The Preppers Lament (11 page)

Anyway, basically any area that looked like it contained kudzu was to be avoided and property that looked like it had some on it, usually meant its owner had abandoned it or was just pretty lazy and a poor land steward. The Seminole squash he had in mind was perfect to imitate Kudzu in the early growing season. That stuff quite often put out 50 ft or better vines and he would just let it go wild and maybe even train some of it to swallow part of his garden fence. Now later on when it set small pumpkin looking squash it wouldn’t fool anybody, but it was very useful camouflage for a time. Seminole squash is an ideal prepper storage food because if its stem is not damaged that stuff lasts longer untreated than anything else David knew of. He once kept a squash on his kitchen counter for a year and a half and it was still good until its stem got knocked off and then it soon began to rot. David planned on planting this ancient heirloom squash pretty much
everywhere around his property and just letting it run wild. He would need to look out for snakes but this particular squash was pretty much impervious to insects and disease and it didn’t seem to attract those dang red bugs. Red bugs could be anywhere or everywhere, it was just that for some reason certain areas were more buggy than others.

Getting the garden all tilled up and his various landscape projects completed were constantly on his mind. He hoped his food forest project would take and become almost permaculture, but he had his doubts on nature’s cooperation in that regard.

What little bit of precious gas he had available was going to be the big thing to conserve for these tasks. David had about 10 gallons of gas stored in his shed at the moment with the right kind of ethanol reducing Stabil for small engines already mixed into it.  The gas guzzling problem  he  also had though regarding his immediate needs of home heating was that he had only about a half cord of wood stacked and maybe 50lbs pounds of LP  gas to see him through the tail end of winter and heat the house. Both his and his girlfriend Julies cars had some gas in them but they had determined that the half tank of fuel in hers needed to stay unmolested in case of emergency’s like a bug out, so that left them about a quarter of a tank or maybe 5 gallons of gas in David’s vehicle.

David had declared his car and the gas in it their emergency generator because he could hook an inverter to his vehicles battery and run a few useful items like a battery charger to top off his big Sunrnr solar generator if the sun hadn’t shined for a while, or some project like running a dehydrator had drained it too much. He also had a few 12v marine batteries as part of his off grid system but they were getting a bit old and didn’t hold a charge as well as they used to. Normal electric chain saws draw too many amps to try and run off solar but he had a cordless 18v 6 inch chainsaw he found indispensable to stack his woodpile with thumb size sticks for his rocket stoves.

David always had back up to his backups and was proud to say one of the ones he had chosen was a SilverFire Hunter model rocket stove. This was the only patented rocket stove on the market that had a chimney to vent the little bit of smoke it produced up out through a window or wherever. David had it sitting under a table in the laundry room of his home ready to be vented out a window should the need arise.

David called his little added on backroom to the house his “Prepper Pod” because if needed, he could retreat to it in the dead of winter or the heat of summer and have himself a microcosm of modern comfort with minimal effort on his part.

Why, one could stay in that one little room and except for having to use a bucket or go to the outhouse, have everything you needed at arm’s length somewhere in the room, positioned and ready to hand. Actually, you didn’t even need to leave the house if you had enough water to flush the toilets because he had an operational septic tank.

On David’s to do list was hooking up a 12v D.C. pump to a rain barrel in order to have running water for indoor plumbing, that is if he could keep the barrel filled. He had slowly accumulated all the parts over time for the project and had them around just for this particular day and purpose. David’s thought about how he had justified their expense and purpose when he told Julie he was light on cash from buying parts and couldn’t afford to buy something else.

“With what is going on in our nation right now, if you’re not prepping, you’re not thinking, and right now I am thinking it sure would be nice to have ourselves a cheap indoor plumbing backup.” David had told her and Julie, being the intrigued prepper that she was, wanted to go play and get the project started as soon as possible. Well, David had not got around to rigging that setup or a couple other things that he had dreamed up and got materials for that he had stored in his shed for just this sort of occasion. He didn’t lament much for never having made a dry run at installation, he just hoped he didn’t get in the middle of it and find out he needed some cheap insignificant part that he no longer had ready access to at a hardware store. Hell, he had crap stored that he couldn’t even find at the moment and wondered where he had misplaced certain items or key parts.

Organization was not his long suit but pack ratting all kinds of stuff to someday make his prepper shack operate totally off grid was his hobby. The acquisition and research was the chase. Now he had plenty of time to play with his accumulated toys and prepper woman Julie would be in hog heaven helping him to do them expeditiously and neatly. The tasks of making the prepper shack as self-reliant as possible had been discussed into the wee hours of the morning many times by the two of them and the plans had been verbally rehearsed, refined and revaluated many times over.

One thing David pondered about and regretted was that he lacked any kind of manual for how to construct a water lifting device out of PVC. He had researched the subject of other means though.

Rowers Pump

David if nothing else was an interesting and inquisitive old soul Irrigation Reference Manual (Peace Corps, 1994

Chapter 3.5 Pumps and water lifting devices

Figure 3.15 Swing Baskets (Ref. 28)

Wicker swing basket of average capacity 8
liters.
Swing basket made from metal sheets

Figure 3.16 eater Scoop (Ref. 28)

David described how in the past in some countries,
water was moved from pool to pool or to irrigation ditches using an affair called an eater scoop. Basically, it was a scoop you could make out of wood or an old can attached to a stick to be able to shovel the most amount of water from one place to another. Now by knowing and thinking about this arcane technology as a prepper, he tried to envision various modern uses for it. One thing he had come up with was applying the principal to modern day street gutters. Water runs down the gutter on both sides of a common neighborhood road to the street drains at alarming rate during a storm. The flow of the water is so fast and shallow often times that it makes it very difficult to collect before it’s lost to the sewers. No everybody knows upstream from you god knows what might be flowing in that water and even more so now that you have everybody’s stacked up stinking refuse on the curb awaiting a garbage truck that will probably never come again but this trick is useful. Hell dirt roads, suburbs etc. you might not even worry much about really bad contamination coming down the pike.  Even in the cities if it’s a strong rain the gutters will be washed out some before you try it anyway. What if you just needed water to water your crops or flush your toilet? Just get your poncho or rain suit on and commence to letting the scoop fill up automatically and dumping it in a 5 gallon bucket. You are already probably going to have every pot and pan you have out anyway trying to collect some water and hopefully your prepared for this type of thing and not out trying to catch your death of cold doing it because you  lack protective clothing or commonsense. Those pans or buckets you have set out are not going to collect much unless you already made you some kind of rain collection system to increase surface area and flow with a piece of plastic or old poncho.

David and Julie had joked as well as discussed in earnest a purchase Julie had made a while back of ten new Czech military surplus ponchos for seventeen bucks and some change. David had shown Julie the internet ad for them as a great bargain but he was watching his pennies and waiting on a gift card to stack coupons with for what he felt like was a more practical purpose or use of funds.

Julie had made this purchase with much aforethought as only a wonderful prepper girl and intuitive motherly and imaginative woman could do. She had viewed this particular deal as an especially whimsical and practical acquisition to spread a little love and preparedness. LowBuck Prepper`s Prepperstock meet and greet was a few short months away and as she was lovingly wont to do was looking for inexpensive highly thoughtful things to bestow upon new and old friends.

If you have two ponchos, you can construct a brush raft or an Australian poncho raft. With either of these rafts, you can safely float your equipment across a slow-moving stream or rive
r
.

The brush raft, if properly constructed, will support about 115 kilograms. To construct it, use ponchos, fresh green brush, two small saplings, and rope or vine as follows (Figure 17-4):

•                  
  Push the hood of each poncho to the inner side and tightly tie off the necks using the drawstrings.
  
•                  
  Attach the ropes or vines at the corner and side grommets of each poncho. Make sure they are long enough to cross to and tie with the others attached at the opposite corner or side.
  
•                  
  Spread one poncho on the ground with the inner side up. Pile fresh, green brush (no thick branches) on the poncho until the brush stack is about 45 centimeters high. Pull the drawstring up through the center of the brush stack.
  
•                  
  Make an X-frame from two small saplings and place it on top of the brush stack. Tie the X-frame securely in place with the poncho drawstring.
  
•                  
  Pile another 45 centimeters of brush on top of the X-frame, and then compress the brush slightly.
  
•                  
  Pull the poncho sides up around the brush and, using the ropes or vines attached to the comer or side grommets, tie them diagonally from comer to corner and from side to side.
  
•                  
  Spread the second poncho, inner side up, next to the brush bundle.
  
•                  
  Roll the brush bundle onto the second poncho so that the tied side is down. Tie the second poncho around the brush bundle in the same manner as you tied the first poncho around the brush.
  
•                  
  Place it in the water with the tied side of the second poncho facing up.