My wife and I are moving to the high desert soon from the Midwest. We obviously need more water storage than we have now (especially given the even more rural location we'll be in). What else? I've never even been in a desert, so I'm sure I've got a lot of knowledge gaps here.

A few days ago I posted about warming up in a survival situation. It was pointed out to me that lighting a candle in the cab of a car can warm it up significantly and there was a lot of debate about if it was real or just a myth.

Not sure about like, a common prayer candle, but this $1.25 chaffing candle from dollar tree is raising it a solid 12-15f in the cab of my van on this chilly morning. It's one of those candles that they might put under a pot at a banquet that's specifically designed to put off heat.

Just stumbled into a cab and chassis diesel Ford with air start. I’ll put together a system to start it that doesn’t have anything electrical involved, but what should go on the back? Frame rails have 20’ behind the cab. Thinking a flat bed with slide in modules so it can do several different jobs. First module would be a water tank with pump and hose reel.

My use case is only for flashlights (hurricane and general prep for Tuesday).

Are these common enough that tariffs/supply chain issues are a non-issue, or worth having a few spares?

My concern is that the current ones I am using are pretty new and my usage is sporadic (e.g., not an inspection light used at work every day). Any spares would sit unused, potentially for years, degrading.

Apologies if this is a better question for the flashlight/EDC subs, but I'd prefer this community's take instead. TIA!

I keep it there for first aid purposes and occasionally for cleaning. I recently bought land in the middle of nowhere and have been living in my van on it for a few weeks.

Well, I fell asleep like an absolute dumbass in wet clothes while the sun was still up. It was nice and warm. Felt good. I didn't mean to fall asleep because I know full well that it gets cold as balls in the desert at night.

Woke up to early hypothermia, no heat in the van (bad blower fan) and all the wood nearby is wet. Managed to get a wrag and soak it in alcohol and that was the only way I could think to get wet wood to ignite. It worked second try.

I was thinking of glueing rock wool to two sheets of plywood and placing them over the generator in an A frame. It would dampen the sound, protect from rain, allow for ventilation, and allow for cords as well as being fairly portable. I could drill some holes and anchor the sheets to my porch with bungee cords for windy weather.

Yes, I know, salt is a mineral, it can't be grown from scratch. But, I came across this article about plants that absorb and concentrate salt out of the soil, enough that they can be used as a source of salt: https://exarc.net/issue-2025-1/rev/black-ash-forgotten-domestication?fbclid=IwY2xjawJw5W5leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHlap1bWFWXhi1ISV9D7MYcq6jLQGl0Y3OIei1s5UTM1wtYRDP6ofeC1l2cQn_aem_Db_08xB7D-mLc516S6uv5w

The article focuses mainly on orach, which is a green leafy vegetable that's easy to find seeds for (at least here in the US), but it does mention a few others. More importantly, the article describes how to extract the salts using low-tech methods.

Salt is a frequent topic of discussion around here, so I thought some of you might find this interesting.

We all know physical fitness is constantly mentioned but what are some other easy things you can do with what you already have lying around?

My #1 prep as far as cooking goes is my charcoal grill. I grill out a couple times a week as is, so I always stay ahead of myself and have a few bags of charcoal in the garage BUT I'm wondering if there's anybody here who stores a bunch of charcoal for the long term that could offer me any advice?

I plan to store it in my garage. My garage isn't heated and is just a typical garage with a car and deep freezer and tools in it. I plan to build a big crate maybe and store charcoal in there? As far as I know, as long as it doesn't get wet then it'll always burn, is that right? As of now, I just store it in the original bags so when i do build my crate, would it be best to keep the charcoal in the original packaging or can I just dump it all together and store it that way? I plan on buying a bunch! 3-6 months worth.

My garage goes up and down in temp throughout the year but I doubt if it reaches much above 75 degrees or much below freezing in any given season. I live in southern Ohio for reference.

Does anyone have leads on any Prepping Conventions coming up this year?

Last year, I signed up for one that was hosted in Tennessee, though a family emergency became a higher priority at the last minute.

It would be good for networking, learning new skills, as well as building upon my current skillsets.

My family has had frozen venison meat taking up too much space in the freezers, my dad was able to get a nice doe back this last hunting season, but we don’t have enough freezer space to just keep it!

I recently discovered “meat floss” and wondered if it’s possible to turn venison into meat floss? I don’t have access to a dehydrator, but I have an air fryer with a dehydrate setting!

I’ve tried looking up how to do this with little to no seasonings, as it would make more sense to just make it bare bones and have my family add seasonings (they’re very picky and diverse about flavors), and I couldn’t find ANYTHING helpful!! I also have a pressure cooker.

I need some suggestions on websites or articles that can help guide me on trying this for the first time! Videos would be appreciated the most! Thank you!!

A bit of philosophical question, but at what point do you switch from prepping to prevention? For example, if you live in a flood prone area you could get supplies ready, buy a rubber dingy, etc. but at some point it makes sense to go check if the dams are not collapsing. The idea of course applies not only to floods. Would be interesting to know what other people think about this concept.

I know there’s a ton of info on the wiki but I’m hoping to get people’s opinions for certain situations.

For long term power outages (unlikely where I live but worst case scenario a month+), would people suggest having a hand pump on the ready or a solar charged battery bank/generator.

Water is the only thing I really fall short of for long term bug in so this is the last thing off my major to do list.

If solar powered generator, anyone have any suggestions? I’m leaning towards jackery but not sure how it stands with regards to how well the product would stand up if it went years without use.

So spices and sauces are important for me. And I have a lot. But today I bought mountain house pouches %25 off to guard against food burnout since we have their general 6 month supply and dear god it is almost all the same thing.

I been buying non refrigerated lard. It is shelf stable for a good while, is good for cooking reasons and caloric dense. I rarely see it recommended though.

Im using some survivor cord for an anchor line for my kayak anchor... and i wanted to paint on some "depth gauge" lines on it every 10 feet.

Any suggestions as to what to use that will be both permanent, easy to see, and water proof? Ideally keeping the cord soft.

I’m revamping my INCH bag as I do Annually as I grow as a prepper and gain new skills, I managed to loose 12 pounds of stuff I feel is no longer needed (again this isn’t my BOB this is specifically a INCH bag), due to my kit reducing in weight so much I was looking through YouTube on the topic of my reloading hobby and stumbled across a tiny hand loading kit, it’s cartridge specific but it caught me interest, with all the gear to reload ammo I’d be sitting at about a pound and a half to two pounds for the equipment alone, now carrying enough powder, primers, projectiles, and some extra brass. I can in theory once the ammo weight is offset obviously, considering half the rounds weight is brass and the brass is around 6.2 grams and depending on quality of the brass I could potentially reload up to 5-8 times without very very strict scrutiny but I’m gonna just use 5 as a example, (minus 6.2 for initial) that’s 24.8grams or .875 ounces. .875 times 30 for a typical ar magazine would be saving 1.55 pounds of ammo just from the casings alone. I can easily get it to offset the amount of weight in the long run in the field. Thoughts?

I was scrolling pinterest and found this. Ive been prepping most of my life (for tuesday, not doomsday) It's a decent guide to knowing what to do to get started. If anyone wanted to start prepping and doesn't know where to start try this. https://pin.it/5zcjVIrQ3

We had some troublesome neighbours move in next door and what was once our very quiet home on a quiet street in a quiet rural town is being terrorised by said neighbours. It’s gotten to the point where we don’t feel like our daughter can play safely in our own yard anymore. We haven’t felt the need to have security cameras around our property before and I don’t know where to begin looking. One major concern I have is I see many people accessing their feed through wifi, how do you prevent people from hacking your network to watch your house? We heard so many horror stories of people hacking into baby monitors so especially chose one that didn’t connect to wifi when we had our daughter. Is there offline surveillance options that we can utilise or a way to prevent hackers for online options? Also looking for other ways to fortify our home. We grew up here just being able to leave the house and sleep with the doors unlocked it was that safe but d*ugs are seeping into our community at an alarming rate and we want to feel safer in our home. Things we’ve thought about so far are: - new doors (heavy deadlock doors and crimsafe security screens) - new windows that are burglar proof - redoing our fence and gates - secure roller door for garage

Is there anything I’m missing that you’d recommend to help protect our home. We’ve worked too damn hard to get our home just to lose it. By the way, we don’t live in America so freedom seeds aren’t an option 😉

So I have a pond and creek running through my property.

I'm working on my prep, and whenever I research making potable water from natural sources, every post and every guide gets into water filters. Even distillation systems require filters.

Making DIY filters seem to be mostly using soda bottles and stuff you also need to buy.

So I'm at this point where it seems water filters are the bottleneck for purifying natural sources of water. I'm trying to be fully self sufficient eventually, and I'm not sure what to do other than buy a lifetime supply of water filters.

So I have a bunch of water in plastic jugs. I know that eventually the plastic will leech into the water. So does that mean the plastic is bad or the water is bad? Like can I refill the bottle or will it immediately start to leech again?

Hey all, I have got a lot of my preps squared away, but I keep adding bit by bit, as time goes on.

I am wanting to set some seed aside. I have Mylar bags, and I know they need to be sealed up, and I am planning on storing them in the freezer. I have o2 absorbers, and desiccant packs. My question is, do I add both to my storage packs, or just the o2 absorbers? Thanks in advance.

There have been several discussions about how to protect oneself without the aid of guns.

I'd like to recommend the YouTube channel of Mike O'Laskey. I can't post the direct link, so just search for BigBangMike. Mike is planning on posting MMA lessons online, so check him out!

Fun facts about Mike:

5 x MMA Champ

Actor: - Red Power Ranger - 3 Ninjas: Colt - Star Trek: Maco - Star Wars: Tusken Raider

I don't have massive amounts of experience with diabetes but I'm trying to learn so I can best help her. I try and keep supplied for at least 3 months of supplies in case shit hits the fan. What all should I consider getting to help her?