The Basics

There are certian things you need to cover when you talk about surviving in any type of enviroment or area.

Here is a list (in order)
1. Shelter
2. Water
3. Warmth (in winter)
4. Food
5. Security


There are other parts of surviving, but these are the basics. You can build on these 5 things as little or as much as you want or need to.

Today we will cover shelter/home

Shelter.
Since I plan to stay in my home, shelter is a given for me, but it it is not done with just staying at home. If you lose power thing can get ugly quick. In the winter it will get cold fast in your home. Nothing works that you are used to using every day. Here is what I have set up at my home. First I have a fire place with enough wood to last me a while. I also have a gas grill. You can use your camping equipment (Gas Cooker) at home, this is dual prupose gear. If you have to leave you home you can take these things with you (camping gear) this includes a portable heater.
Some of these propane items can only be used outside, read the manuel that come with the item.

Prep your home for survival
I have plywood boards I can use to cover my windows (Hurricane boards) in case of a bad storm or in case a window breaks (tree come through it) it will also help keep people out. Thick blankets can be use to cover the windows during the winter (helps keep the cold out).

Power/Propane
I keep a small generator on hand to keep my fridge and freezer running. It is hard to store fuel (gasoline) on hand for these things ( I keep 10 gallons). Everything else is what I use for camping, battery powered lamps (gas one are good too). I am a big fan of propane I use the small green ones (DOT 39). I can cook, heat, ands light with these. They are small and store easily and they do not cost very much. I aslo keep a couple of the big propane bottles on hand for my gas grill and cooker.

Toilet use.
Yes you can still use your toilet, water systems are usally seperate from power systems. If for some reason your normal water supply (city or well) does not work here is what you can do.
Your Water heater in a normal house holds between 30 to 40 gallons of water (drinkable). Take a hose and hook it up to the connection on the outside of your water heater, run the hose to the closest toilet, take the lid off the tank part, turn hose on and fill the tank up and use toilet like you would normaly. It works on gravity no power needed!

This set up can be used for other thing also.

Your Shelter/home is vital to your survival, it keeps you warm, keeps you out of the weather elements, also it is much easier to survive at home, because you have all the supplies you need to keep you alive.

Next Blog:
Water storage.

Are Firearms a Survival tool?

This is a question that you must answer yourself, I can not do it for you. I can answer this question for myself.........yes they are.

Why are they a survival tool? This is a very deep subject and it is not the intent of this blog, but I will touch on it here and at times through out the blog, but it will not be a main topic in this blog.

Firearms can be used for many things it will be up to you to decided what you want to do with them. Myself I keep quite a few firearms in my house for different reasons. I have firearms that I can hunt with, defend myself and my family with and to defend my home. This will be a personel choice on your part.

Here is what I recommened:
1-2 Handguns (9mm or bigger)
1-2 Shotguns (12 ga or bigger)
1x Hunting Rifle (270 or 308)

If you do decide to add firearms to your Prep list please add some type of firearms training to your list for you and your family. The NRA can be very helpful in this area.

Next blog will cover the basics of Prepping.

What does "Survive" mean?

Survive means different things to different people.

It ranges from living through a bad storm to the end of the world and everything in between.
You need to decide on what type of "Prepper" you want to be. Do you want to be the person who lives on top of a mountian with 30 years of supplies at the ready or the person who just want to survive until the Goverment steps in to help.

Does "to survive" mean living out of the garbage can and drinking out of the potty pot........it can.
If you take some prep steps it will not come down to this. This is the point of this blog to help you prep to survive........and defend ( if you choose too).

Myself I plan for 30 to 60 days of survival at my home. I do have plans for having to bug out and also for bugging in. My main plan is to Bug in (stay at home). Why at home? because it is my home it is where I feel the safest. I can stock up on things I need, I have security here and I can defend it if I have too.

Can you plan for everything? not really, it depends on how much time, effort and money you want to invest in Survival. We will cover different ways to do this in this blog.

Stay tuned more info on the way.

Planning for Survival

I have started this blog to provide information on survival preps that I have been doing.
Just to start off I want to let everybody know that I am not a nutcase or hoping that the world will end as we know it.
This will not be a goverment bashing blog!
I believe we must help ourselves in a real time of need and that the goverment will not be able to reacte fast enough to help at the start of a crisis.

So stay tuned.....