Daily Briefing for Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Don't Be An AGAR

I have a new acronym for you: AGAR.  I hadn't heard of this one until yesterday, when a friend who an Army Reservist shared it with me.  AGARs refer to those civilians who do not have a means to leave an disaster area and thus must be relocated using government or charitable organization assets.  They have not the means, the plans, nor the ability to seek the aid of better prepared citizens to help them in their time of need.

AGAR stands for "Ain't Got A Ride."

We learned during the Hurricane Katrina debacle that there were a lot of AGARs in New Orleans.  As I have commented here in the past, I find it astounding that a citizenry in a city that everyone knew was a flood risk - the cemetaries are covered with above ground tombs - collectively had so little in the way of planning or ability to get themselves out of harm's way.  If your city looked like this, wouldn't you have a plan to get out of town if things started looking bad?

I can speculate as to why that is, and in doing so I'd probably upset some people.  But that's not my point for bringing this up. 

If you're preparing for emergencies, you need to work the AGAR factor into your prepping calculus.  AGARs will put an extra burden on limited government and charitable organization resources.  They will seek your help in getting them out of harm's way, providing them with food and shelter, cash, clothing, and whatever else they need.  Many of them will resort to crime, either in an earnest effort to feed their family during a catastrophic emergency or simply for the sheer hell of it.

Some random thoughts:

• Prepare for people who will earnestly need your help.  I'm not really good about determining what the best practices are for doing so (How much extra food do I store for charity?  How many extra people would I take in during an emergency?), but any preparations we make here are better than none. 
• Do NOT plan on relying on the government for anything.  And I'm not being critical about the government when I say that, believe it or not.  With tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people needing the most basic services post-Katrina, the government will have its hands full.  The more you can do for yourself, the better off you will be.
• Think about those tough conversations now, and get your family to think about them, too.  If one of my fourteen year old step daughter's "besties" and her family show up at our house needing help, what will our response be?  Can I tell my stepdaughter we simply can't accommodate them?  And if we do, am I going to be resentful about having to feed, shelter and protect a family that I'm quite sure spent the last few years thinking I was a freaking lunatic for wanting to be ready for the emergency from which that same family now seeks refuge in my home?  This may sound odd, but I challenge you to put yourself through that mental exercise.  It's not fun.  At all.
• As I mentioned last Wednesday, the sooner you find like-minded people around you, the better off you will be. 

Don't be an AGAR.

Daily Briefing for Monday, May 21, 2012

Yeast Beast

A number of you emailed or called to diagnose my yeast problem (hahaha...I just said I have a "yeast problem.") from Sunday's bread baking adventure.  Sure enough, it wasn't the yeast...it was my poor technique.  I used much cooler water this evening and dissolved the sugar into the water before putting the yeast in, and presto...an hour later came home to this.  (Actually, it was much taller when I first saw it; I took this picture about 90 minutes after I'd put the yeast in.)

The lesson here - learn these things now when the stakes are low.  My next effort will most certainly go smoother than Sunday's. 


The Top 50 Reasons For Not Prepping

I always liked listening to Paul Simon sing when I was a little kid.  His smooth, melodic voice and easy to understand lyrics were great for learning to sing along.  In 1975, his hit "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover" went gold a year later.  I loved singing that song when I was little.

This link reminded me of that song.  Read up on fifty common reasons you hear from people as to why they don't prepare for possible emergencies they may face.  Numbers 33 and 37 are my favorites.

You need to understand why others don't prep.  Hopefully, it will help you correct their mindset and get them to thinking about steps they can take to be better prepared.

Daily Briefing for Sunday, May 20, 2012

Kendel Has Her Cooking Classes.  I Have Mine.

Thanks to the miracle of cell phone texting, Kendel and I have been keeping in touch on her activities on her first day in France.  So far, she hasn't seen any riots or civil commotion, but it's early in the trip.

She'll be in class tomorrow, learning French cooking (or doing some work for the CIA).  Since she is learning some new cooking skills, last night I decided I, too, should do the same.  And so today I baked bread in my solar oven.

I found a recipe on line, especially formulated for baking in a solar oven.  Here's what I did:

Foolproof Whole Wheat Bread

2 tablespoons dry yeast

5 cups hot water

2/3 cup oil

12 cups whole wheat flour (or 7 cups whole wheat flour & 5 cups white flour)

1/2 cup warm water

2 tablespoons salt

2/3 cup honey or sugar

Sprinkle yeast into 1/2 cup warm water.  Let stand 10-15 minutes.  Add 1 tablespoon sugar.  Combine the remaining 4 1/2 cups hot water with 7 cups whole wheat flour in a large bowl.  Add salt, oil and honey or sugar.  Continue mixing until well blended.  Add 1 cup flour to mixture.  Add prepared yeast to mixture and blend thoroughly.  Add 3 to 4 more cups of flour.

Knead for 10 minutes or until there is a consistency like cookie dough.  A stickier dough will result in moister bread.

Oil hands and divide dough into 4 parts.  Mold into loaves on oiled counter.  Place in oiled pans.  Oil top of loaves if soft crust is desired.

Cover loaves with damp cloth and let rise 1/3 in bulk.

Place loaf pans in dark pans with lids, or insert an empty loaf pan on top of each loaf of dough.  Cover.  Place in solar oven by 11 a.m.  Cook 2 1/2 hours.

I chose this recipe namely because of the title - "Foolproof" bread.  Given my skill level at baking bread (an EZ-bake oven would be challenging to me), I wanted something simple.  And to make it even easier, I cut the recipe in half so I wouldn't have to grind 12 cups of flour.

I ground the flour myself last night, using hard white wheat and a grinder I purchased from Emergency Essentials.  This is what it looked like in the kitchen last night:

This morning, I skipped church (but listened to a great podcast from Dr. Charles Stanley, pastor at First Baptist in Atlanta, while on a morning walk) and made the bread. 

Making the bread was very easy - easier than I thought it would be, in fact.  However the end product, below, was a bit short of my expectations:



I knew there was a problem when it didn't rise after 30 minutes from forming the loaves.  I put it in the oven anyway, leaving in there for 90 minutes.  The temperature fluctuated between 250 and 300 degrees, due to the cumulus cloud deck hanging over Austin today.

Taste wise, it's pretty good.  It's very moist, which I like, but it's also very dense.  I gather that's a function of the fact the bread didn't rise.  The yeast was still well before its "best by" date, so I am not sure what I did wrong (or if there were other factors beyond my control.) 

I give my efforts a grade of C+.  The bread is edible and tastes good.  In a power outage, I'd be thrilled to have this as part of a meal.   It could be better, however, and I will work on trying to figure out how to improve it.

One final thing I want to point out to you - other than using the microwave to heat up the water (which I could have easily done in the solar oven, as it does that very well), I used no electricity in any part of the process.  I used a hand grinder to make the flour, I kneaded the dough by hand, and baked it using the sun.  If we were to unplug the house from the grid tomorrow, I could make this again with about an hour's worth of my time.  And I suspect I could get much faster and more efficient at baking bread in the solar oven with a little practice. 

I learned to make bread in a solar oven today.  It may not be the most exciting thing I could have done on a Sunday, but it did greatly increase my confidence in the ability of the solar oven to prepare food when it really counts.







Daily Briefing for Saturday, May 19, 2012

Kendel Reporting On Location

As I type this, Kendel's flight from Atlanta to an undisclosed location in France is rolling down the runway.  Ostensibly, she is there on vacation at a cooking school and to visit some of her employees in Amsterdam later this month.  In between checking work emails and doing shots of Grey Poupon, she'll be reporting on any rioting/civil unrest/financial intel she gleans while traveling in western Europe over the next two weeks. 

And I suspect she's on the safest flight to France this year: one of the passengers is none other than former President Jimmy Carter and an entourage of Secret Service guys.  No word from Kendel if there are any Columbian hookers on board.  See the pic she snapped just before take-off:

Hurricane Season Begins Early This Year

This morning, I received a Code Paul text from Clifford advising me of a tropical system forming off of the coast of South Carolina.  This afternoon, the National Hurricane Center began issuing advisories for Tropical Storm Alberto, the first named storm of the 2012 year.  Storm season begins officially on June 1.

More On The Bug Out/Shelter In Place Decision Tree

One reader shared this link they created, making the case for bugging out to a rural area in times of emergency. 

Daily Briefing For Thursday, May 17, 2012

You Have To Bug Out, Right?

John the Banker posed a question to me last night which I'm surprised I haven't thought to address before now.  If you live in an urban or suburban area, must you leave those areas for a more rural area to maximize your ability to live comfortably during some sort of extended crisis?

Notwithstanding the fine writings of Jim Rawles on this subject, other authors have reached different conclusions.  History is complete with stories of how millions of people have survived in urban and suburban areas during times of crisis.  I highly recommend Ragnar's Urban Survival as a good overview on the challenges and advantages of sheltering in place in a suburban or urban environment during an emergency. 

Bugging out means you have a place to go.  Having a place to go means you have a place worth going to.  Having a place worth going to means you've spent significant resources - time and money - creating a safe location, stocked with food and other supplies, where everything is in good working order.  Spending significant resources means you'll have fewer resources to spend on other necessities in life. 

I would challenge you to think about the need to bug out when the time comes.  I would submit if you do a thorough analysis, many of us will find we can shelter in place in our homes with more success than we realize.


Solar Technology Up, Prices Down

Regardless of whether you intend to bug out or shelter in place, you can count on your solar energy preparations costing you less.  During the short breaks between CNBC's breathless coverage of the Facebook IPO today, their website ran this story discussing the fact that a) solar panels today are more efficient and b) cheaper, thanks to advances in technology.  Solar will continue to grow in popularity.  I'm hoping Jerid can help me learn how to use my solar power system this summer.  (It's fallen $50 in price since I bought it last year.)

Daily Briefing for Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Thoughts From One Of You People

Below, you'll find an email from a neighbor (call sign Stone Cold Steve Austin) on some of his preparedness efforts and recent sources of news and information.  When I asked his permission to share it with you, he graciously agreed, with this caveat:

However, you may wish to preface or talk about how prepping affects the household budget.    I haven't yet "bought in" fully to prepping as of yet.

Most of the outlay so far could be written off under "Other hobbies", etc. (Reading, camping, shooting).    But food prep can get really expensive in a hurry.

Watching some of the people on "Doomsday Preppers" shows how far some people are going as far as armament, bug out vehicles, and bug out locations.

But reading some of these books are eye-opening as far as what D-Day scenarios one might expect to encounter.   

Fair enough.

SCSA is a suburban dad just like me.  He has a professional career, a wife and son, and a home a few hundred yards away from me.  He's also a former CHL student of mine, having sat through my very first class as an instructor.  A few years back, we were visiting at our local grocery store and discussing national events, citing news stories from many of the same sources.   That's when I knew he was "on frequency" with me so to speak. 

He's made a lot of progress in developing a preparedness mindset.  As you can see below, he believes in doing his homework in order to educate himself on the risks that we face.

His caveat above resonates with many in the preparedness community.  This can be an expensive endeavor, especially when we think about laying in some food stores for an extended period.  If you choose your defensive weapons carefully and realistically, the food bill for a long term storage plan will even exceed what you've spent on guns and ammo.

One final thought: I take great comfort knowing that there are people like him - paying attention, preparing himself and his family, being proactive, not content on letting the collective "them" take care of any problems that might arise in the future - in close proximity to me.  His wife and my wife are good friends as well.  In a crisis situation, I know he's someone my family can count on.  I hope he feels the same way about us.

Get out and meet your neighbors.  Look for people who are on frequency with you.

************

Paul,

How's it going, lately.   Keeping busy with the CHL classes, and life, I bet.    I have been following your blog posts and meant to forward a couple links to you, earlier.

I was waiting for some time to put this together and it's now a month later.    Oh well, better late than never.  You might find them interesting if you haven't seen them by now.

A new one:

Gangs at Shooting Ranges

Some (now) old ones:

Gun Engine Info on Democratic plans after 2012
FFL Grandfathering Kits

In addition, I have been busy reading a bunch of fiction books for both entertainment and educational purposes.   

They all have to do with various SHTF scenarios and introduce the readers to different prepping and survivalist issues that people may run into.

Reading Now:

Half Past Midnight - Jeff Brackett   (EMP and nuclear strike)

Finished:

77 Days in September : Ray Gorham  (EMP strike)

Apocalypse Law  : John Grit  (Pandemic scenario)

Apocalypse Law 2 : John Grit             "

Hunter - After the Fall : John Phillip Backus  (Post world war life)

Others in the genre that Amazon Recommends:

Dark Grid :  David C. Waldron

Desparate Times : Nicholas Antinozzi  (Books 1, 2, and 3)

Lights Out - David Crawford

I am trying to get in the mood to do some prepping other than getting guns, ammo, and camping gear together.

I think I need to come up with a plan and a bug out location first, however.

I did get that AK-47 style Saiga (IZ 132), but as I may have mentioned, I think it needs about a $200-250 conversion to move it from the Sporter model back to the original AK-47 trigger 

configuration and to take run-of-the-mill steel magazines.    I still haven't taken it to the range yet.

 I have been shopping for an AR-15 (.223) or AR-10 style (.308) gun.  Unfortunately, the more I have been educating myself the better my taste has become.  

I am now up to lusting after a $1750.00 (.308) weapon.   It may take awhile, but I want to get *something* before the election.   Maybe a $700 (.223) Bushmaster.

The SDS blog has been great and entertaining reading.   Keep up the good work.

Daily Briefing for Sunday, May 13, 2012

Grid Down Food Prep - Using Stored Foods and a Solar Oven

This was my very first attempt at shooting and narrating video.  Please forgive the poor production and editing quality.  I will try to get better at this in the future.  Hopefully this will help explain a little more what I've been talking about in prior blog posts.