An overview of how our family is prepared
michaelharley.net
An overview of how our family is prepared
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Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#2How do you keep the drinking water actually drinkable over any time period? Anything stored gets nasty.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#3I barely am able to plan groceries for a few days to a week ahead, especially with two middle schoolers eating everything in sight. While I would agree with the sentiment (definitely something will disrupt heat/water/food access), I struggle with actually executing on doing anything other than having some real basics around. 30 days of spare food feels like such an enormous amount of space and material.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#4How do you keep the drinking water actually drinkable over any time period? Anything stored gets nasty.
Every daylight savings time, I rotate my stored water. I empty out my containers, refilling them with, then add 7 drops of bleach per gallon.
* Edit * I've been asked before what the best survival book is. Honestly, it is One Second After by William R. Forstchen. It's probably the best description scenario that could occur.
It is not those regurgitated line drawings that everyone copies from Euell Gibbons, or rehashed rule of 3's survival books.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#5How do you keep the drinking water actually drinkable over any time period? Anything stored gets nasty.
You don’t. You have RO at the point of consumption. At any rate, it’s our approach, we store 150,000L in a cistern over the winter and use it through the summer. An under-the-counter domestic RO system can be had for like $200, the membranes last about a year with our usage, and are like $15 a pop. Post-RO storage tank UV block too because I like belts and braces.
Non-potable just goes through the usual barrels full of sand and biochar, and doesn’t need further treatment.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#6I'm reminded of a book I read a few years ago, Notes from an Apocalypse by Mark O'Connell, which discusses (among other things) the phenomenon of "prepper" culture.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#7They keep saying 'we' and 'our' but I'm pretty sure this is an 'I' and 'my' thing.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#8I used to be a prepper, but have decided that moving remote is the only thing I'm willing to do anymore. If the world's population really does drop 99% from something, the person that kills me will be me. Totally hoping something like that doesn't happen.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#9I barely am able to plan groceries for a few days to a week ahead, especially with two middle schoolers eating everything in sight. While I would agree with the sentiment (definitely something will disrupt heat/water/food access), I struggle with actually executing on doing anything other than having some real basics around. 30 days of spare food feels like such an enormous amount of space and material.
Mine is just a shelf of Chef Boyardee and Campbell's.
I eat one or two a week as regular lunches, to rotate stock. When there's some room at the empty end of the shelf, I shove everything down, and buy some new cans to stuff in at the intake end.
It takes no more time than going to the pantry for a can of soup regularly would. And saves time, because I'm _never_ out and scrambling to find another option. Whether I'm 8 cans down or 24, one trip to the store will replenish it regardless.
Don't overcomplicate it. Folks who blog about things tend to do so because they're proud they achieved something difficult, so you compare yourself to a difficult standard. Resist that.
Re: An overview of how our family is prepared
#10This is a sensible type of prepping. Prep for the things you will most likely face and some outliers within your geography. I myself could never understand the years worth of food types of folks. If things breakdown that much I don’t know much that food is going to matter.