Backyard Survival?

What is backyard survival? Backyard survival is a way to learn and to test out your gear. Basically it is learning how to use your gear and to learn new survival skills in your backyard. There is several reasons it is better to learn things in your backyard then in the wilderness or remote bug out location. If you use your backyard as a learning center you can be able to test things in all types of weather with out having to travel lots of miles. If something goes wrong and you need to call 911 it is a lot better response time then in a remote area. Plus if you are testing things in an extreme weather you have a quick safe shelter to get warm or cool and dry.
I do a lot of testing my gear out in my backyard and it really helps me learn the capabilities of my gear as well on just learning to use it. This is also a good way to teach young children about camping. They are less likely to get scared on their first camping trip. A great way to practice your skills like fire starting with different methods. Also starting a fire in different weather conditions. The other night I tested out two alcohol stoves in 26 mph winds. At night I tested out several flashlights and a head lamp. I have also tested out different survival blankets in 30F to see how they worked.
So the next time you are bored with nothing to do while it is raining outside… get on that rain gear that you never took out of the bag. Put it on and find some other gear you may want to test and head outside. But not if there is a lot of lightning… you still need to be safe. Try that wetfire tinder out or after the rain try making a fire with some of the wet wood from the wood pile. Most of all learn and have fun!

Interview - When All Hell Breaks Loose

Interview with Cody Lundin author of "When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes"  on YouTube.

posted by: talkingsticktv

Revised: Preparedness books to get you started.

Prepare for tomorrow: Preparedness books to get you started.
As I learn more about prepping, I take the best of the information and leave the rest. On a previous blog “preparedness books to get you started” I recommended three books… the first book was “shoestring survivalism”, the second book “making the best of basics”, and the third book “camping and wilderness survival”. I have read a new book “when all hell breaks loose” by Cody Lundin. This book I recommend to replace my second selection “making the best of basics”. This book has more practical information that needs to be learned. I'm keeping my list of books to get started to three. The reason for this is so that you will get the most knowledge without spending a lot of money. As I read more books I may revise this list again.

How do you start to get prepared?

Part 2
I use a couple of software programs to help me while I inventoried my home. These programs are setup to help people prepping. Also, these programs will help me stay organized and help me with rotation of items with expiration dates.
My ICE Plan is a home inventory software – Family and Disaster Planning. It features:
(from: http://www.myiceplan.com/index.html)

• Create two plans - Plan A & Plan B (print medical cards, keep images and movies of docs, much more! )
• Create a main and alternate emergency plan for pets and other livestock.
• Create emergency kit(s) & maintain its contents.
• My ICE Plan will tell you when kit items need replacing.
• My ICE Plan also contains links to many disaster agencies in the U.S. and Canada. Add to the list with your own data.
• Create a "call list" of important contacts including photos of contact!
• Import your Outlook/Outlook Express contacts.
• Print All Option...one button prints every thing is the system!
• Use a home inventory to help you pack and track items
• Easily move items in the database from location to location.
• Get a better price from moving companies because you have a good record of what needs to be moved.
• Get a more precise coverage for insurance.

Food Storage Planner is a food storage and menu planning software. It features:
(from: http://www.foodstorageplanner.com/fsp.html)

• Calculates exactly what you need for your family's food and equipment storage. Fully customizable for specific individual needs, gender, and age, such as diapers, allergies, toiletries, etc.
• Plan for any time period. Start with 1 week, then 2 months, 6 months, and so forth.
• More than 250 recipes to cook with your storage. Add your own.
• Link recipe ingredients to items in your pantry so you know what you can fix for dinner based upon your storage.
• Pantry List. This report tracks your inventory of what you have and how much is left to buy.
• Rotation. Enter purchases as you go along and this report tracks expiration dates to keep your storage rotated and fresh.
• Export, Import, do intelligent searches, and print custom reports.
• Label Printer. Print labels to place on your stored goods for rotation.

Overall these two programs are already setup and are inexpensive.
If you want to go the free route you could use OpenOffice Suite.  OpenOffice Suite is for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. However, it will take you more time to make and create the features of the two programs I mentioned above.

The Emergency Email & Wireless Network

Their mission:

"Provide notification to citizens of local, regional, national and international emergencies utilizing the Internet and electronic mail (email) in a secure and expedient manner"

http://www.emergencyemail.org

Awesome website, I have been using their site for over a year now. I get weather alerts sent to my cell phone and email.

How do you start to get prepared?

PART 1

I have heard that question so much. The first thing you need to do is one that nearly no one does and is the most important to prepping ... is to take inventory of what you have in your home. Inventory will tell what you have, how much you have and will tell you what you don't need to buy. Then you organize it.
By doing an inventory first, you can record all serial numbers, take pictures of items and create a data base for your home. This data base will help when you put a claim into the insurance company if you lose items in a disaster that destroys your home. You keep copies at different locations. Inventory will tell you how much food you have on hand and what is out of date. You may find out that you already have a week or two food supply already. It will tell you what you eat and don't eat. Also an inventory will allow you to see what items in the house you don't use. Take the item that you don't use and have a garage sale. Money from the garage sale put into an account for preps to be used on items you may need. When you get rid of the items you don't need, you create more storage space. When you inventory you will need to organize at the same time. Organized home will make life easier and when a disaster does hit, you know where things are.
Do one room at a time. Try not to inventory everything in one day or weekend. Use this time to clean and make your home safer. Think about the items you have and ask the questions "How can I use this in a survival situation?", "Have I used this in the last year?", "How important is this to me?" or "Can I do without this?". It may take you  a couple weeks or a month or more to inventory and organize. But do it first as your preps and it will save you lots of money and time in the future.

Todays Survival Show

A new podcast on survival and prepping started back in July of 2009. Today’s Survival Show is founded by Bob Mayne and Randy Croft. They have over forty episodes now and continue to post one or two podcasts a week. Get a chance and listen to some of the episodes.

Here is some of the categories he has covered so far:

• Bartering skills (3)
• Emergency Bags (1)
• Emergency Equipment (6)
• Energy Independence (1)
• Evacuation (4)
• Family (6)
• Finances (11)
• Food Storage (1)
• Goals (3)
• Health and Fitness (1)
• Home Security (1)
• Humor (1)
• Independence (27)
• Interviews (1)
• Jobs (1)
• Learning survival (12)
• Low cost preparations (1)
• Mindset (29)
• Negotiation (1)
• Podcasts (32)
• Retirement (1)
• Schools (1)
• Self Defense (11)
• Survival Technology (2)
• Terrorism (1)
• Threat assessment (2)
• Water storage (1)
• Wealth (1)

Todays Survival

Preparedness books to get you started.

You just found out about prepping, you may have heard someone talking of storing food, or just worried about losing your job and how to prepare for it if it does happen. Well where do you get started? Lots of websites out there, but get ready for information overload. Tons of books out there... but where do you start? Here is three books I recommend that can get you started without spending a lot of money. You don't need to go broke buying ton of equipment and food. Most likely you have a lot of thing in your home already.

The first book I highly recommend, "Shoestring Survivalist: How to Prepare for Bad Times on a Budget" by Andy James. This book is just awesome and I wish I had this book years ago. Bob Mayne on Today’s Survival Show started covering the book on around episode 33.

The second book I highly recommend, "Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook", 11th edition by James Talmage Stevens. This book is a workbook to help you get started prepping. Mainly with your food preps.Has lots of links to prepping sites as well as government sites.

The third book I recommend is "Camping & Wilderness Survival", 2nd edition by Paul Tawrell. This book is more for the outdoors but has so much info for the prep per to use. If you are unable to sleep in your house after a disaster, guess what your camping. This book teaches you a lot of primitive ways of starting a fire, cooking, basic survival, and lots of info that you can use.

So check these books out at your library or purchase them for you own personal library. You be getting a lot of information to get you started on prepping.

Starting to use my blog.

Well I decided to use my blog for learning about prepping. I actually have prepped for personal local disasters most on my life. Just in the last couple of years I decided to go further into prepping. So I hope to use this blog as a learning tool and to help others at the same time.