(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.)
9. CLOTHES AND A WAY TO WASH THEM
It’s hard to believe how many top-10 lists mention ferro rods, manual can openers, plant-identification books, and the ever-present multi-tool without ever mentioning clothes or washing equipment. Clothes last for quite a while if we’re sitting in an office all day but they won’t lost long when manual labor becomes a daily routine.
Since we’ll be wearing them at some future point anyway, it’s a good idea to be stocking up on clothes for all of the inflation-fighting reasons already mentioned. At the same time, we’ll be prepping for TEOTWAWKI if it ever materializes. Like many other prepping acquisitions, a slower approach over time may work best for clothes.
Shoes and work boots, even the most expensive ones, have a limited lifetime. It’s one thing to be walking around the post-SHTF homestead in thread-bare clothes covered with patches, but a whole different situation walking around in worn-out shoes and boots. On my homestead working without adequate footwear to protect against stepping on nails and sharp objects, and steel toes to protect against foot injuries while making firewood, would be difficult and dangerous. Since I’ll be wearing them at some future point anyway, I’ve started stocking up on boots when they go on the annual post-Christmas 20% off sale at my local farm store. Footwear will last longer if we have two or more pairs we can alternate every day, allowing them to dry out more fully between wearings.
Aside from boots, shoes, and jeans, all the other basic clothes are good to stock up right now since we’ll be wearing them anyway in the not-too-distant future. T-shirts, socks, underwear, etc. Wool and flannel shirts are good to get on sale in late winter when stores are discounting them to get ready for spring. People sometimes get wool shirts as a gift and after wearing them one time, discover they don’t like wool and don’t wear them again. I bought three like-new wool shirts for $5 each at a thrift store. I couldn’t grab them off the rack quickly enough and it was probably a misdemeanor to pay so little.
Winter coats and hoodies are also discounted at stores at the end of winter. Look through your wardrobe and see what you can possibly stock up on that you’ll be wearing in the next few years. To conserve firewood we’ll also need to dress more warmly in our homes than we do now so extra hoodies and sweaters are also good to have on hand. In case I haven’t mentioned it, we’ll be wearing them at some point in the future anyway so stock up! Inflation will only continue to get worse so we can also save money by “investing” in these tangibles. Interestingly, the word “invest” comes from the Latin “vestire” which means, “to dress, clothe.”
9b. CLOTHES-WASHING SYSTEM
This is another necessity that’s simply not addressed on any top-10 or even many top-100 lists and perhaps the majority of people will get caught with their pants down if the SHTF.
Washing clothes by hand in the bathtub is doable but impractical and very hard on hands and knees, especially geezified arthritic ones. We can only squeeze out so much water with our hands so clothes take much longer to dry on the line. Lehman’s offers some clothes-washing options, some on the pricey side. Various small manual “washing machines” are available but all the ones I’ve seen are mostly plastic. It doesn’t sound like something that will last for long-term everyday use or be able to handle more than a pair of jeans at a time. We have to be preparing for the long-term New Normal, not just the survival stage of life after the SHTF. Plastic is generally a poor choice for devices with moving parts doing heavy-duty work. Again, test your preps before you decide on a long-term clothes washer.
Fortunately, I can run my washing machine from my solar panels if the sun is shining. I also have a backup system (TEOTWAWKI Clothes-Washing System) which I used for three years before I hooked up my washing machine. It works on the same principle as the ones our great-great grandmothers used. It consists of a 30-gallon plastic barrel, an agitator, and a manual wringer. The agitator has no moving parts and looks like an over-sized bell-shaped solid toilet plunger with vents near the top of the bell. By moving it up and down, soap and water are forced through the clothes fibers, removing dirt and grease. The manual wringer is very heavy duty with a hand crank and two adjustable rollers which squeeze the water out of the clothes into a utility sink. These components are available on Amish-type websites such as Lehman’s, as well as outlets such as Walmart and Amazon.
I dry clothes using a solar clothes dryer, more commonly known as a clothes line. Contrary to expectations, unless it’s raining a clothesline will dry clothes 52 weeks of the year, including during freezing temperatures in the winter months. If the wind is blowing, all but jeans can be dry in as little as an hour or two.
Laundry detergent is one more non-perishable item we should be stockpiling. The next time you open a new one, write the date on the jug so you can determine how long one will last, then stock up accordingly.
10. GASOLINE-POWERED GENERATOR
For most of us, a gasoline-powered generator will only have a short usability window if the SHTF due to a lack of gasoline. But, it still has a very important place on this Top-10 list to cover some critical emergency-phase requirements. As you can imagine, the first week of TEOTWAWKI would be the worst since we’d be in a whole new world. There’ll be a lot to learn, much to figure out, and plenty of readjustments. Most of what we’ll be doing that first week will be stressful to say the least. Even with its short usability span, what a huge difference a generator can make during the transition from our old life to the new one. While trying to figure out some of the basics during that adjustment period, a generator can take care of certain things while we’re busy taking care of the rest.
Many preppers have large freezers stocked with food. During the summer and early fall, many of us have freezers filled with garden produce like tomatoes and blackberries waiting to be canned all at once when the harvest is finished for each crop. Aside from pumping water from our wells while we’re getting Plan B implemented, for many the most important use for a generator would be to fire it up occasionally to bring freezer temperatures back down to an acceptable level. That would give us more time to get the all the frozen food processed by canning, freeze drying, smoking, feasting, etc. Can you imagine the stress of watching frozen food spoil faster than we can process it? I’m feeling anxiety just writing about it! Those with freezers who’ve been through a multi-day power outage can vouch for the elevated stress level.
Many of the newer freezers have surprisingly low wattages so even a small inexpensive gasoline-powered generator will suffice to keep things frozen until we can get the food processed. If we had a small generator and only used it long enough to reprocess freezer food, it could more than pay for itself.
With a generator, storing fuel isn’t an absolute necessity. The fuel in our vehicles can be used to run the generator just long enough to get us over the “welcome to Teotwawkiville enjoy your stay” hump.
When researching generators, specify “gasoline-powered generators.” Keep in mind if it doesn’t burn fuel it’s not a generator. So-called “solar generators” aren’t generators at all, they’re more appropriately called portable power stations as described in #7 on this top-10 list. Other than the largest expensive models, a PPS cannot do the majority of the big jobs a gasoline-powered generator can do. This includes powering a deep-well pump or running a freezer for two weeks. Regardless of storage capacity, there are no guarantee the sun will be shining enough to recharge the PPS battery during that first critical week when we’ll need electricity the most.
If you have large amounts of food in freezers, consider adding a generator to your preps if you don’t already have one. For those with a freezer, open it sometime this week and ask yourself how you’d preserve everything if the grid went down next Tuesday. Next, start working on a written plan on how to accomplish it so you can get right down to business on Day One. Then laminate it and keep it in the freezer for quick access.
A FEW IMPORTANT THINGS NOT ON THIS TOP-10 LIST
The 10 items on this list are the most important things to be prepping for if we’re realistically considering that TEOTWAWKI could materialize at some point. Again, they’re the more difficult and expensive things to prep for but certain items like food, water, and heat are vital to our survival. These are non-negotiable essentials cannot be prepared for all at once, so other less-expensive items on the top-100 list should be acquired at the same time while we’re working on the harder stuff.
Some of the items mentioned on most top-10 lists shouldn’t be there for the reasons listed below. Here are a few.
Multi-Tool – By now, some may have come to the conclusion that I’m against multi-tools. Not so, I have one and feel naked without it. They’re a great invention and you don’t realize how many times you use one each day until you accidentally leave it home and keep reaching for it when it’s not there. When I see one listed on a top-10 list however, my first thought is that the list maker doesn’t actually use or own a nice set of tools, or that he’s mixing up TEOTWAWKI items with wilderness-survival items. It gives the inexperienced reader the impression that a multi-tool has everything you need to overhaul an engine or build a homestead in the wilderness, and if you get just the right pair it will also have a chainsaw and possibly a come-along.
Multi-tools are great but they’re only a handy convenience, not a do-or-die piece of equipment for TEOTWAWKI. A good collection of tools will be needed for that. I would guess most serious preppers already have tools, or at least the most important ones. For those who don’t, start putting a collection together and learn how to use them. Learn how to do your own home repairs, vehicle maintenance, etc., to become more proficient at self-reliance skills. There are more than enough manuals and YouTubes to walk you through the steps for whatever task you have in front of you.
If you can afford one of the nicer ones, a multi-tool will be even more useful after the SHTF than it is now. But again, it’s a convenience, not a replacement for real tools.
For those who’ve been working with tools since forever, walk out into your shop right now and take a look at that worn out, mismatched, ancient set of tools, the one with half of the ½” and 12mm sockets missing, the Philips screwdrivers with the rounded tips, the drill bits that just can’t handle one more sharpening, the hand saws that need the teeth reset so it can glide through the kerf instead of getting stuck, the tape measures with the numbers on the first 8” barely readable, the Skilsaw that’s become a danger to mankind, and that ancient hand drill that plugs into an outlet. Pile them in boxes and donate them to the young guy down the road who’s just getting started in life, or to a worthwhile thrift store. Then head to your favorite retail store or online site and get some brand new tools. Go all out, get the good stuff. Don’t procrastinate as long as I did. When your new tools arrive, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it years ago. Dropping hints around Christmastime or Hanukkah can also yield results but be sure the hint includes make and model numbers or an Amazon link.
Heritage Seeds – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you don’t already know how to garden when the grid goes down you’ll get more calories from eating your heritage seeds than you will trying to grow a garden to provide some food. That may be a slight exaggeration but it’s not too far off the mark.
Experienced gardeners will already have seeds on hand if the SHTF tomorrow so it’s not an item they need on their prepping lists. Their garden will already be prepped from years of improving the soil, terraced if necessary, with fences and the necessary trellises in place. Most importantly, they’ll have the know-how to successfully produce enough high-calorie food to make a difference. This includes dry beans, field corn (for corn meal), potatoes, yams, winter squash, and tomatoes for canning. Those with perennials such as fruit trees, grape vines, and berry bushes, will be way ahead of those who don’t have any. If you live in a rural area, it’s never too soon to plant these crops. There’s an old saying that’s true: the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago. The second-best time is today.
There’s a whole lot more to gardening than opening a can of survival seeds and tossing them in the ground. Those hoping to have a garden to supply some of their post-SHTF food should get started gardening asap. The single-most important thing to learn in order to be a successful gardener is how to control weeds. Most people give up gardening during the first year due to weeds. There are a million books and articles on gardening. The sooner you can get started the better.
By starting to garden now, you can find out what’s needed besides just a bunch of seeds. Garden tools, fencing supplies, trellis materials, irrigation considerations, how to break ground, etc. Which animals are you going to be competing with over your produce? There’s a lot more to prepare for than just storing seeds.
For those experienced gardeners who don’t currently save their own seed, it’s not that difficult to learn. There are plenty of how-to articles on the SB archive stick. A good place to start practicing is with that next cantaloupe you buy.
Seeds should be on your preps list, just not on your top ten. If you don’t have any and the SHTF, as soon as small communities of neighbors start forming someone will almost certainly set up a seed exchange. Those dry beans in your food storage will all sprout and grow more beans. So will the wheat and corn. As will the cumin and cilantro seeds in your spice rack, the mustard seeds you add to your bread and butter pickles, and the list goes on.
As a side note, we hear lots of talk of heritage seeds but they’re not a necessity. I would guess that most types of over-the-counter garden seeds such as cucumbers, radishes, and squash, are the same as heritage seeds. Even planting seeds from highly-bred disease-resistant F1 tomatoes will still produce tomatoes. They just won’t be exactly the same as the originals. Another option is to take cuttings at the end of the season from those store-bought tomato plants, root and overwinter them in a greenhouse or window sill, then take cuttings from those grown plants in the spring to produce the plants for that year’s garden planting.
Medical supplies – I don’t have this on my top-ten list because everybody should already have some sort of a realistic first-aid kit that’s able to handle more than just a small boo-boo. The few store-bought first-aid kits I’ve seen didn’t strike me as something that would benefit my personal lifestyle. They were missing too many of the items needed for some potentially serious wounds and accidents that could occur around the homestead: table saw cuts, chainsaw accidents, brain-cramp knife accidents, punctures, etc.
One swimming accident I experienced barked one of my shins and folded back three inches of skin. I stuck the skin back in place, sucked it up and tried to keep it clean without antibiotics. It was getting darker by the day and had started turning gangrenous. I got a good chewing out from the doctor when I finally went. Another time I was using deck screws for a project when the driver slipped and went through my thumbnail and almost out the other side. Luckily, it missed the bone and I had antibiotics on hand. As soon as they come up with a cure for late onset mental retardation, my name is first on the list of guinea pig volunteers to see if the technique works.
They’re called accidents because they’re unplanned and often due to stupidity and/or not thinking ahead. I now keep a much better first-aid kit to address some of the more serious accidents I’m likely to have based on my lifestyle. It’s especially important in rural areas like mine where the volunteer ambulance may take 30+ minutes to get here, plus another 30-minute ride to the hospital.
You can put together you own kit or spend the money to buy a more professional one. The SB article, What is a Well-Stocked First Aid Kit? offers some good advice on how to put your own kit together. The Red Cross suggested list is also a good place to start. They’re the experts of course, but I do have the following comments to add.
For some of my first-aid items, I use “four is one and three is none.” You can’t have too many of the inexpensive things such as tape, cohesive bandages, bacterial creams, etc. High-quality scissors and clamps are also a good idea. First-aid scissors are built differently than regular scissors so be sure to get the right kind.
I consider antibiotic cream to be the most important first-aid item in a grid-down world. Not just because it’s the most likely thing we’ll be using most often, but also because it can potentially be a life-saving component more so than the rest of the items in our kit. Calvin Coolidge’s young son died within a week of getting a small blister on his toe while playing tennis on the White House court. A staph infection formed and being just a few years before the advent of antibiotics, the doctors couldn’t save him. To think that today a $5 tube of triple-antibiotic cream would have prevented his death is incredible. Wow. We should have plenty of it in our first aid kits today and in a post-SHTF world, it could be a lifesaver. With food, I ignore best-by dates religiously but on something as important as antibiotic cream, and as inexpensive as it is, I keep mine up to date and save the older ones in a freezer bag labeled “old.” Many things in a first-kit can be substituted with other things in a post-SHTF world but antibiotic cream isn’t one of them.
Prepare for special situations as well. Aside from the dedicated ones in my first-aid box, I have two packets of military-grade blood-clotting powder in the basket I carry my chainsaw supplies in when I’m cutting firewood. One is a packet of crystals to put right on the wound, the other a strip of gauze impregnated with a blood-clotting chemical. Both are military grade. (Special thanks to the two different authors who mentioned these blood clotters on SurvivalBlog a few years back.) Both types are $20. To some, $20 may sound expensive but it’s very cheap insurance for a potentially life-saving product. After a chainsaw accident I’d hate to be laying there in the woods with all my blood doing the exit-stage-left thing, wishing I had spent the $20 instead of wondering if that $20 bill in my wallet will stop the bleeding if I use it as a bandage and press real hard. In my chainsaw basket, I keep everything in a quart ziplock freezer bag: one packet of each type of clotter, two feminine pads to absorb blood, a roll of self-adhesive wrap, and simple instructions on a 3 x 5 card so I’m not trying to read all the fine print in an emergency.
Everything in a first-aid kit should be dedicated to that first-aid kit. These items are never “borrowed” out of the first-aid box. If needed in an emergency you don’t want to spend valuable time looking for them, freaking out at a time you most need to be calm and collected.
There are plenty of books and articles on the internet about how to prepare for medical emergencies that could happen to us at any time. It wouldn’t hurt to read some of those and watch some YouTubes, especially for those in rural areas who are depending on a volunteer ambulance crew to save the day. The how-to information will be especially important if the SHTF. Practicing certain emergency scenarios today, such as a chainsaw accident or CPR, would also be beneficial to decrease the level of panic and let us get right down to business helping the patient, or ourselves.
Laptop – This isn’t on top-10 list because the majority of homes already have one. Three guys in Afghanistan, a homeless woman in the Bronx, and St. Funogas were some of the last earthlings to finally switch over to a rechargeable laptop and wow, what a difference its portability makes. The SB archive stick won’t be accessible without a computer so a laptop is a must-have item.
Fire igniters – I have a ferro rod because it’s fun to play with, not because I ever plan on using it if the SHTF. Again, too many top-10 lists confuse surviving in the wilds with surviving TEOTWAWKI. They’re two unrelated situations and most of what’s needed for wilderness survival won’t really help much in a post-SHTF world. If I already flick my Bic to light my woodstove, bee smoker, oven, blowtorch, and burn pile, why would I need anything else after the SHTF? In multi-packs butane lighters are less than a dollar each. For those who already use butane lighters, stock up on them with the rest of your everyday non-perishables. They do leak on rare occasions, and sometimes eventually the butane won’t come out enough to produce a good flame so, like any other prep, be sure to have more on hand than you think you’ll need. For those with propane stoves, the electric igniters won’t work when the grid is down so stock up on long wand lighters and maybe wooden matches as well.
As a side note, learn to start a fire without having to use artificial tinders like Vaseline- or paraffin-soaked cotton balls. Those things will be too valuable and irreplaceable after the SHTF so it wouldn’t make any sense waste them due to an inability to build a proper fire with natural tinders or newspapers. Your local newspaper office will give you all the old newspapers you can haul off and they’re easy to bundle using bailing twine. I currently have two 7-foot stacks in my garden shed for lighting the morning fire, which should last for 5+ years.
With lighting fires, practice makes perfect. On camping trips my sons and I would have contests to see who could get a fire going the quickest. Someone would yell, “Go!” and we’d have to run, collect tinder and kindling, then get back and get a fire ignited to the point where it was self-sustaining. We all got to the point of doing it under three minutes.
If you’d feel more confident having more fire-igniting tools than just butane lighters, other methods I’ve personally found quick and easy include a credit-card sized Fresnel lens (try it, you’ll be amazed) which I carry in my wallet for when I forget my reading glasses, large magnifying glasses, and parabolic makeup mirrors. The 8” x 5” one I own will have a piece of newspaper flaming before I can even get it completely focused. It makes in interesting popping noise just as the flame is forming. These, as well as a ferro rod, can be Plan B for when the Bics are no longer flicking.
The old-time method of banking the coals with ashes also works well. When the morning fire is no longer needed, cover the coals with ashes to keep them from burning out. When a fire is needed, brush the ashes away from the coals, add some tinder, and blow it into flame.
CONCLUSION
I hope this article has provided a more realistic insight into what our most important prepping concerns should be. Too many lists omit such life-sustaining things as woodstoves and firearms, but include convenient but unnecessary luxuries like multi-tools, and impractical items like candles, snares, and edible plant books.
As mentioned at the beginning, this top-10 list is only to get us thinking in the right direction to be sure the most important bases are being covered. Of course, there are plenty more things in addition to these top-10 items we’ll need if we’re preparing for a long-term grid-down lifestyle. Many of them can be easily acquired on our next trip to Walmart but the things on this top-10 list take more time and money to acquire. And, unlike a pair of jeans or a laptop, they’ll need to be prep-tested. Ultra-critical items like a woodstove not only require altering the structure of our house but also cost a fair sum of money to purchase all the components. Some critical items can be purchased inexpensively at estate auctions for a reasonable price. I bought two woodstoves last fall for $80 each. Both were top-name brands (Fisher and Schrader) so keep your eyes peeled.
When making our own lists, whether top-10 or top-100, we have to think more broadly than merely listing things like “heritage seeds.” We have to ask ourselves, “What’s my purpose for this prepping item?” In the case of heritage seeds, to produce food. Then figure out how to get the seeds from the opening-the-packet stage to the dinner-table stage. We’ll need tools to prepare and maintain the garden, fence materials to keep Bambi at bay, trellising materials, weed barriers, irrigation equipment, pruners, and gardening books to name a few. Then for the harvest, we’ll need canning equipment and jars, food dehydrators, possibly a root cellar, and we’ll need to know how to DIY things like vinegar for canning home-made pickles and three-bean salads, etc.
Use this same approach with all of your prepping items.
Store the important items even if you don’t know how to use them. Imagine not storing food because you don’t know how to cook! Store the food, someone in your group will know how to prepare it. Buy the solar panel and portable power station, if the SHTF someone at your homestead will know how to plug in the solar panel and charge the battery to power your lights and laptops. Buy a canner and the basic canning tools. If you don’t know how to do home canning, it’s easy enough to learn after the SHTF. Either buy an inexpensive canning book or the SurvivalBlog archive stick which has hundreds of how-to articles on the subject.
For a TEOTWAWKI list, think long term. Think about Q-SPUD when making a purchase: quality, sustainability, practicality, usability, and durability, not just cost. We have to be thinking far ahead to the New Normal stage if we’re really prepping for TEOTWAWKI. I think that it’ll take less than a year to get to the New Normal stage. We want the New Normal to be as much like today as possible, minus government intrusions. We can’t accomplish that with camp toilets and stoves, candles, washing clothes in the bathtub, hauling water from the creek, and other such primitive means that inadequately-prepared preppers will be using.
As with all projects, have fun with your prepping and planning, and whatever you do, don’t forget to test your preps!
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