What did you do to prep this week?

This week’s preps – August 12 2018

My monthly prepper meetup was this past week so I went to that. It was nice to catch up with some of the people, but some others I was hoping to see weren’t there so that was disappointing. There was no specific topic, just general discussion. We did talk about bugging out vs. sheltering in place which is a topic I like. Also talked about finding a sustainable place that’s not a two day drive away. I was surprised that some of the old timers think that’s still possible, considering the out of control growth in our area.

Our rental house is about finished. We have 2 tenants so far. Another one is moving in tomorrow. Only 3 rooms left… My brother (in law) is quite the handyman. He’s doing all the wood trim and some tile cutting. My wife and her sister are doing the vinyl plank flooring. We wouldn’t be nearly this far along without their help. Good family is truly a blessing.

Speaking of my brother and sister (in law), from now on I’ll just refer to them as brother and sister. No “in law,” family is family. They’ve also done a ton of work in our back yard. My brother loves working in the garden. He also wants to go hunting this fall. Can’t wait to take him…

Misc. stuff… I bought a Remington 783 a few years ago as a project rifle. Put a new stock on it but it never worked right. Almost impossible to chamber a round and doesn’t eject worth s***. Finally said enough and took it to my gun smith. Found a jammed up ejector and incorrectly cut extractor. He fixed both and it works better but still not what I’d expect from a Remington. Don’t get a Remington 783 – it’s a crappy design. If you want a Remington get a 700. If you want a cheap (but good) rifle, get a Savage Axis.

Continuing the gun theme, I loaded 600 rounds of 9mm. I’ve been shooting my pellet gun every chance I get. I’m actually improving. I put a dry fire kit into one of my Glocks and got a holster for it. I’ve been experimenting with sights since my near vision sucks. I’m getting discouraged, nothing really seems to work. Maybe I can get some reader lenses for my Wiley-X shooting glasses.

Almost forgot – put bird netting over the peach tree to keep the birds away.

That’s about it for now. What did you do to prep this week?

Peace out,
porcupine

What did you do to prep this week?

This week’s preps – well, preps since May 12 2018…

I haven’t really done any “prepping” for 88 days – over 12 weeks. I’ve been so distracted, busy, whatever that for the past 2 months I skipped CERT meetings, permaculture meetups, and I didn’t even stay for my prepper group meetups. That last one is a shame because the topic was map reading.

Life happens…

So what happened? Life. We picked up my in-laws and moved them in. Our rental house project turned into a really MAJOR project. I found myself suddenly in need of being able to secure a $200K loan (!!!) with really crappy credit. Still working on that one… Oh, and I managed to crash my truck. It’s still driveable but the side of the bed is wiped out. Another $2500 to get that fixed…

Life goes on…

Even though I’ve been slacking, I still got some things done that maybe could be considered prepping. I finished an online class in programming embedded computers. My brother and I have the back yard looking really good. He even caught a quail that he cooked and ate. Last weekend I took him and my sons to watch our first IDPA pistol match. Last night I loaded about 300 rounds of 9mm. We keep working on the garden 🙂

I’m also working on my personal library and I’ve had the chance to read some really good books. Maybe not prepper books, more suited to the backyardsman than a prepper. Some are Nothing To Do But Stay, Truck – a Love Story, and The Warwolf. Tomorrow night is my monthly prepper’s meetup so hopefully it will nudge me back into a more formal prepping routine…

What about you? What have you been doing to prep lately?

Peace out,
porcupine

I should have brought a gun…

I went to my first IDPA pistol match yesterday. I have a friend at work who shoots IDPA and he said I should check it out. The local pistol club has matches on the first Saturday of the month so I loaded up my kids and brother and drove out. I wasn’t planning on shooting so I left my gun at home.

I thought it would be pretty intense so I wanted to watch a match before shooting in one. Turns out I was wrong. It was pretty low key/low stress. There were 19 people shooting in the match and everyone I talked to was really friendly. I asked if I could take video and they said “no problem.” (Will post as soon as I figure out how to get them uploaded from my iPhone).

Someone asked why I wasn’t shooting. I told them I was just watching and didn’t have my gun. So… one of the group offered to let me use his gun. I turned him down because I don’t like using other people’s expensive stuff. I wanted to shoot though – it was so low key. I should have brought a gun.