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[casca-503]

bring   on   the   "  Crisco "   /   shades   of   my   grand-mothers   &    mothers   kitchens.....

[slidemansailor]

travel kits

How many examples have you heard or read about where people slid off the road in the winter and had so survive (or not) days before being rescued? … or walking out to rescue? How many of these tales before you actually prepare to land on the side of “survived” rather than “perished”?

I finally had enough. Today I began reviewing what I had set up and was using, or not using. Completely inadequate was the early conclusion. I had lots of pieces kinda-sorta geared up, but I wasn’t even using the bits I had. My get home bag was always home, even when I was not. My winter slide-off, survive a below freezing winter night bag also stayed home except for special occasions.

Need does not wait until you are prepared for it.

Today I got serious, set up a big table in my studio and shredded my four semi-coherent kits, reorganizing into a rational setup that will be convenient to use and, therefore be there when I need them.

https://www.bitterrootbugle.com/2019/01/15/travel-kits/

[Who...me?]

Yes always important to have a winter kit to add to your normal get home kit. I have a duffle bag with insulated bibs, Carhart coat, hat gloves and my Muck boots I throw in the car in the winter.

[slidemansailor]

I did my 5th turn as comms support coordinator for the Darby Dog Derby dog-sled and skijour races January 19-20.  We learn every year from this ... and are getting pretty good at it. 

This year a two-person operator/traffic-logger set the GMRS repeater up in a high spot overlooking the 25-mile course. They could tell us at any time which teams had passed which checkpoints. 

Comms were excellent. No dead spots anywhere ... except for the antique batteries on our very robust ex-federal radios.  I will have either a complete set of NEW batteries or complete set of new radios before I deploy either of our "Event Repeaters" again.

The whole story: https://www.bitterrootbugle.com/2019/01/22/darby-dog-derby-2019-review/

The dog derby gives us an opportunity to test our Event Repeater. Real events may not be on a nice summer afternoon. Testing in winter conditions is harder on men and equipment. Good for me and others to show us what we need to work on for any kind of winter deployments.

[slidemansailor]

Definitely some amateur radio overlap, but the most exciting part for me is that I got a comms network up.

The BEARS (Bitterroot Emergency Amateur Radio Services) group is a small working group of mostly radio guys. Technologically I hang on by my fingernails in this company, but am an organizer, a real one. So I run the meetings without title... this is a rather organic group.  I am a good cat herder. I like driving the bus from the middle row.

I have worked the radio geeks in order to determine best ways to provide EMCOM when the phones and Internet fail us.

We were betting everything on VHF and UHF repeaters (our radios hit the repeaters who retransmit with greater power from better locations). Not a bad bet, but all your eggs in one basket ...

At our last two monthly BEARS meetings blasting ham radio signals straight up for the Ionosphere to reflect straight back down turned out to be the ideal short-range backup-comms plan. So I ran with it.

I spent a few days building an antenna that specialized in that mode. Today I sent an e-mail reminder to all BEARS and the more social-ham-focused club (much bigger audience) that we were going to work this mode. Tonight 8 of us were on the air that way.  That, folks, is a quorum.  It gets better from here.

[slidemansailor]

Somethimes the little things are big things...
The north side of our house was becoming a glacier. Two feet of snow with two feet of roof slideoff thawing and re-freezing was more than I could handle. It had become an unmanageable threat to melt and flood our occupied basement.

Not SHTF-proof, but I now have a snow blower and an ATV with plow to maintain the driveway, walkways to shop and firewood storage and such. Far more than even a young man could do by hand. But I had fallen behind on the north side... with no resolution in sight.

Enter Stage Left: two Mormon missionairies volunteering to help with no strings attached. They shoveled and broke the crust into pieces my snow blower could handle. We cleared the entire north side glacier today.  Cost me a few bowls of chili, cornbread and such... and I don't have to go to church.

I vow to not get behind again. We will see how that goes.

[Who...me?]

Nice to get a helping hand now and again. It does seem easy to get behind a little that suddenly turns into behind a lot. 

[slidemansailor]

I am not 'into' numerology or satanism, but do recognize the 666 number as an important one to those who are. I am thus amused that this thread has 666,nnn views.  It won't last long before it breaks through that interesting number, but I am amused that it got there.

[slidemansailor]

We are 1.5 years into our new homestead. Two years is my magic number after which I am supposed to transition from "urgent mode" to "important".  I finally got my magazine closet organized with some new shelving and lots of stirring around.

Whoah!  7.62x39 is dirt cheap and I have hardly any of it! 

There are several mail-order houses who do right by us in this situation. Twenty cents a round is hard to beat... and for centerfire, useful-terminal-balistic rounds darn near impossible to top.

https://www.sgammo.com/catalog/rifle-ammo-sale/762x39-ammo

Thank you SGAmmo.com for fixing my problem.  Beats an hour-long phone conversation with a Pakastani call center.

[securitysix]

We are 1.5 years into our new homestead. Two years is my magic number after which I am supposed to transition from "urgent mode" to "important".  I finally got my magazine closet organized with some new shelving and lots of stirring around.

Whoah!  7.62x39 is dirt cheap and I have hardly any of it! 

There are several mail-order houses who do right by us in this situation. Twenty cents a round is hard to beat... and for centerfire, useful-terminal-balistic rounds darn near impossible to top.

https://www.sgammo.com/catalog/rifle-ammo-sale/762x39-ammo

Thank you SGAmmo.com for fixing my problem.  Beats an hour-long phone conversation with a Pakastani call center.

I'll give another nod to SGAmmo.com.  They used to hit the local gun shows around here, but they stopped because they got so busy with their mail/online order business.  They're still great people to deal with, though.

[slidemansailor]

This was a long time in gestation, but today I finally assembled Generation II of our area emergency communications plan.  I work with a lot of knowledgeable radio geeks. I am not one of them, but am an organizer.  So I assembled the package they explained to me (us).

It is a matrix of CB, FRS, GMRS and HAM radios that makes communication workable when the cell phones die.  If you can just get these comm cards into people's hands, when nothing else works, they can dig out the card and find out what is going on... and perhaps contribute to the information base for their community.

https://www.teddunlap.net/amateur-radio/emergency-plan/

Obviously I post it here that you may re-use and adapt it to your area of operations.

[RidleyReport]

I created a template for a hyperlocal "disaster newspaper"  , to be printed out in advance and distributed in my immediate area, wherever I am when it happens.  Hope you will find it to be helpful.
https://www.northeastshooters.com/xen/threads/priting-your-own-makeshift-newspaper-in-a-disaster-heres-a-template.368194/

[slidemansailor]

In my absence, I built a chick-yard annex to my chicken yard and populated it with nine spring chickens. The nine hens will be 1.5 to 2.5 years old when the new girls begin laying this fall.  Productivity falls off in winter and moreso with birds over 2. 

It was inexpensive and convenient to do it this way this year. Next year I will exchange my current roosters for a pair that are unrelated to the rest of the flock, then let a broody hen or two develop a replacement flock.

I also took what I suspected might be a long-gone skillset, combined with very much the wrong tool and did a great job of grading our driveway, parking areas, aprons and such using a Polaris Sportsman snowplow.  I am still amazed at the pro-level job and absurdity of using a little ATV plow to pull it off. [urlhttps://www.thefixer.biz/2019/04/16/mini-grader/]https://www.thefixer.biz/2019/04/16/mini-grader/[/url]

I am half-way through preparing 16 people to take the ham Technician (+ General in some cases) exams.  Community comms is my primary mission. Through some flukes, this class offering exceeds all prior ones in garnering interest.

[casca-503]

spent   last  2   days   cleaning   up   club   range  for   up   coming   compatisions.....//   try   to   go   there  to   do   "  things "   about   once   a   week  all   year   round..../    we   also   have   a   pond   beside   our   club   house   to   fish   &   swim   in..... nice   place   about   nine   miles   from   my    house....   

[slidemansailor]

Enticed a couple of hired hands to help clear the fire hazard west of my shop for a shooting range that they and we could use.  Goes out to 100 yards with lots of space in between for a wide, varied set of targets I can spread out for sighting in and practice.

One innovation: I'm building stands to hang thrift store pots and pans on.  I won't care what caliber you shoot. The targets cost $1-$2 and will be thrown away just a little later than they were going to be discarded, but full of holes.

Open for business in about a week.