Always thinking!

     In the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Sandy got my mind to thinking of ways to be able to warm up soups and heat water and the like. Outside of the usual ways, like a camp stove, solar oven, I wondered if there might be another way. As I sat there thinking and putting different things in my head trying to conjure something cool.
     I think I have come up with something! I have not seen this exact thing so I decided to give it a try. What I did was to take a large coffee metal coffee can and cut the bottom out of it. Next I took a half inch drill bit and drilled about 20 holes at various places on the side of the can. Once all of the holes were drilled. I went out and bought one of those unscented 3 wick large round candles. I set the candle inside of a plain disposable pie tin. I next lit the candle and slide the coffee can down over it. I took a small pot and filled it with cold tap water to see how long it would take to warm the water to be able to be hot enough (if at all) to make hot cocoa or at least have luke  warm instant coffee. To my surprise within 15 minutes, the water had reached 120 deg. F. I next then tried the same thing with a can of heat and serve soup, this took a bit longer to heat up, about a half an hour.

All in all I would say that it was a pretty good idea. I had heard of alcohol burners and such, but none that you would use a candle with. From now on I will most definitely keep this in with my family's 72 hour in home kit.

 Till Next time, help your fellow man!  

DIY's and an Update

DIY Fabric Softener

     

     After making and using my own laundry soap for almost a year now, I decided to venture out there and see if there were any alternatives for fabric softener. After doing a bunch of research I decided to give it a try. What I found was that vinegar is even more awesome than I had thought. Not only does it have uses that I had not known about, it even made great fabric softener!!

Here is how I make DIY fabric softener:

6 Cups Hot water

6 Cups Vinegar

1 Cup Hair Conditioner (yes like you use in the shower)

Add the Hot water and the conditioner together and shake in a container well till it is all dissolved. Then add in the vinegar and shake well. Use the same amount that you would normally either in a softener dispensing ball or add to wash on the rinse like usual.

 A Quick Update

     I am going to do a bit of an update today. It has been nearly a year now since I started making my own laundry soap. I have to be honest here folks, after this amount of time, I have spent a total of $12.38 on the materials to make my families own laundry soap since February!!! Yes you read that right, $12.38 considering I do, on average 10 loads a week, that is a true savings for my family!! After the whole time I have not noticed our clothes being "not clean" or having "bad" smells to be honest, the clothes have no smell when they come out of the washer.


As always I appreciate all of the loyal people that come to my blog and follow it!!!

Canning Tomatoes

I know that a while back I wrote some on canning tomatoes. I finally broke down and made a quick video on how I do it. The way you do it could work just fine for you and if it does that is awesome!! All in all I have done 29 quarts so far this year, it didn't cost me much since I already had all of the jars already, just had to buy the lids. If you would like to watch the video please do so. If it is able to help just one person then it was well worth the embarrassment. I am sorry about the extreme close-ups at times on it. This was my first venture into making a video like this.

Canning Tomatoes

Since my youtube account is different from my blogger account, I had to do it in link form, sorry about that!

If there is anything that you would like a video done on please leave me a comment and I would be happy to try and do one!

Simple and Cheap Cleaning DIY's

I know I know, It has been a while since I have posted. Sorry, there comes times where our daily lives get so busy that we just get caught up. I did take the time to build the new website which you can check out by visiting Here. Now on to today's post.

I recently have been trying to cut costs for me family and outside of the normal coupon here and there and having a garden I was stuck not sure what else I could do. Until, I did some research I realized I could make my own house hold cleaner for pennies. Yes, that's right pennies, all natural household cleaner and great smelling at the same time.

Orange Cleaner: If you like the smell of oranges you will love this. The cleaner is about as easy to make as it is to breathe. Take a 1qt. canning car, fill it with orange peels. Next fill the jar, covering the peels with vinegar and let sit for two weeks. After the time is up, strain the liquid off and there you have it a GREAT smelling all purpose cleaner. Pretty easy huh?

This next one takes a bit more involvement but the cost savings far outweighs the time it takes (about an hour of actual prep) to do it.

Laundry Soap:
Making this the first time, I thought to myself there is no way it is going to work the the store bought stuff....boy, was I wrong. There is a whole 3 ingredients to this, yup thats it. It costs, depending on the store and where you are from about .30-.40 cents per gallon to make. Pretty nuts isn't it?
What you need:
1 Bar of  Fels-Naptha bar soap.
1 Box Borax
1 Box Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda (not baking soda)
Thats all you need, oh and a bit of water....
Large bucket or plastic tub.
Grater
Large Spoon


Directions:
Cut the Fels-Naptha soap into 1/4's (set the other 3 chunks aside for another batch later. Grate or shred the bar soap into small pieces. (any grater will do) Put the shredded soap into a small pot with 1 cup of water on the stove on medium heat. You will have to stir this almost constantly until it is completely melted. It may end up with some suds but that is normal.

Once it is all melted transfer it to your bucket and 20 cups OR 5 Quarts of water, 2 table spoons of Borax powder and a 1/4 cup of the washing soda.

Stir the batch again you may notice some suds which is fine. Place a lid on your batch and let it sit over night. In the morning you wil notice a big change, it will look like soft jello.

 Stir it up and divide it into (2) 1.1 gallon laundry bottles. Once you have it divided into the bottles finish filling them with water give them a good shake and as simple as that you are ready to wash clothes.

Usage: If you have a HE (high efficiency) washer use about 1/3 if a cup and a regular top load washer use about 3/4 cup.

Happy Washing!!

New Site

As some of you have seen, I have taken a bit of a break from my frequent blog posts to work on a new website. I will, however continue to post on here also. I would like to thank you all that visit this blog on a regular basis! Without you all I wouldn't keep doing this. I feel that it gives me that little extra "umph" to keep it up.

If you would like to visit the new website you may do so by going to Real Preppers

Once again I would like to say thank you for all of your wonderful support.

Salt

Do you include it as one of  your prepping essentials? Salt has so many uses people should try to keep at least 10 lbs. I personally keep 10lbs of reg iodized salt and 10lbs pickling salt. I don;t think that many people give salt much thought when it comes to storing and specific quantity. Below I will list my uses for salt, I hope these help you out also.

Some of the uses for salt in a prepping/survival situation.
Curing Meat-Included smoking
Food seasoning-(no brainer)
Mouth rinses (sore throats)
Drying hides
Preserving other foods such as in canning.
Used in egg freshness
Can be used as an aticeptic

There are far more uses for just around the house. As you can see, salt, to me is one of the most overlooked essentials for the survival/prepper. It can also be used as a barter tool if it came down to it.

Education: not just for school

You may have recently read the article or saw it on the news about the three adults that were lost in Oregon while out mushroom hunting. In case you did not hear about it, it was a father, mother and their 25 y/o son. Thankfully they were found alive suffering from only minor injuries one of which was hypothermia.
They left to go out mushroom hunting and got lost. In reading this story I put myself in their situation, and what would I do. First off, I would not have went out without any kind of survival equipment like they did. NO, matter when I go out or where I go out, I always have a basic kit with me, which consists of a lighter, a back-up fire making device, a knife, cordage, an unopened bag of trail mix and a small signal mirror. All of which can be carried in a small backpack. I have several kits that I take with me depending on the time of the year it is.
The story did not tell whether the people were smokers or not, I would have to assume they weren't because there was no mention of a fire but, did mention that the mother was suffering from hypothermia.

If you get lost while out the first thing that you should do is remain calm. Sit and collect your thoughts if you have to. Implement a plan to stay alive until you can either walk out or be rescued. Your best survival tool you have is your mind. If you can not keep calm, in most cases you will not make it out alive. There are all sorts of things that could have been done to ensure their own safety. For the majority for my readers reading the "what to do's" is old hat. I wont get into what they should have done.

 We need to do our part to educate others so that if it happens to them they can stay alive if they are in a situation like this.  As survival and prepper experts need to do our part in teaching others.


As always feel free to comment Have a great day!!

Staying Warm

Now that winter has returned to most of the country I thought I would spend some time on various situations you may encounter. One of the biggest problems in winter situations obviously is staying warm. Whether you are stranded in your car, out in the wilderness or even in your house during a power outage. Staving off hypothermia and frostbite can be the difference between life and death in any type of survival situation. Over the next few posts, I will be concentrating on staying warm to stay alive!

Stranded in your car:

If you live in an area where the winter comes on hard and is utterly relentless staying warm while stranded is a must. The first rule is being prepared. You should have with you at all times a winter driving kit. You may refer back to an earlier post as to what should be included in your kit. The first rule to winter driving is to keep a full gas tank. The second rule is to NOT go out in bad weather. (we all know this one but never really grasp it I don't think). To avoid carbon monoxide poisoning, make sure that the tail pipe is clear of snow and ice. Remember that your car is essentially one big metal box thus becoming a freezer in the winter when the heater is not running. It will not hold heat very well once it is shut off. Pick a time schedule and stick to it! Only run the cars engine for 3 minutes out of every half hour to conserve gas. Here is another thing to keep in mind, if you are able keep your feet off of the floor. We all know that cold air drops to the lowest point, so keeping your feet off the floor will keep them warmer while the engine is not running. If you do happen to run out of water, cut the top off a plastic bottle and fill with snow. When your running your heater melt some of the snow to drink. Another thing you may do is fill 2 different bottles and let one become fully melted. Leave it on the heat as much as possible. As the water gets warm, you can drink the warm water during the times when your car is off to help maintain body heat.

As always, I hope that you find this post helpful. Till next time!!

The Birch Tree

The Birch tree can be identified by it's bark, it has silvery white smooth bark with dark to black horizontal lines. The tree grows primarily in the northern parts of the U.S. as well as other countries. The Birch tree is also known as the tree of life because of all the medicinal properties it has. 
      The leaves contain saponin, a bitter substance, mucilage, procatechinic tannin, essential oil, betulin, saccharose, resins. These substances offer the following properties to the birch leaves: diuretic, detoxifying, cicatrizing, anti-rheumatic, astringent, antiulcer, choleretic, slightly hypertensive, anti-fever. The buds also have a diuretic and antibiotic role. The bark is diuretic, digestive and anti-fever. The juice squeezed out of fresh leaves is used in treating infections and inflammations of the urinary tract.

Birch leaf baths help strengthen hair roots, prevent the forming of dandruff and contribute to the healing of skin irritations.  Externally, it is used for treating affections of the skin such as  dermatitis and types of eczema. An interesting side note an infusion of birch leaves, water and sodium bicarbonate can be used externally to strengthen hair roots. Birch bark decoct is made by 2 teaspoons of dried and cut bark, which is boiled for 5 minutes in 200 ml of water, it is infused for 10 minutes, let it stand  for 6 hours, then it is filtered, sweetened and drunk in portions of 3 cups per day, before meals, having digestive, depurative, anti-ulcer effects, with applications in gastric ulcer and skin diseases.

     The Birch sap can also be mixed with water as an energy supplement. As you can see, the birch tree has many many beneficial uses.
      Once again, I hope that you find my posts informative and helpful. If you have any comments and questions feel free to post them and I will do my best to answer them.