on to your kids.

Goodbye Grandpa.  I’ll miss you terribly.  Rest easy, we’ll take care of everyone from here.

I’ll assume that you’ve read some of the earlier fundamental articles I’ve written regarding food storage, storing principles, and guidelines and understand some of the basic terminology. If not, check out the Articles list at the top of the page and read up a bit!

You mean to say there’s different kinds of wheat?

Yes. There’s several different kinds of wheat. The most common types are red and white wheat which are broken down into sub varieties: hard red spring, hard red winter, hard white winter, soft white spring, and soft white winter. Sounds a bit overwhelming. This is what you need to know about the main varieties (Yes, there’s more…):

Hard Red Wheat: Strong gluten content, which makes it great for bread or to extend meat. It’s the most commonly available wheat variety. The kernels are hard, small, and red! This is going to generally be the backbone of your storage.

Hard White Wheat: Similar to hard red, but more delicate and can be used for things like fluffy breads, rolls, and other similar baked goods.

Soft White Wheat: These kernels are larger and fatter, softer than red wheat with weaker gluten. This is what you’d use for pie crusts, pastries, cereal, etc. You wouldn’t use this for bread.

How much of each should I store?

Well, if you recall from my long term food storage planning article you need about 25 pounds of grain per person per month. I’d suggest that about fifteen pounds of that is wheat with the rest as corn, oats, and the like. You will probably want to store a mix of wheat varieties with the lions share of it being hard red wheat.

What should I store it in?

Well, my absolute favorite way to store wheat is in sealed plastic bags with about ten or fifteen pounds of wheat per bag. Then get four gallon square buckets and drop the bags into the bucket. You can probably get two or three bags into the bucket depending on how well you pack the bags.

Before you treat the bags you should treat the wheat against spoilage and insect infestation. There are a variety of ways to do that which I’ll go into momentarily. Once treated and closed up, seal the bags into your bucket and store the buckets in a cool dry location.

Rudy’s Tip: Use clear poly-ethylene bags for this. It lets you inspect the contents without opening it up and you can readily detect insect infestation, mold, etc without worrying about cross contamination. One of the reasons for the bags is to reduce the potential of cross contamination by compartmentalizing your wheat. It would suck to lose a months worth of wheat due to contamination!

As with most food items you lose nutritional value if you subject the wheat to too much heat for too long. Try to keep storage temperatures under 60 degrees if possible and don’t expose the buckets to direct sunlight.

How do I prepare wheat for storage?

If you bought dirty wheat, which is generally what you get if you buy directly from a farm, you need to clean it.

Steps for cleaning wheat:

• First, fan the wheat.
  1. Set up a household fan blowing horizontally across the mouth of a large cardboard box or a bucket.
  2. Drop the wheat slowly through the airstream into the container.
  3. Most contaminants are light enough that they will blow away and won’t drop into the bucket.
  4. Repeat this a few times until you’re satisfied.
• Second, hand-sift through the wheat to remove any large and obvious contaminants
• Third, sieve or screen the wheat. You can get custom made wheat sieves that have holes the right size. If you plan to buy dirty wheat, I recommend you invest in a couple.

Once you have clean wheat, or if you bought wheat that was already cleaned, you want to pour it into your clear poly bags (8″ x 4″ x 21″ is a good size) and treat against insects.

How do I protect wheat from insects?

There are a number of different ways.

The Deep Freeze

Drop your bags into the deep freeze for several days. Leave the frozen wheat in a warm room for a while until thawed and there is no visible condensation. Wait a few days, and repeat. Do this three or four times. You must repeat this because insect eggs don’t die when frozen so you have to let them hatch and then kill them that way.

Vacuum Sealing

Use vacuum sealing bags instead of polyethylene bags. Seal your wheat according to the instructions of your sealer. Drop the sealed bags into the bucket and seal it up!

Dry Ice

Instead of using bags, pour three or four inches of wheat into the bottom of your bucket directly. Add a couple ounces of crushed dry ice and finish filling the bucket with wheat. Put the lid on LOOSELY. After about half an hour or so the dry ice will have sublimated and forced all of the oxygen out of the bucket. Seal up the bucket.

If you recall, the freezing doesn’t affect eggs, but the insects need oxygen to breathe and since there’s none in the bucket they die right when they hatch. No problem!

Oxygen Absorbers

Drop a small oxygen absorbing pouch into each plastic bag, squeeze out as much air as possible, and seal up the bag. Put the bag in another bag and seal up the second bag. Drop into the bucket and enjoy.

Rudy’s Note: Dry ice and oxygen absorbers depend on the absence of oxygen to kill larval insects. Buckets and poly ethylene bags allow oxygen to flow through very slowly.

I’m not worried about that myself because I figure that by the time oxygen flows through the eggs are all hatched and dead.  If you’re worried about it, use mylar bags or bucket liners.

Vacuum sealing also kills insects by suffocating them but the bags don’t leech oxygen so you’re good there.

Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomaceous earth is the remains of a fossilized algae called diatoms. Sounds nice, eh? It works because it basically dehydrates the exoskeleton of insects, killing them. Nice stuff, eh? This is something that is certainly considered a natural method of killing bugs, but it is also a serious inhalation hazard. If you choose to use DE, be careful and use a mask.

I don’t know exactly how much DE you would use since I don’t use it. I’ve been told that a cup to a cup and a half per five gallon bucket, mixed through the grain, works well. I’ve also heard that as little as a tablespoon would work.

How long does this stuff store for?

Thirty years or so, give or take. I’d keep several years worth on hand and rotate through it continuously. You really should adopt the ‘food storage pantry’ approach and shop from your storage for your regular meals. The advantages of that approach are too numerous to talk about here but most of them should be pretty clear.

Wrapping it up

I’ll write soon about how to use your stored wheat. But above all, don’t forget to start using it right away. It’s important that your body is used to eating it on a regular basis to avoid potential health problems.