Living Off the Grid

Our friends at Survival Cave Food have this to say about Living off the Grid:

Living off the grid

After a few decades of living in the US, many people begin to fantasize about living off the grid – no social media, no computers, no TV, etc. Though most people get out of their off-the-grid fantasy land, some decide to go through with it. But how do they do it?

First step is actually wanting it. Yes, we understand that you don’t want to have to pay your trash and sewer bills anymore, but is it reason enough to abandon your old life? If you have any doubts, don’t bother – you’ll start to hate all the extra work. Also, everyone thinks living off the grid is cheaper, which it is… eventually. It takes time and money to convert your power source and get all the tools and know-how you need to completely live off the grid. If you really want to live off the grid, you’ll need to know a few things.

You probably need a power system. If you want to, you can live in a shack with no electricity or running water, but most people need the basic amenities. If you want power, you have to think about where your home is going to be. If it’s in a forest, you may run into some trouble using wind power as your source because the tall trees block a lot of the wind. Trees also cause issues with solar power because they block some of the energy. Calm or cloudy days usually leave you with a  lot less power if you’re using solar or wind power systems. If you’re lucky enough to live by an all-season river or creek, you can use hydropower. To conserve power, however, you should burn wood and use propane for things like stoves and water heating. It’s a good idea to have a back-up generator around for emergencies.

You’ll definitely need a water collecting system. You’ll need a well, complete with a drilled well, water pump, and a water storage tank. You have to remember to test and treat your water often, though, because some water sources can become tainted. You may also want to invest in rain barrels for extra water, especially if you garden. If you live by a stream or river, you can collect water from there, but you must have an up-to-date purification system so you don’t drink tainted water.

Waste disposal will quickly prove important once you move off-the-grid. You need to check what the regulations are in your area, because if you violate the regulations, even while living off the grid, someone will find and fine you. Plus, if you’re doing it wrong, you’ll need to correct it because it’s not safe to dispose waste improperly. Most likely you’ll need to get a septic tank or a compost toilet, both of which require a lot of maintenance. Any waste disposal system will take a lot of maintenance.

You need transportation. Don’t think that just because you live away from modern society that you won’t someday have some sort of emergency. Whether there’s a natural disaster or a medical emergency, someday you’ll have to leave your precious home. So keep a car or at least a bike around. Camper vans are extra helpful, especially if you want to explore your surroundings more. You want to live in the wilderness, not get stuck in it.

Be prepared. Have extra food and water storage. You’re far from civilization and help is not always so easily accessible. If you are prepared and knowledgeable, then you’ll be fine. Have safety-kits, have a medical book around, and maybe even an emergency phone.

Sustainable gardening is always nice. If you live far from most grocery stores, most likely you won’t be too keen on going there too often. Or ever. So, if you want to avoid the Vons, try sustainable gardening. Growing your own food is cheaper and usually tastes better. It does take a lot of work and time, but it’s worth it in the end. If you really do it right, you can make your own ecosystem that doesn’t really need any attention from you at all.

Painting with my Daughter

During this hot and crazy summer, we often take a break from our 'disaster' planning and just concentrate on our family.  As it should be.  

My daughter Amethyst Smith asked me to do an oil painting with her. We choose a dark evening in the woods by a babbling stream... a dead tree watching over the scene. Ame painted the majority of it, and for one of her first tries it came out magnificently. I'm excited to see what she can do next. I thought I would share it with you all!

May 29th, 2013 - Wednesday - Buttermilk Biscuit Mix

May 29th, 2013 - Wednesday - Buttermilk Biscuit Mix

I've just spent the day compiling and updating all the Buttermilk Biscuit Mixes we have on www.disasternecessities.com!  We have long term food storage buttermilk biscuit mixes from Provident Pantry, Augason Farms, Saratoga Farms, and Honeyville.  So which is the best?  Well... there are, as usual many factors in deciding which is the best.  The first factor most people consider is price.  Next is Brand Name Loyalty.  Next is quality.  Next is Taste!  Another is shelf life.  

Product	Ounces	Cost / Ounce	Cost
Honeyville Bag	80	$0.12	$9.99
Saratoga Farms #10 Can	65	$0.18	$11.95
Augason Farms #10 Can	46	$0.19	$8.89
Provident Pantry #10 Can	51	$0.25	$12.95
Augason Farms Every Day Size	13	$0.41	$5.35

Based on our analysis here, the Honeyville 5 lb bag is the winner on cost.  But it only has a 1 year shelf life... so if you are really interested in long term food storage and cost is your main criteria, you would go with the Saratoga Farms Biscuit Mix in a #10 Can.  Of course, I know a lot of people who prefer the Provident Pantry brand for overall quality and taste.  You get what you pay for in many cases.

May 3rd, 2013 – Friday – Disasternecessities – Completion

May 3^rd, 2013 – Friday – Disasternecessities – Completion

Can your food storage ever be complete?  I was at a friend’s house the other day, and he gleefully pulled me downstairs into his basement and showed me the boxed stacks of #10 cans.  I recognized them as the Premium Year Supply I had sold him 5 or so years ago.   The boxes looked good, if a bit dusty.

Of course, I could have asked him a lot of questions, such as:  Where is the water?  If you have a wife and 4 kids, this Premium Supply isn’t going to last all of you a full year, so what is your plan?   Do you have fuel?  Do you have extra money in the bank?  Do you have emergency plans already written? Do you have First Aid material?

Of course… who is actually complete in their Food Storage?  Who has it all 100% taken care of?  I honestly don’t know anyone.  Who really has the full capability of surviving 365 days with their family in their home without food and water or power?  And if they really do need to survive that long, then something has gone drastically wrong in our culture, and the next question is: What do we do after the first year is up?

How prepared can we really ever be?  Speaking personally, I don’t know that we can outguess fate.  Life is almost always throwing something at us that hurts, unbalances, or surprises.  You simply can’t be prepared for everything.  It’s not possible. It’s the nature of the world. It’s the nature of our lives.

Our Food Storage plan will never be complete. 

That is just the way it is.  And while my friend had a full Premium Year supply of Food for his family, most of my friends don’t have that luxury.  They buy a few #10 cans here, a bucket of premade pouch meals there, as their time and budget allows.  A 72 Hour kit for each car, a few for the home, office.  They can survive three days of no electricity, water, and food. 

Right now we hear about the Wildfires in California, and we send out our prayers for those good people who have to get out.  This is the kind of disaster that life throws at you, and this is exactly where a 72 Hour kit is handy.  Having at least that much… is a really good idea.

It’s the best most of us can do.  And I wanted to say in this blog post, that I think that is okay.  If you look at the industry of Emergency Preppers you will see that it’s become a ‘movement’.  It’s huge. It has nice daily emails and blog posts. It has pictures.  It has celebrity endorsements.  It’s… a business.  And yet… 99% of my friends don’t have the money or time to invest in Emergency Disaster Survival Preparation at that level. 

I think we need to look at our incomplete emergency plan and do two things.   1.  Let it gently motivate us to become more prepared.  2.  Accept that it will never get fully completed.  This will allows us to begin to build our food storage up without the undo guilt of not having it complete.  We can enjoy the journey… so to speak.

Passion

Passion on Disasternecessities

Today I’m looking out into the world and seeing a lot of passion in food storage.  That is an interesting thing to me.   Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Survival, Preppers, the whole thing seems to be something that should dwell in the realm of practicality.  How exciting is a basement full of Diasternecessities Freeze Dried and Dehydrated Long Term Food Storage, right?

Sure… that 72 Hour Emergency Kit you have in your car gives you peace of mind.  And the food storage in your basement gives you peace of mind.  Especially when you have a family, and you know how volatile things are in the world.  Heck… it just snowed in the Midwest!  And that is not what we are really talking about is it?  The real concern is that 29% of the population is considering armed revolution.  THAT is scary.  Not to mention health concerns such as H7N9 in China. 

But… practicality aside, I talk with hundreds of customers a week, and more than you would ever imagine… they have PASSION for food storage.    And not just out of FEAR.  We are fearful little human creatures a lot of the time, but Emergency Storage is something some people do out of love!

How is that possible?   I am a passionate person myself, but for me, Food Storage and Emergency Disaster Prepper Survival is much more about practically taking care of my children, my wife, my extended family, and helping the world be prepared to survive in the worst circumstances.  It’s not about fear… it’s about reality.

But for some people it’s about love!  Love for their family, yes, but also a love of what they are doing.  I think sometimes it’s an expression of doing something right.  You see that in some people.  If they are going to do something, they do it with all their hearts.  They do it openly, in love, and with passion.  If it’s collecting baseball cards, or developing an emergency food storage preparedness plan… they do it with all their hearts.

I admire people like this.  They make art from life, and nothing, not even pure practicality, escapes the passion of their artful love filled lives.  When you sink deep into who you really are, and find that touch of the divine, and bring it as an offering to the world… you are fulfilling every fiber of your being.  Sure, offering love and openness is painful, and there is no guarantee of reward… in fact, it’s pretty safe to same most of the time your efforts will go unnoticed and unappreciated.  That’s what makes an artful life so special… it’s not done for reward.  It’s done because of a passion of life and a fulfillment of our personal destiny.  And if Doomsday Prepping is your passion, and your destiny, then doing it all your heart is the offering you make. 

Please share your passions with me here and on Disasternecessities.  Let’s all make life a bit more artful, even in these troubling times. 

May 1st, 2013 – Wednesday – Disaster Necessities Opinion

May has started!  It’s a cold day here in Utah, but spring is coming, and that means that Disaster Necessity Survival Emergency Preparedness slows down. Unless there is something big in the news, a crisis, most people slow their prep down in the spring and summer.  I think this is normal.  Summer is often a busy time, when we are out and about, and it also is a nice time, the weather is better, and life just seems to go by a bit more smoothly for most of us.

But it isn’t all spring and summer in reality.  We got news recently that job creation was really slow…  and that means our economic recovery is really not moving at the speed we had all hoped.  Apparently private jobs have fallen for the fifth month in a row.   In a time when our government is getting bigger and our private sector smaller… what do we do?

We can buy food storage… (we have a new Calorie Food Energy Bar page up!) but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

I know a lot of you are concerned about the current political situation over the last few years.  Who wouldn’t be?  On either side of the aisle, no one seems happy.  I think the lesson in all this is that in many ways, we don’t have much control.  We are 1 in 300 million.  That is a very small percentage.  And yes, we can join large groups, and work really hard for change… but a lot of us have families, have jobs, health problems.  What do you do in such a big world with such huge problems?

I think we have to take care of our families and ourselves.  We have to exercise, eat right, and keep our minds sharp.  Spend quality time resting, spend quality time taking it easy.  We are so tempted to get emotional upset during these times when we feel so powerless.

The message I’m sending out to you, and I would love to hear your feedback is simple: You have to take care of yourself.  Your family.  Your small local community.  The big picture is overwhelming when you look at it.  Staring up at the night sky, you see so many stars, feel so insignificant… it’s a humbling feeling.  Well…looking at our federal government, you feel the same way.  It’s humbling.  The government is huge, and both sides of the aisle are not doing much to get it under control.  And you and I and our kids and our grandkids are the ones who are going to pay for it.

So that’s why I say again, take care of yourself.  I have a saying I remind my kids, and if you know me, you’ve heard me say it before:  In 100 years… I’ll be dead.  And none of this will matter.  I say that to keep things in perspective.  My life is small, humble, and insignificant in many ways.  By accepting that, I am free of huge expectations and I instead focus on loving my family, and creating a small bit of art for them and me.  In a time when everything is so big… so scary… my advice is to take a deep breath, relax, and avoid the temptation to get too worked up over it all… enjoy this day that you have and relax into it.  Your gifts and offerings as a human will come through in small but beautiful ways if you free of the emotional grasp of big government economic fears.

Spring is here.  Summer is coming. Enjoy it with all your heart.

Honeyville Emergency Food Storage Supplies: Whole Grains: Barley Flakes

Disaster Necessities presents our locally milled whole grain food storage Barley Flakes in a 50lb bag.  We use only the best barley available, not accepting lesser quality to make things cheaper.  The entire food storage emergency survival movement began with whole grains, for making bread, pasta, and cereals.  Whole Grain Barley Flakes are high in fiber and low in sodium, not to mention being very low in cholesterol free and low in fat.  Being nutritious with antioxidants and containing vitamins and minerals, Barley Flakes are a must for emergency food storage.  Eight essential amino acids are found in Barley.  We use them to make cookies and breads, soups, and stews.   These barley flakes should be stored in a cool, dry place, like most food storage, and has as shelf life of 1 year.

Barley is a major whole cereal grain and one of the first ever domesticated by humans.  Barely is also a major component in making beer.

Barley DOES contain Gluten, and is thus not suitable for those who require Gluten-Free foods because of celiac disease.
 
 



This Honeyville Barley Flakes Whole Grain Food Storage ships flat rat via UPS for $4.49 anywhere in the continental US.  Call for special pricing on large quantities!