Emergency Preparedness

Many preppers have at least one designated bug out location. They may not have a full retreat set up but they at least have a place they plan to go if/when staying home just isn’t an option. A large number of these preppers plan to augment their food supplies by hunting, fishing, and possibly trapping.

Plan ahead to make food acquisition easier!

You should already have a good idea of the types of wildlife that lives in the area. Do some work now to attract the critters so you won’t have to work so hard to find them later.

Some time ago, we talked about guerrilla gardening. Use this same idea of deliberately planting edibles out in the sticks to attract potential food sources.

For example, many animals will routinely visit berry bushes. Plant a few here and there and invite them to snack.

Routinely scatter birdseed here and there to attract our feathered friends. Set up feeders as well. Do the same with squirrel feeders and try to keep them reasonably stocked with corn and such.

Learn what the local critters like to eat and set them up for a feast.

You should be visiting your bug out location on a regular basis anyway, right? Might as well take just a little time during each visit to make the place more inviting for future dinner guests.

I’m in the middle of reading The Unofficial Hunger Games Wilderness Survival Guide by Creek Stewart. As those who read the Hunger Games trilogy know, there is a fair amount of survival knowledge and lore hidden amidst the drama. In this book, Creek, a noted survival expert, pulls from the trilogy these little tidbits of knowledge and expands upon them, explaining how it works in the real world.

Today, I wanted to highlight one of these bits of knowledge. One item that should be present in all of your survival kits is a sheet of plastic. Tarps are heavy and cumbersome but a sheet of heavy duty plastic, say 3 feet square, won’t take up much room nor weigh a ton. Yet, for the small size and weight, having it will prove to be handy in many ways.

For starters, you can lay it on damp ground for a place to sit. If you’ve ever been out in the field and sat down on wet ground, you know well just how cold your butt gets in short order. A 3 foot square won’t be enough to lie down on for the night but it is plenty of space to sit and rest your legs.

Suspending it above you will keep the rain off. Again, not enough to really cover your whole body but if you’re sitting in a shelter, it will prevent you from getting soaked. To tie it off to something, take a small rock and put in a corner of the plastic. Roll the corner over the rock a couple times, then tie your cordage to it. Repeat with the other corners as necessary.

If you don’t have any large containers for water storage, dig a hole and line it with the plastic. It might not be transportable that way but you’ll have a supply of H2O with you in camp.

A solar still could be made if you do have a container to use for the water.

Roll up your wet clothing and wrap it in the plastic to keep the rest of your gear dry until you reach camp.

So many uses for this inexpensive piece of kit!

There are two main reasons why you’d want to set up a cache or two. First, it is to hide items you want reasonably accessible but not in the home. For example, you have a few firearms you want to keep out of reach of young children. The second reason is to set up locations where you can resupply yourself if you’re on the move, such as during a bug out.

Caches are a great idea, if they are located properly.

If you’re out in a rural area, setting up a cache can be as easy as digging a hole. As long as you’re off the beaten path, the odds of someone stumbling across it even with a metal detector are fairly remote. Caching in an urban area though requires some creative thinking. It can be more difficult than rural caching in that there is a higher degree of risk of you either being seen planting the cache or that someone else may happen across it.

One suggestion would be to install a fake utility box on the outside of a building and use it for a cache. Add a padlock and your stuff should be reasonably safe.

If you work in an office environment, what about stashing some stuff in the drop ceiling of the bathroom?

Burying caches at a public park is possible but probably illegal, keep that in mind.

If you’re looking to keep the cache closer to home, you could bury it under your rain barrel or even your sidewalk.

Urban caching may be a bit more difficult but it certainly isn’t impossible.