Make a difference this month by sharing what you know, encouraging others to do something more to be prepared and do more yourself to become better prepared.

Spread the news.  This is a great month for preppers, as you will see a lot of companies with sales on their preparedness items, as well as harvests coming in with plenty of fresh foods to lay in store for another time.  Get ready for the upcoming winter.

More info on the history of National Preparedness Month »

Image Taken Straight From ThinkGeek

So this week, one of the shiny things to catch my attention is found over on the ThinkGeek Gadgets site, It’s a key-sized multi-tool, for a decent price.  Now I’ve checked out lots of ‘key’ tools the past few years.From constantly watching for a chance at picking up an Atwood Ti, to usually crappy quality key-tools that are way too clunky to want to carry on my limited keychain.  Previously I was leaning towards the Gerber Artifact (via ThinkGeek:
Gerber Artifact Pocket Keychain Tool) (Which I still wouldn’t mind, for sure).  It’s a nice tool, but still isn’t quite the same idea of this.  While the artifact tries to be another knife, this tool attempts to be all the various non-blade tools from your swiss-army knife.

This however beats out those crappy ones (not the atwoods though, of course).  It’s thin, not wider than a normal key.  Nor is it bulky, sticking out wrong.  It has several helpful functions which are actually labeled to help jog the memory.  It’s the perfect choice when I don’t want to carry my swiss army style knife, but would rather keep a single blade on me.  I don’t lose access to the common tools this way.  Hey, it’s probably safe to take on a plane too!.

Also well thought out, is that it actually wraps onto your existing keys, so it covers the sharper edges, and doesn’t rip up your pocket so much.

Link: Keychain Multi-Tool

Alternatives:
These keys always seem like they would open up in my pocket at the wrong time :(

The artifact, cool, but not sure about that blade.  Like the pry-bar aspect.

Today I found an unprecedented offer from Front Site. For a limited time they are offering their $2,000 4 day tactical handgun course for $69.

It appears that the certificate that you will receive is good for any Monday through Thursday handgun course and is fully transferable to someone else which makes this an even better deal. Remember though, in addition to the $69 for the course, you will need to pay for a $50 background check as well as bring 600 rounds of ammo. For more information, please see this link. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

Buying a dedicated camper, pop-up tent, RV would be nice, but they are generally more than I want to spend, are single purpose and often require separate registration here in Utah. I often find a need for a small utility trailer for hauling mulch, compost, etc. and here in Utah, smaller trailers under a certain weight and size don’t need to be registered. When I obtained an old home built utility trailer recently, I decided to jump head first into a home built adventure trailer build.

The trailer I started with appears to be completely home built using a ’50′s Chevy truck axle and springs with thick angle iron completing the frame. The sides were made of weathered wood and close inspection showed that the wood sides was only attached to the frame with four bolts. I quickly removed these four bolts and the floors to get the frame down to bare essentials.

Once to this state, I sandblasted the frame to ensure that the rust present was only surface rust. Once this was confirmed, the trailer was off to my friendly neighborhood welding specialist at Horvath Hot Rods just down the road in Spanish Fork. Joe and I worked together to determine the side height, tail gate configuration and rack design.

I also ordered my ARB Roof Top Tent and Annex from Cruiser Outfitters around this time. While Roof Top Tents are generally meant to mount to the roof of a 4×4 vehicle, they work well mounted to trailers too. An added bonus with mounting it on a trailer is that you can also unhook the trailer to drive around without needing to pack up the tent. Roof Top Tents contain a thick foam padded mattress and get you up off the ground away from dirt and critters. They set up by unfolding and take about 10 minutes to get completely set up. Putting them away is about the same. The rack system we designed for the trailer allows the tent to deployed at about about 4 1/2 feet tall with the rack lowered or at 6′ 2″ with it raised. Raising the tent also allow the Annex to be attached which provides a large area for changing, getting things out of the weather or extra sleeping space.

After about a week, the trailer was nearly ready, just in time for a camping trip over Independence Day weekend. The trailer at this point lacked a few features before I could call it complete, but was ready to be used for a simple camp ground camping trip.

The trailer worked great on the trip, hauling everything we needed for the long weekend and providing a comfortable sleeping area.

Once back home, I was finally able to find some fenders which had proven hard to source. I took the trailer back in to Joe Horvath and he mounted the fenders, built in some steps for the fenders, moved the spare tire to one side, built a Cooler rack and moved the propane carrier. I also added an ARB awning to add some shade.

Then we were off to Montana for a week of camping. Again, the trailer proved to be a great place to sleep. I’ve added some LED lights from Ikea that provide a ton of light in the tent and as soon as I solve some issues with the switch will get the wiring affixed more permanently. Once I have that and a few more things buttoned up, we’ll store the trailer in the garage, loaded up with our camping gear, some food, water, etc. so we can be off and camping in minutes, providing a larger scale 96 hour + kit for the whole family.

Below are some pictures of the build process. Please let me know what you think.

Do you have empty water containers that need to be filled? Has it been a while since you rotated your water? Don’t delay another day. Do it now.

The large, blue tank pictured above is a SureWater tank that holds 275 gallons. The green ones are Reliance Jumbo-Tainers that hold seven gallons each.

Read the article here.

This Navy flier can be a good example for all of us. He knew that there was always the possibility that he would be shot down and that he would need to survive. Rather than bury his head in the sand and ignore the issue, he reviewed the survival kit he was issued as a Navy aviator and supplemented it to meet his personal needs. When other pilots saw him doing this, they took a second look at their own kits and began doing the same thing.

This brings up another good lesson. Without sacrificing OPSEC we can be an example of preparedness to those around us. If someone is new to prepping and seems interested, try to foster that interest and get them on their way to self sufficiency.

What have YOU done to prepare you and your family today?

• Some currants–doesn’t matter how many
• Sugar
• A couple of pots (to cook the berries and the jelly–you really could use the same pot)
• Strainer and/or cheesecloth/jelly bag for juicing the currants

That’s all.

To can it you’ll need jars, lids, rings, and a water bath canner.

First, pick and wash your currants.  I removed the stems, some people don’t.  If you don’t, you’ll need to skip the smashing step and go straight to the pot.

After your currants are washed, you can smash them or not.  In my brain I get more juice out of them if I smash them than if I leave them whole, so I smash them.  You can use a potato masher or run them through the pulse chop on your food processor.  I’m all for quick, so I chopped them.

Then, put the chopped currants in a pot and heat them up.  You can add just a little water if you want to thin it up a bit, but you don’t want to add too much.  If you didn’t take the stems off your currants, you’ll have whole currants plus stems in the pot heating up.

After the currants have cooked for a bit, it’s time to juice them.  You’ll need 3-4 layers of cheese cloth or a jelly bag or a tight strainer.  I didn’t have any cheesecloth handy, so I made a jelly bag from some not-so-tight weave muslin I had.  I’ll be re-making the bag to fit over my strainer and end in a point instead of a square bottom, but this one worked for this time.

Pour or scoop the cooked currants into your cheesecloth and suspend the bundle over a pot. Get creative here. I usually tie the bundle to a long dowel, but couldn’t find one this time. Prop it up on chairs or buckets–whatever you have around–and let it drip. If you want really clear jelly, don’t squeeze the bag. If you want a little more volume and don’t mind if your jelly is “cloudy”, squeeze the bag to get as much juice out as you can. I usually go for volume. Okay, I always go for volume. If you’re submitting your jelly to the state fair, go for clarity.

Once you have your juice, discard the pulp left in the cheesecloth and measure the juice. (You can stop here for the night and put the juice in the fridge and start again the next day or the day after that if it happens to be way past your bedtime by the time the currants have juiced.)

Now you’ve measured your juice, put it in a pot with an equal amount of sugar. So 2 cups of juice and 2 cups of sugar or 7 1/2 cups of juice and 7 1/2 cups of sugar. Easy, right? You don’t need to add pectin because currants already have enough pectin in them to gel.

Get your water bath canner set up with water in it and start heating it up so it will be ready to can the jelly when it’s done boiling. Put your lids in a little pot and warm them up also.

Bring the jelly to a boil and then let it boil for 15 minutes. If you want to test it before canning it, put a little on a plate and stick it in the fridge to cool off. See if it sets up. It shouldn’t have any problem, but if it doesn’t set up, boil it a little longer and test it again.

When you’re ready to can it, ladle the hot jelly into your clean hot jars, wipe the rims and apply the lids. Put them in the canner and process 10 minutes.

Pull them out and let them cool and voila! Super easy currant jelly to use on bread, breakfasts, meat, and whatever else you can dream up. Enjoy!

If you have the space for chickens they provide a nice source of fresh eggs and meat (if you have a rooster).  How many of you have chickens or are considering it?  I really want to get some, but can’t in my current place.  For those that have them what has been your experience?

And for those drooling over that new amazing logo in the corner, we’ll have some links soon to get it on various items.  I know I’ve already put it on a bumper sticker on my truck, as well as a t-shirt; and it looks great.

Shelf Reliance is looking for an experienced programmer to work on our company’s website.

Required Skills:
* HTML / CSS
* PHP
* MySQL

Experience in any of the following a plus:
* Magento
* Any PHP Framework
* Drupal
* WordPress
* Version Control (subversion or git)
* Linux
* Apache

Location: Shelf Reliance, Lindon UT
Compensation: $30,000 – $40,000 DOE

Contact: Jared Daines
Shelf Reliance Web Development Team
jared at shelfreliance.com
801-756-9902