What did you do to prep this week?

I had a busy week. First, work was really going crazy. Second, one of our tenants drove her car through the front of our rental house. In other words I didn’t have time to do much prepping and no time to write about anything here. I did get some things done though…

Our Berkey water purification system showed up, so I got that assembled and working. Took longer than I thought, mainly because I spent a lot of time flushing the chloride filters. One mistake we made was not ordering the stand. Without that, the spigot is about 1/2 inch from the counter top. Solution is to put the Berkey right at the edge of the counter OR order the stand. My wife wanted the stand, so that’s what we’re getting.

I also realized that, you know what? I’m a gear junky – I have a problem with buying stuff I think is cool but with no plan to use it. So I have some packs with nothing in them… I spent a lot of time reading through my copy of 98.6 – The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive and started working on my survival kit. Got the Ziplock freezer bags, 2 (actually 3) really heavy contractor grade 55 gallon bags, and 3 ways to start fire. Mag bar, water proof match container/matches, and a 3-pack of road flares. The flares aren’t recommended in the book, but they burn hot and bright for 15 minutes and I have room in the pack, so why not. I also wasted a lot of time looking for strike anywhere matches. I’m going to have to look some more.

Our garden is going good. Still lots of squash and finally some ripe tomatoes. My wife found a guy about 30 miles away giving away free red worms so we might get some today. I also found a local Meetup group that discusses Permaculture so I signed up for that. They’re having a meeting this Wed, so I’m looking forward for that. The prepper Meetup group is Thur and it is almost always good so I’m looking forward to that too.

Last but not least, I’m testing for my general class amateur radio license next Saturday, so I spent more time studying. This week I’ll be spending most of my free time cramming for that and getting our rental house repaired. If I have any extra time I’ll research tents and knives. We’ll also order worms online if the free ones don’t work out.

What did YOU do to prep this week?

Peace out,
porcupine

What did you do to prep this week?

My general class amateur radio license test is in 2 weeks, so I spent most of my free time studying. I use the ARRL Study Guide and free practice exams from hamexam.org.

The soil in our backyard sucks, so we have about 9 raised beds that we use for some of our vegetables. It costs a lot of money to fill them with good bagged dirt though, so we’re getting into composting. We bought a composting bin from one of the online gardening supply companies. It came this week so I put it together and we’ve started our first batch on compost.

The biggest prep I made this week was ordering a Berkey water purification system. This was difficult because I had to talk my wife into it. Also kind of expensive (a little over $300) Actually, my kid helped with this one. His school starts next week and he’s been bugging us to buy bottled water for him to take to school. We keep forgetting, so in exasperation he asked if we could at least get a water filter since our tap water doesn’t taste that great. It was a light bulb moment for me. I said “That’s a great idea”. I told my wife I had a friend who owns a Berkey system and he raves about how good the water tastes after he filters it.

My plan was to just buy filters and a couple of 5 gallon buckets and put together my own system. My wife didn’t like that idea. She’s afraid I’ll screw something up, and she doesn’t think 5 gallon plastic buckets will look good in the kitchen. I tried to talk her into the 6 gallon system. She wanted the 3 gallon system, and we ended up compromising with the 3 gallon system (they also make a 4.5 gallon system). She also let me spend extra money to get the optional chlorine/arsenic filters. OK. So I don’t get to say I made it myself, but at least we have a water purification system coming. I can’t wait to get it set up and see if improves the taste of our tap water.

What did YOU do to prep this week?

Peace out,
porcupine