• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 755 0

and hardworking who are better prepared than the wealthy few who just throw money at the problem. Do your best to make a purchasing plan and stick to it. Don’t go overboard in one area at the expense of another. Preparedness takes balance: food storage, gardening supplies, canning supplies, medical gear, communications gear, reliable vehicles, fuel storage, field gear, cold-weather gear, night-vision equipment, and so forth. Maintaining that balance takes both focused planning and self-control.

The TEOTWAWKI Weekend Experiment

A great way to create truly commonsense preparedness lists is to take a three-day TEOTWAWKI Weekend Experiment with your family. When you come home from work on Friday evening, turn off your main circuit breaker, turn off your gas main (or propane tank), and shut your main water valve (or turn off your well pump). Spend that weekend in primitive conditions. Practice using only your storage food, preparing it on a woodstove (or camping stove).

A TEOTWAWKI Weekend Experiment will surprise you. Things that you take for granted will suddenly become labor intensive. False assumptions will be shattered, but as you regroup and tailor your plan, your family will grow closer and more confident. Some of the most thorough lists that you will ever make will be those written by candlelight.

Your List of Lists Should Include:

• Water List

• Food-Storage List

• Food-Preparation List

• Personal List

• First-Aid/Minor-Surgery List

• Chem/Nuke-Defense List

• Biological-Warfare- and Pandemic-Defense List

• Gardening List

• Hygiene/Sanitation List

• Hunting/Fishing/Trapping List

• Power/Lighting/Batteries List

• Fuels List

• Firefighting List

• Tactical-Living List

• Security—General

• Security—Firearms

• Communications/Monitoring List

• Tools List

• Sundries List

• Survival-Bookshelf List

• Barter and Charity List

Specific Recommendations for Developing Your Lists

Water List (For details, see Chapter 4.)

• House downspout conversion sheet metal work and barrels.

• Think through how you’ll draw water from open sources. Buy extra containers. Don’t buy big barrels. Five-gallon food-grade buckets are the largest size that most people can handle without back strain.

• For transporting water if and when gas is too precious to waste, buy a couple of heavy-duty two-wheel garden carts—convert the wheels to foam-filled “no-flats” tires. You will find lots of other uses for those carts around your retreat, such as hauling (of hay, firewood, manure, etc.).

• Treating water. Buy plain Clorox hypochlorite bleach. A little goes a long way. Buy some extra half-gallon bottles for barter and charity. If you can afford it, buy a “Big Berky” British Berkefeld ceramic water filter.

Food-Storage List (For details, see Chapter 5.)

Lay in an honest one-year supply of storage food for your family:

• Start by increasing the quantities of canned foods that you use on a regular basis.

• Buy some short-term Get out of Dodge foods that don’t require adding water, such as military-specification Meals, Ready To Eat (MRE).

• Build a large supply of wheat, rice, beans, honey, and salt, in five- or six-gallon food-grade buckets.

• Rotate your storage food consistently, using the First-In, First-Out (FIFO) inventory methodology.

• Store extra food for charity and barter.

Food-Preparation List

• Having more people under your roof will necessitate having an oversize skillet and a huge stew pot. You will want to buy several huge kettles, because odds are you will have to heat water on your woodstove for bathing, dish washing, and clothes washing.

• You will need even more kettles, barrels, and five- or six-gallon PVC buckets—for water hauling, rendering, soapmaking, and dying. They will also make great barter or charity items. To quote my mentor Dr. Gary North: “Nails: Buy a barrel of them. Barrels: Buy a barrel of them!”

• Don’t overlook skinning knives, gut-buckets, gambrels, and meat saws.

Personal List

Make a separate