Category: Preppers

Survival Prepper: Clean Water

On By The.Daily.ChristianIn Preppers, Survival Prepper, SurvivalistLeave a comment

If you are an outdoor lover who enjoys hiking, camping, or trips in the wilderness, you understand how quickly a bottle of water can be consumed. The intense heat of the sun and sweating profusely can require you to drink more to stay hydrated. Water can be consumed quickly and you can run out fast.

This can be particularly true in a disaster situation where clean water might not be available for a while. An earthquake, flood, hurricane, or other disasters can damage water and sewer lines making freshwater unavailable for homes and families until water lines are repaired or help comes. Drinking unclean and unsafe water can lead to disease and death.

If you are in a situation where you need to find clean water to drink, here are some ideas.

Water Heater Tank


Be sure to turn off the electricity or gas before you unplug the drain at the bottom of your water heater tank. This water is already filtered water, and unless you fear it’s been contaminated, it should be safe to drink.

Stored Water


Store water in food-grade clean containers now before a disaster happens. Rinse out and thoroughly clean used 2-liter soda containers or plastic juice jugs and fill them with tap water. You can store these in your closet, behind beds, in your basement, under furniture, or wherever you have room. You can also use containers made for water storage like 5-gallon jugs, 55-gallon drums, or stackable WaterBrick containers. It is suggested that water storage be rotated every six months to 1 year. If not rotated, then have the means to filter if needed. Having some water stored on hand can be a lifesaver in the event of a disaster.

Rainwater


If you can collect rainwater in rain barrels or buckets attached to the downspouts from the roof of your home, it can be your main substitute water next to your stored potable drinking water. Rainwater will still need to be strained, filtered, and purified before you drink it.

Sillcock Key


A sillcock 4-way key is an inexpensive preparedness item that you can find and purchase online. It gives you access to emergency water in commercial buildings like entertainment venues, mall strips, ballparks, golf courses, government buildings, rest stops, and so forth. Even if the water is turned off in a building, there can still be water in the pipes. Simply locate the water spigot on any business or public building and use the sillcock key to turn the spigot on. Have a bucket or hose ready to collect the water. The Sillcock key can be used where an adjustable wrench or pliers will not.

Avoid Standing Water


Pools and puddles of water are typically a focal point for bacteria and other harmful toxins. While this water can be purified, it will probably taste bad and might contain other harmful substances that are more difficult to filter out. Brown or muddy reddish water can be a sign of rust particles or other harmful substances and must be avoided. Most purification methods typically won’t be effective in this case and the water could be dangerous to consume.

Boiling to Purify Water


If you have any water that you are not sure if it is safe to drink, you will want to purify it. One of the oldest and most proven ways to purify water is by boiling.

To purify by boiling, first, pour the water through a clean piece of cloth or a coffee filter to strain out the visible dirt and debris. Then heat up the water in a pot until it starts to boil. It’s best for the water to reach a boiling point of 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius to destroy pathogens if you have a thermometer to check.

Allow the water to boil for a minute or so to ensure it is completely up to temperature and that anything living in the water is killed. Boiling for too long will cause you to lose some of it to water vapor. You might want to cover it with a lid so that any water you lose to vapor will collect and condense again in the pot.

You also want to note that while boiling water will kill bacteria and dangerous living organisms, it won’t do anything to salts, chemicals, or rust. It also won’t change the taste of the water due to minerals or substances that make it taste bad.

Pool Shock to Purify Water


Calcium Hypochlorite or pool shock can be a bleach substitute for purifying water. Its long shelf-life and affordability make it a good choice to have on hand when needed. It also takes up less space than liquid bleach. The EPA states that you can use granular calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water.

Create a chlorine solution: Put one teaspoon of granular calcium hypochlorite (about ¼ ounce) into ONE gallon of water and allow it to dissolve. This blend creates a stock chlorine solution.

To disinfect water: Add ¾ ounce of the chlorine solution to treat ONE gallon of water.

[The ratio to use is one-part chlorine solution to 100-parts water to be treated. This is about equal to adding 16 ounces (1 pint) of stock chlorine to 12.5 gallons of water.]

To get rid of any unwanted chlorine smell, aerate the disinfected water by pouring it back and forth between two cups or canisters. This is true for bleach purified water, or stored water as well.

Chlorine Bleach to Purify Water


You can use regular, unscented chlorine bleach to disinfect your water. Check the label that it contains 6 or 8.25% sodium hypochlorite. Avoid using color-safe, scented, or bleaches with added cleaners. Be sure to filter the water getting out any debris or sediments first.

Then use 16 drops (¼ tsp) of chlorine bleach to purify TWO gallons of water or 8 drops to purify ONE gallon. If the water is cloudy, cold, or colored then double this amount. Stir the water and allow to stand for 30 minutes.

You can find the full article here!

Survival Prepper: Essential Shoes

On By The.Daily.ChristianIn Preppers, Survival Prepper, Survivalist1 Comment

While it might not be as exciting or sexy as some of the survival gadgets on the market today, a good pair of boots is an essential piece of survival equipment. If you ever find yourself bugging out, forget your tennies, they won’t survive. You’ll need a good pair of hiking boots or work boots to help you on your trek through the wilderness.

Good boots are an investment. Properly cared for, they will last. But if you don’t care for them, then you can count on their life being considerably shorter. That could very well leave you in a position where you don’t have any footwear; not something you want to contemplate in a survival situation. Going without good footwear in such a situation could see your feet cut to ribbons.

Of course, a lot depends on the quality of boots you buy. Like many other things, you tend to get what you pay for with boots. Good ones are better made, with higher quality materials and greater comfort. But the quality of the boots themselves doesn’t matter as much as how well you take care of them. Proper care can add years to the life of a pair of boots.


Break Them In


Break them improper break-in may not add years to the life of your boots, but they will add years to the life of your feet. Actually, it will help your boots to last too, as painful feet cause people to walk improperly, causing unnecessary wear on soles and heels.

Breaking in should be done in small stages. Don’t try to wear your boots for a whole day, until you’ve got them well broken in. Until then, only wear them for a couple of hours at a time. That will give your feet a chance to recover so that you don’t end up limping or walking improperly.

Some boots are made with harder, stiffer leathers. If there is a part of the boot in which your foot needs to be flexible, it can help to work that area by hand, bending it over and over to remove the stiffness from the leather. Do this as you are oiling the boots, and it will do a world of good for your feet.


Waterproof Them

Waterproof boots need to be waterproofed; they don’t come that way from the factory. Even if your boots say that they are waterproofed, don’t believe it. The sprays they use at the factory aren’t very good and will wear off quickly.

Waterproofing is either done with wax or oil, depending on the way the leather was tanned. If your boots are made of oil-tanned leather, then you’ll need to use oil to waterproof them. If they are chrome-tanned, you’ll need to use silicone spray or shoe wax to waterproof them. One of the best products around for waterproofing boots is mink oil. This paste product works for both oil and chrome-tanned types of leather, as it is a combination of oils, lanolin, and silicone.

Survival Prepping: Weapons

On By The.Daily.ChristianIn Preppers, Survival Prepper, Survivalist1 Comment

If you’re in a survival situation, lost in the wilderness, you’ll need survival weapons of some sort to get you through.


Firearms


Firearms are often the first and most obvious choice for many people when selecting a survival tool. Guns are widely available, relatively easily procured, and easily used and carried. They also provide a level of security against dangerous animals and would-be human assailants that is hard to beat.


They are able to be quickly deployed and, in the case of handguns, can effectively be used with one hand if necessary. For those of us who conceal carry, carrying a handgun is a part of daily existence. You’ll have to decide which caliber and which style of handgun you prefer–revolver or semi-automatic–based on a number of considerations.


I’d suggest a .22 rifle as an all-around wilderness or urban survival gun, as it’s lightweight, reliable, easy to use, and clean, and the ammunition it uses is cheap, easily affordable, and small. You can kill deer and larger game with a .22. Its report isn’t too loud, which could be a disadvantage if you’re trying to signal someone. I’d also suggest carrying a larger caliber handgun, something akin to a .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum, for self-defense and peace of mind.


Of course, you should also carry an adequate supply of ammunition, which brings up another disadvantage associated with firearms. Once you run out of ammo, they’re basically useless, with the possible exception of scaring off would-be human attackers.

Knives


A knife should be considered a must-have survival tool. Carrying at least one knife, and probably more, is a given in any survival situation. Knives are the single most versatile “multitool” you can have. With a knife, you can make other tools and DIY weapons, build a shelter, build a fire, procure food, make clothing, open a can of beans and defend yourself. You can even just whittle away the time when you’re bored waiting for the rain to stop.


There are many good survival knives on the market today. I won’t go into all of the attributes you should look for when choosing a survival knife. I will, however, a mid-sized fixed blade knife and a folding pocket knife are the knife style you should be carrying. Folding knives aren’t as sturdy as fixed blade knives, but their compactness makes them easy to stow away until needed. Knives are generally lightweight enough that you can easily carry more than one.


You’ll also probably want to carry a sharpening stone with you in order to keep your knife edge keen. The sheath you choose for your fixed blade knife can also be a source of additional survival tools. For instance, you can have a knife sheath made that’ll also hold fire steel, a whetstone, a compass, and any other tidbits you might find useful in a survival situation.


Hatchet


The benefit of carrying a hatchet is that it’s both a functional tool and a self-defense weapon. A hatchet or stout tomahawk can be used to chop wood or small trees, carve a spear, clear brush, and more. It can also put a little more distance between you and a would-be attacker or dangerous animal in close quarters should you need to employ it in that regard.

In a survival scenario, I would definitely want to carry a knife and a hatchet. If you’re able, you should also consider carrying a small file with you to touch up the edge of your hatchet when necessary.

If you can comfortably carry or stow an actual, full-length ax, all the better. The weight of carrying such a tool may be prohibitive, however. You can do a lot more with an ax that might unduly tax a hatchet, but a good, sharp hatchet is a great choice. It’s relatively lightweight and can perform multiple tasks with ease.

Firemaking Basics: How To Fuel Your Fire

On By The.Daily.ChristianIn Preppers, Survival Prepper, SurvivalistLeave a comment

As a basic survival need, fire is essential in keeping your body temperature at a normal level.

Fire also enables you to cook food, boil water for consumption, and protect yourself from predators.

Temperatures tend to drop drastically at night, especially in temperate climates. In the US alone, hypothermia accounts for around 1,300 deaths each year— so starting a fire is an invaluable skill if you don’t want to freeze to death.

So, the question on our mind; how does one start a big roaring fire? You’d need three things:

  • Oxygen
  • Heat
  • Fuel

These three make up the “combustion triangle” and without one or the others, it would be impossible to ignite a fire.

20% of the air is made up of oxygen, so you don’t really have to worry about this element. The density of oxygen does decrease at high altitudes, so you have to use extra effort in creating a fire in areas significantly above sea level.

Heat can be produced through friction, like rubbing sticks together, striking a flint, lighting a match against a surface, or using a lighter.

Fuel can be any flammable object that feeds the fire and keeps it burning such as tinder, kindling, and firewood.

What’s The Difference Between Tinder, Kindling, And Firewood?


Tinder
Tinder is any dry and fibrous material that would easily combust.

When out in the woods, a “bird’s nest” made from dry tree bark makes for excellent tinder. Trees like cedar, pine, and birch are all rich in resin, which makes their barks easily combustible even when they’re damp. These resinous trees grow all over North America, too, so you wouldn’t have trouble finding them when out in the wild.

To create a tinder bundle with tree bark, all you have to do is peel the bark off of dead fallen trees. Make sure they’re nice, dry, and fluffy. Tear the bark into fine strips and bunch it up to form a bundle. Congrats, you now have tinder to start a fire.

Other things you can use as tinder include dry grass, wood shavings, pine needles, pine cones, dry coconut husks, and fluffy plants like cattails.

You can also prepare some fire starters before leaving home. These catch flame really quickly and will help you create fire even when conditions are less than ideal. An example of one would be:

Dryer lint – This may be the bane of many dryer filters, but don’t throw them out just yet. Dryer lint is made of hundreds of tiny fabric fibers and is highly flammable. You can use dryer lint on its own, or turn it into hardcore firestarters with some egg cartons and candle wax.
Cotton balls – Like dryer lint, cotton balls are great on their own, but if you slather them in petroleum jelly or vaseline, they become even better.

Kindling
Kindling is a type of fuel that’s slightly larger than tinder and is meant to keep the fire going long and hot enough for you to feed it larger pieces of wood.

With kindling, it’s important to start small. Ideally, kindling should be thin enough to snap with your hands. They’re usually around the diameter of a match, but no larger than a pencil. Think thin twigs, wood splinters, and small pieces of softwood.

Each layer of kindling that you put into your fire should ignite the next, so make sure to feed them gradually. Patience is a virtue in this stage of fire-making. Add too large pieces too soon and you’ll smother your flame.

Like Tinder, you have to make sure that your kindling is dry. Look for dead-standing tree branches and twigs. Stay away from pieces of wood that are on the ground, since they absorb a lot of moisture. They’re most likely rotten or have vegetation growing all over them, too. If a branch bends but doesn’t snap, that means it still has some moisture within and is not ideal for kindling.

It could be difficult to find good kindling after a rain shower, where everything’s wet or damp. It could also be a challenge when you’re in an area with limited trees, or if all you could find are thick tree limbs. In such cases, you’d need to know how to create feather sticks.


Firewood
Once you light a fire with your tinder and kindling, it’s time to keep it going by feeding it larger pieces of fuel. You can bring some processed firewood from home, buy a bundle from camp stores along the way, or gather some firewood from dead standing trees around your camp.

Be careful not to smother your fire with too big pieces. Carry a bushcraft axe or learn how to baton with your knife to break large chunks of wood into smaller pieces.

Building Shelter: Do’s & Don’ts

On By The.Daily.ChristianIn Preppers, Survival Prepper, SurvivalistLeave a comment

I think there are as many different ideas on how to build a survival shelter as there are survivalists. I have spent my share of nights in the wild, many times without any shelter, but on occasion, a good shelter comes in handy.

When to Build
I think the biggest mistake a lost person who really needs a shelter makes is that they wait too long before they decide to make a shelter. Most people who die in the wilderness do so from exposure.

A lost person thinks they are going to find salvation just around the next bend, or just over the next rise. The problem is that this thinking keeps on until they notice darkness is falling and it is almost too late to put any kind of effective shelter together.

Location, Location, Location
The next problem is many people pick the wrong location for their shelter. By just looking ravines makes a nice location for a shelter, but are prone to flash flooding. Avoid them because they can be deadly. Many will fail to look overhead when building their shelter, and end up with a dead tree, or large rock that could come down on them in the middle of the night.

Depending on where you live, unless the forest has been logged you can’t completely get away from large trees that may come down or drop a big branch on you. The best bet here is to find a large downed tree and build your shelter against it. This way the tree will take the blow, and hopefully spare you if something does fall.

Wind Direction
One of the most annoying things is to get a nice shelter built and then put in your fire, only to have the smoke inundate your shelter because you didn’t take the wind into account when you built it. A good angle away from the wind is best.

If you place it directly away from the wind the lee will cause the smoke to eddy and back up into your shelter.

Fire Safety
So you have a nice shelter built and warm fire in front only to be awakened from a deep sleep by your shelter being on fire! Basic fire safety is important especially in a survival situation, where what would be an inconvenience in a normal situation, can be fatal if you are lost. There should be some thought put into building your shelter other than just the mechanics of building it.

It’s important that you are not only warm, fed, sheltered, but also safe. Fire, while providing you comfort, can be very dangerous. So, please make sure to respect the nature around you by caring for your fire properly. Do not start a forest fire. Your fire pit must have boundaries, and you must keep an eye on it. Also, as we mentioned previously, observe where there is a break in the tree canopy before you set your fire.

Survival Prepping: Best Non-Perishable Foods

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Natural disasters—a flood, hurricanes, blizzards—often come with little or no warning. Stocking up now on the right non-perishable food items will help you weather the storm (or global pandemic) with less stress.


Why Eat Differently During an Emergency?


Fueling your body during an emergency is very different from your everyday diet. (Think of how an emergency fund functions differently than a savings account.) Because you’ll probably expend more energy than you normally would during your emergency plan, you should eat high-energy, high-protein foods. If the emergency is disease-related (as in the coronavirus pandemic of 2020), it is especially important to eat nutritious foods that will help you maintain good health. And because you’ll have a limited supply in your emergency preparedness kit, the higher-quality foods you eat—and the fewer of them—the better. Start stockpiling as soon as possible!


What to Always Keep in Your Pantry


These non-perishable food items (or close to it) have lengthy expiration dates, so you can stash them away for long periods of time, even if it’s not hurricane season or tornado season. Make a list of everything in your stockpile and check expiration dates every six to 12 months to keep things fresh. And don’t forget to have a can opener on hand at all times—all that food won’t be of any use if you can’t open it.

Peanut butter

Peanut butter is a really good survival food. It is readily available, shelf-stable, nutrient-rich, calorie-dense, and easy to store while being easy on the wallet compared to many survival foods. Powdered peanut butter, specially designed for survival stores, can even last up to 10 years.

Powdered peanut butter is the best peanut butter for long-term storage. If it is sealed in a #10 can and stored in a cool, dry place it can last between 5 and 10 years. It can also last up to a year in a plastic pouch.

Whole-wheat crackers


Crackers are a good replacement for bread and make a fine substitute when making sandwiches. Due to their higher fat content, whole-wheat or whole-grain crackers have a shorter shelf life than their plain counterparts (check the box for expiration dates), but the extra fiber pays off when you’re particularly hungry. Consider vacuum-packing your crackers to prolong their freshness.

For added value, purchase a family-sized pack of whole-wheat crackers. The toasted crackers give a bit more of a healthful kick and are made without high-fructose corn syrup as well.


Nuts and trail mixes


Stock up on these high-energy foods—they’re healthful and convenient for snacking during a hurricane, tornado, or other emergencies. Look for vacuum-packed containers, which prevent the nuts from oxidizing and losing their freshness.

Canned tuna, salmon, chicken, or turkey


Generally lasting at least two years in the pantry, canned meats provide essential protein. Vacuum-packed pouches have a shorter shelf life but will last at least six months.

Moreover, vacuum-sealed packs may come in handy if you don’t have a can opener. For your pantry, purchase a 12-pack of Safe Catch Elite Wild Tuna, which has the lowest mercury count of any brand on the market, making it a safer choice for kids and even pregnant women.


Canned vegetables, such as green beans, carrots, and peas

Flat lay view at opened tin can with green beans isolated on white background
Canned carrot isolated on white background
Opened metallic can with green peas. Isolated on white.


When the real deal isn’t an option, canned varieties can provide you with essential nutrients, making these a great hurricane food or natural disaster option. To pack in as many of those healthy vitamins and minerals as possible, order a case of mixed vegetable cans by Libby’s. Inside each can you’ll find peas, carrots, corn, lima beans, and green beans, giving you a well-balanced meal straight from the jar.