09:09 – The weather remains unseasonably cool, with lows for the next several days in the 40’s (< 10C) and highs peaking around 68F (20C). The furnace runs occasionally, since it's set at 68F. I much prefer this weather to the hot, humid summer weather.
We transferred another 50-pound (22+ kilo) bag of white granulated sugar to PET bottles yesterday. Ordinarily, we store sugar in those square PET jars that Costco sells nuts in. One of those holds about four pounds, just enough to refill the ceramic sugar cannister that Barbara keeps on the kitchen counter. It’s mostly used for iced tea, of which Barbara makes and drinks a couple gallons a week. I use it only when I make hot tea, at about five tablespoons per pot.
We had only 11 of the nut jars available, so I decided to do something I had on my list anyway. I filled two 2-liter soft drink bottles with sugar, because I wanted to check how much would fit in that size bottle. It turns out that a 2-liter bottle filled to within an inch (2.5 cm) or so of the mouth holds 4 pounds 3 ounces (67 ounces) of granulated white sugar, or 1.90 kilo.
One of the big advantages of repackaging dry staples yourself for long-term storage is that you can label them however you wish. Those two 2-liter bottles of sugar are now labeled “Sugar, Granulated — Expires 26 April 1985”. Why date them 30 years before the packing date? Because the “authorities” have a nasty tendency to confiscate food from “hoarders” during emergencies. It happened in the aftermath of Katrina and Sandy, and it happens regularly every time there’s a serious emergency. The cops search homes and steal any food they find, supposedly to redistribute to others who need it more than you do, but in reality probably mostly to their own families and friends.
But even cops have drunk the Kool-Aid when it comes to “best-by” dates, let alone “expiration” dates. What they want is commercially packaged foods that are within their best-by dates. There’s no way they’ll steal home-packaged foods, let alone ones that “expired” 30 years ago. Heck, even homeless shelters and food banks won’t accept donated canned goods that are past their best-by dates. So whenever we repackage food in 2-liter bottles, foil bags, and similar containers, I always label it with the contents and an “expiration date” that’s 30 years before the date we pack it.
“… I always label it with the contents and an “expiration date” that’s 30 years before the date we pack it.”
Wow, that’s an excellent tip. I might not have thought of it and I’m pretty cynical; of COURSE armed and costumed State thugs would rob us of our stored food, and whatever else they felt like taking. I guess nowadays they also spit on us and laugh that they can do whatever they want, and we better not report it or they’ll jail and kill us. How is this different from robber gangs and highwaymen of ye days of old? And what did we do with them in ye days of old?
Overcast again here today with rain showers expected, about 43 now. We may get some sun over the next few days, though, and I hope to get cracking on the raised beds again and RUTHLESSLY cleaning out our back porch. We have a big heavy farmhouse table out there and I’m kinda thinking of setting up a temporary summer workshop on it, but Mrs. OFD will probably nix that idea. OTOH, she did that for her winter workshop in our laundry area upstairs here, just outside my “office.” But I really gotta also get cracking on the attic workshop; it first involves laying down some plywood flooring and insulation, assembling the workbench and shelving, and meanwhile running electricity up there. I also intend to set up a computer workstation/radio shack operation with external and internal antennas. And maybe some shelving for hydroponic seed starting. I wanna do this before it gets too hot; we only have one window up there and it’s not enough; I’d like to put another window or vents or something in the opposite wall to get the cross-ventilation. Fans in the summer and heaters in the winter.
Anyone here ever put a new window or vents into a brick wall? I imagine I’ll have to get a masonry contractor up there.
@ofd,
I don’t know your level of comfort with carpentry, but you could look at putting in a couple of openable skylights instead of windows. Then it would be all wood work. If you did it on the back side of your house they wouldn’t even be visible from the street.
If you do add a hole in a brick wall, make sure they install a steel lintel. From watching the home disaster shows, it’s clear that this corner gets cut more often than you would think.
Another choice, that might be cheaper if masons cost a lot, is adding a small ‘mini-split’ AC/Heat unit. Some are even advanced level DIY. That presumes a finished space, and you might have something more crude in mind….
nick
“I don’t know your level of comfort with carpentry…”
Cutting boards for the raised beds and sharpening pencils.
Thanks, Mr. nick; not sure what we’re gonna do yet; it’s a fairly new roof, though. Skylights would be cool but we could also get by with something like that split AC/heat unit you mentioned in the opposite wall next to the chimney.
One thing’s for sure, though; there is no shortage of stuff to do here, from the basement to the attic and outside the building. Living room ceiling is next on the agenda, plus front and back storm doors and getting an electrician in here. Then wife wants to put up a bit of fencing and garden space in what used to be the long gravel driveway. Like I say, the to-do list is already five pages long and every time I make a tiny dent in it, more chit gets added.
I’ve also thought about adding one drop of a volatile malordorant like ethyl mercaptan. Anyone who opened a bottle would get a strong whiff, but the stuff vaporizes quickly enough that just exposing the stored food to air out would get rid of the malodorant.
I also have a stock of arsenic trioxide, which is ideal for making up bait food to poison rats of both the four- and two-legged variety. It’s an odorless and tasteless white powder. It kills reliably with gastro-intestinal symptoms that mimic gastroenteritis and do not suggest poisoning. At reasonably high doses, it disables quickly once symptoms appear, but onset of symptoms is slow enough that whoever is poisoned won’t be certain they’ve been poisoned, let alone the source.
I’ve been prep-thinking for several days on what I should store for an emergency. Natural disasters are not a concern while I’m still in Vegas. For now, I want a 30-day supply of food and water. We’ll be moving in 5 years to either Oregon or Washington (I hope). That’s where I’ll really build supplies for the long term. I’m thinking the Augason Farms survival pails and water barrels for Vegas, just in case. Add some chunky soups to round them out. Maybe canned bread and meat, also. Drought is the big thing that will kill Vegas. Flush out the defense items some more.
Of all the long-term storage vendors, I like Augason Farms the best. Their quality is very high and their prices are typically lower than the competitors (other than the LDS Home Storage Centers on the stuff they carry). If you get the Augason Farms stuff from Walmart, it’s cheaper still.
That said, I’d recommend you steer clear of any x-person/y-day pail or package unless you look at the actual contents and think about it. Then, if you still want to do it, order a small amount of representative items individually and try them. Almost anyone is better off just keeping a 30-day supply of mostly canned/foil-pouched stuff from Costco/Sam’s. Those foods are much more familiar and tastier than the stuff in pails. Cheaper, too.
In the LV climate, I’d store at least 2 gallons/person/day, and more would be better. As you know, 100+ temperatures and <10% RH can just suck the water out of a person, even staying in the shade and not doing physical work.
“At reasonably high doses, it disables quickly once symptoms appear, but onset of symptoms is slow enough that whoever is poisoned won’t be certain they’ve been poisoned, let alone the source.”
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Victorian-Poisoners/
http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Famous-Poisoners-120566.html
Will Dr. Bob make the list?
I’d never use arsenic under normal circumstances. It’s too easy to detect, which is probably why it went out of style so quickly once James Marsh devised his eponymous test back in 1836. For the next 100 years, just about anyone who killed with arsenic was caught, because the first thing anyone did when poisoning was suspected/possible was run a Marsh Test.
Then a funny thing happened. Arsenic had become so uncommon as a murder weapon that forensic examiners pretty much stopped testing for it. If you don’t look for something, you won’t find it.
Two two famous women serial killers in North Carolina–Velma Barfield and Blanche Taylor Moore–each killed many people with arsenic over a span of decades. They got away with it because no one ever thought to look for arsenic. One of them was caught because a nurse at Baptist Hospital here in Winston-Salem commented to the physician who was treating one of the victims for severe gastroenteritis that she wondered if the patient had been poisoned with arsenic. Sure enough, that was it, and the whole house of cards collapsed.
I’m not saying what I’d use because it’s undetectable even if someone thinks to look specifically for it, and it wouldn’t be socially responsible for me to reveal its identity. (No, it’s not aconitine, although that’s a pretty damned good choice; just not 100% undetectable with instrumental analysis.) Google has no mention of using it for homicidal purposes, so I’m not going to tell them.
Looks like Baltimore is getting ready to burn tonight.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-27/baltimore-protests-escalate-officers-injured-%E2%80%94-live-feed
Some people trapped in library. CVS being looted.
Why would anyone want to carry a gun to the convenience store?
Why would anyone want to carry a gun to the library?
Wellllll………
(my latin is rusty, but q.v. Baltimore )
nick
RE: Poison
One of the most interesting poising cases I heard about was where they threw radioactive powder on someone (I suppose you could put it on their bedding too). It can take days for symptoms to appear and then the subject is likely dead before anyone realizes they have radiation poisoning. Even if they do realize it, it’s incurable and the poisoner is long gone (assuming it’s not the spouse).
BTX would work too. They’d just assume the person ate some bad food.
RE: Baltimore
I’ve never lived there so I have no firsthand knowledge, but from what I’ve heard… Baltimore is a real cesspool anyway. It’s sort of like DC and a few other East Coast metro areas. Its crime problem doesn’t get the MSM attention that LA, Chicago, and NYC do but has a much worse violent crime problem.
Cop car on fire, CVS will be burning soon is my guess. And it’s still light out. After dark it should be getting sporty.
nick
My attitude on being armed is, I’m never told to be disarmed for my benefit.
Information wants to be free!
“Two two famous women serial killers in North Carolina–Velma Barfield and Blanche Taylor Moore…”
Velma’s last meal was a bag of Cheez Doodles and a Coke. Gee whiz, Velma, you couldn’t do better than that? Someone tried to claim she had multiple personalities but the judge didn’t buy it; he said ‘one of them did it’ and that was that. Blanche mighta been kinda hot when she was younger. She hasn’t been whacked yet and “writes poetry” now. Everyone’s a poet, doncha know.
“… it wouldn’t be socially responsible for me to reveal its identity.”
Plus you may have to employ it at some point; I suggest extensive testing in Mordor first.
Baltimore? Where “scraggly white commies” are being bused in to foment and instigate shit? Per SOP. This could make Ferguson, which still has never really settled down (and summer’s coming!) look like a picnic at the beach. Half a million African-Murkans there and a very nasty and violent crime town.
Where the mayor sez they’re keeping the lid on by giving the rioters “space” to destroy shit. That’s a new one on me, gotta say. You can bet your ass, though, that if some white biz owner defends his store with lethal force, they’ll send in SWAT tanks and helicopters to blow him up or arrest him for the usual commie show trial.
Damn, I’ll have to turn on the tee-vee tonight; it hasn’t been on at all for WEEKS. The Sportsman Channel has their gun shows on tonight from 8:30 on and I might give them another chance; I kinda soured on them previously ’cause it was a lotta blatant ads for products, surprise! Then I can switch back and forth between the libturd nooz and the bozos at the Fox Network for boffo laffs.
I watch most of the Sportsman Channel gun shows, at least the ones not focused on hunting. They are almost purely product placement. It’s not douche and cake mix though, it’s guns and bullets! Best Defense and Shooting USA do the best at keeping the things separated. Guns and Ammo is the worst. Still, I’d watch gun commercials if I had to. (I have Tivo, so I don’t watch commercials in general. Product placement is the only way for them to get to me.)
I wouldn’t count on seeing any of the rioting on tv. I was watching fergie live and the lies kept up LONG after they were contradicted by the video. Expect to hear “it’s not the protesters. It’s a few criminals.” Tell me what difference it makes if your property is burned down by one criminal or 10 protesters?
nick
Well, that’s easy! One criminal would be mostly pretty quiet about it, get in, do the thing, get out. Ten protesters would be hollerin’ at ya and makin’ a lotta dam noise while they did it. Probably also blastin’ hip-hop trash at the same time.
So Fox wasn’t showing rioting footage, either? Wow. Do we have NO ONE??? I oughta fly down there and start recording footage with my Kindle. Except Maryland would want me to be totally unarmed, of course, so the hell with that idea.
Ref statement above.
Re: food storage in reclaimed 2L bottles. How do they compare vs. the 1/2 gallon and 1 gallon jugs that milk & orange juice are typically sold in?
The Baltimore CVS Pharmacy that was looted earlier is now on fire.
The “community” is just doing what the Mayor told them to do.
So, gee whiz, that pharmacy chain store will be gone, along with the local franchise manager’s job and his staff, plus the pharmacists and their assistants, plus the cashiers and stockboys and grrls. Money spent on their pay and bennies that would have been spent in the community will be gone. Services and products that normal citizens need will be gone. Nice work, commies!
This will all be Whitey’s fault, of course, the greed and exploitation, etc, etc.
And the original relatively peaceful protest over the rotten and brutal treatment of the kid in the police wagon will now be overshadowed by all the mayhem to come.
Two issues:
1. The type of plastic. Thickness for thickness, PET (PETE; polyethylene terephthalate) is about one tenth as permeable to oxygen and water vapor as LDPE, HDPE, or PP, so you definitely want PET for food storage. When you use an oxygen absorber in a PET bottle, it sucks out the oxygen and dents in the bottle. When you use one in a LDPE/HDPE/PP bottle, it sucks out the oxygen and dents in the bottle, which then allows outside air to equilibrate the pressure.
2. Cleanliness. It’s extremely difficult to entirely remove residues of dairy products or juice from any plastic bottle.
Stick with PET soft drink bottles. Nothing else is nearly as good.
Cleanliness. It’s extremely difficult to entirely remove residues of dairy products or juice from any plastic bottle.
Sulfuric acid? Did you want to use the bottle after cleaning?
I read the MD Gov is sending in NG. I wonder if they will have ax handles or bullets. Probably send in the least trained troops, locked and loaded. What could go wrong?
they just announced NG will be in up armored hmmmmvs and “larger equipment”. They “will be carrying their weapons and able to defend themselves. ” But it’s specifically NOT martial law. According to the Adj Gen.
Another big fire is burning.
nick
This is once again mainly the fault of outside agitators bused in, or arriving in limos, like the Reverends Sharpless and Jackwagon. They need to be identified, picked out and locked up for incitement to riot, disturbing the peace, etc, and as accessories to whatever crimes occur, including theft, assault, rape, and murder. But the gummint won’t do that, will they? They’ll sooner lock up any residents or business owners who have the unmitigated gall and effrontery to defend themselves and their property.
I wonder if they’re Maryland NG troops; if the regime is clever they’ll roll in NG troops from some other faraway state. I also wonder how many special operators are on-site right now as snipers and counter-snipers and radio comm/intel guys. Remember that they can be used a couple of different ways; as legit defenders and as agents provocateurs.
Say, this may have already come up as a topic here; what’s the best way to repack and store rice, beans, pasta, flour, etc.? In a stone and cement basement where we have to keep a dehumidifier running?
In case you thought Obama had a monopoly on fatuous pronouncements, think again.
Most of it was fatuous but I don’t have much of a quarrel with this part of it:
“…the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.”
Because that is pretty much exactly how it’s gone down for the past half-century. My dad could make $13,000 a year back in the 1960s and support a wife and five kids with a house and car and the three hots and cots, plus toyz at Xmas and birthdays. Try that now on whatever the current dollar equivalent is with just one “breadwinner.”
Both spouses MUST work like donkeys now, paying half a year’s wages to taxes for shit they don’t have any idea about and wouldn’t support if they did. And they still live pay check to pay check and arcane concepts like financial independence, privacy, self-respect, and personal responsibility have been dumped by the wayside. Corruption at the highest levels is rampant and we’re treated like third-class serfs in our own country while our kids still get sent off to mindless foreign clusterfucks that solve nothing. The only people benefiting from this system are the high rollers at the top of the corporate fascist oligarchy and the minions who support them and enforce their ever-burgeoning plethora of laws, regulations and ordinances that make all of us criminals.
Obola has only ratcheted up the continued destruction that has come down through all his predecessors, including the Holy Repub Saviors who got us nothing and repeatedly stabbed us in the back, and in any case these WH figurehead clowns just do what they’re told.
Baltimore is probably the dress rehearsal for both sides of the mob versus costumed gummint thugs war that’s coming hot and heavy this summer and in the years to come.
“Baltimore is probably the dress rehearsal for both sides of the mob versus costumed gummint thugs war that’s coming hot and heavy this summer and in the years to come.”
I think you got that right.
A third party is being exhorted to get their COMINT on too, as well as observing tactics, doctrine, and organization. When they lose the faith of the rest of us, some folks will be ready. At least, that’s what the interweb warriors are claiming.
Me, I’m getting my predictive sense honed. I had the car fires and the first building fire dead on. Having seen a couple with my own eyes, and now a few thru the magic box, I’m getting a pretty good feel for it. Might end up with a skill that can save my life….
nick
“A third party is being exhorted to get their COMINT on too, as well as observing tactics, doctrine, and organization. ”
Which I’ve been following and taking extensive notes from. There is MUCH going on now, with some elements ditching the net for meatspace and older technologies, such as tube radios and manual typewriters. Muzzleloaders and flintlocks fun to play with and store aside in case the future really IS pretty grim, but on the whole, they’re hanging on to modern firearms and associated gear. Flintlocks suck against Ma Deuce and SAWs.
Our predictive senses are getting honed pretty good by now, it seems; all one has to do is watch and wait, know some history, and use common sense. While always asking: Cui bono?
And remembering that page from the Mr. SteveF playbook: if a political leadership was actively setting about the destruction of a country and its culture and a civilization, how would this one be going about it any differently?
The price of gas at the local Shell may be dropping but food prices are still up, the $20 trillion debt keeps rising, Default beckons, and our Grid and national infrastructure are wide open for extreme mischief. And this is all without any wild and crazy huge natural events or terrorists (or our own government) lighting off dirty nukes in Murkan cities. Any combination of two or more factors like this would be enough to send the country into Chaos writ large. And our political leadership can be counted on to first panic, and then do the exactly wrong things which will make everything worse on a geometric scale.
Little holes in a brick wall, sure. Big holes – best to call an expert, because there could be structural issues.
If you’re putting this in the attic, are you only planning on doing small stuff? I would worry about access, if you will be doing any larger projects. Carrying big, heavy stuff up and down steep attic stairs is no fun, and we ain’t gettin’ any younger.
OTOH an attic is ideal for radio and computer stuff.
Assuming you can keep the humidity low enough to prevent rusting, my first choice would be keeping dry staples in #10 cans available at the LDS Home Storage Centers. Second choice, which is also considerably less expensive than #1, is to dry-pack them yourself in the 7-mil foil-laminate bags with oxygen absorbers, both of which are available on-line from the LDS store. Third choice, clean 2-liter soft drink bottles with oxygen absorbers for all except the sugar, which doesn’t need them. If you go with #2 or #3, make sure the containers are protected against rodent damage.
Two liter bottles seem much more convenient that the foil laminate pouch method. Is the foil laminate pouch method worth the extra trouble? I could put a lot of stuff in two liter bottles for the cost of a heat sealer.
The 7-mil foil-laminate gallon bags provide a better oxygen/moisture barrier than the 2-liter bottles, and are also opaque to protect stored food from light. Purchased in quantity 250, the foil bags are $0.50 each, including the cost of the oxygen absorber, so call it $0.30 to store 2 liters in bags versus about $0.12 each (for the oxygen absorber) for 2-liter bottles. But the bags are wide-mouth, which matters for storing some stuff. Try fitting macaroni into a 2-liter bottle, for example.
As to shelf life, the real answer is that no one knows. LDS says the shelf life of most of the items they sell in #10 cans is 30 years, but that’s almost certainly extremely pessimistic. White rice, sugar, oats, wheat berries, etc. aren’t going to age noticeably in #10 cans, assuming they don’t rust through or suffer other damage. I’d guess those dry staples will be just as good 100 years from now as they are now.
LDS rates other stuff as having shorter shelf-lives. Instant dry milk in foil bags is rated at 20 years, and white flour in #10 cans at 10 years. Again, I suspect both of those are very conservative. If you want to play it safe, I’d take the LDS numbers as reasonable for stuff in #10 cans and foil-laminate bags, and assume that stuff packed in 2-liter bottles with oxygen absorbers has half that shelf life, again assuming you protect the bags and bottles from rodent damage.
Think seriously about what you want to store, and how much. For example, we store no wheat berries at all, despite their 30-year rated shelf-life. Instead, we store white flour, with a 10-year rated shelf-life. Barbara and I don’t eat much whole wheat stuff, and grinding wheat berries is a pain in the ass even with an electric grinder, let alone with a manual one. You have to sit there cranking and cranking, and after 20 minutes of that you end up with a cup of whole-wheat flour.
The white flour in #10 cans from the LDS HSC costs $3.05 per 4-pound can, or $0.76/pound. That’s cheap enough that I’ll just buy several cases of it every few years and discard the old stuff. (Well, actually I’ll keep the old stuff too, which I’m pretty sure will be just fine after 20 or 30 years or more.) Or I can go to Costco or Sam’s and buy white general-purpose flour in 50-pound bags for $0.30 or $0.35/pound and pack it myself in 2-liter bottles.
Food, particularly dry staples, is cheap for now. That may not always be true.
Because the “authorities” have a nasty tendency to confiscate food from “hoarders” during emergencies. It happened in the aftermath of Katrina and Sandy, and it happens regularly every time there’s a serious emergency. The cops search homes and steal any food they find, supposedly to redistribute to others who need it more than you do, but in reality probably mostly to their own families and friends.
Do you have a citation for that? I’ve heard about the gun confiscation after Katrina, but not food. The only references I’ve seen are source to one video on a health foods site that says a farmer got a call from FEMA asking about his farm. There’s also a lot of speculation on prepper and black helicopter type sites, but no hard news.
I did have on-line articles from local papers that reported police and/or FEMA staff confiscating food from individual households. That was from before I started using Zotero to capture web pages, and I don’t have the URLs at hand at the moment. I’ll find them again later.
Do you have a citation for that? I’ve heard about the gun confiscation after Katrina, but not food. The only references I’ve seen are source to one video on a health foods site that says a farmer got a call from FEMA asking about his farm. There’s also a lot of speculation on prepper and black helicopter type sites, but no hard news.
Yes, I am interested in that also. Out here in the exurbs though, the officers would need to back away from the house slowly just for the guns, much less the food. Of course, if they swarm you, very bad news. I am more worried about rampaging packs of men from the inner city roaming the exurbs looking for food, guns and ammo.
“If you’re putting this in the attic, are you only planning on doing small stuff?”
Yes, firearms, radios, computers, fixing lamps, stuff like that. Any heavy stuff I need up there I’ve already hauled up, unassembled workbench, shelving, etc.
I’m pretty sure all we need are one or two adjustable vents/fans in the opposite wall from the one window, and yeah, it ain’t a DIY job, not for me, anyway.
“If you go with #2 or #3, make sure the containers are protected against rodent damage.”
Thanks for the info; I was too lazy to search back through all the relevant posts. I think we’re gonna go with the #10 cans; rodents aren’t a big problem here with three hunter cats on the premises.
I think we’re gonna go with the #10 cans; rodents aren’t a big problem here with three hunter cats on the premises.
We need to get another mouser. The 14 lb white Siamese male is just a big ball of fur when it comes to something that fights back.
Those three roof rats that I killed in the house in 2014 did quite a bit of damage. One wonders when their mates will show up.
Look for a genuine mouser at your local animal humane society; they’ll usually specify if that’s the case and other data about the cat, like whether or not it likes other cats, dogs and/or kids. If you lived way out in the sticks I’d say try to find a local farmer or rancher who has too many barn cats; they’ll mos def do the mousing thing.
“Google has no mention of using it for homicidal purposes, so I’m not going to tell them.”
If you were given a hint would you be able to prove anything?
“If you were given a hint would you be able to prove anything?”
No. That’s what I mean by “undetectable”. By the time any symptoms show up, the poison has been eliminated from the victim’s system but the damage has already been done.