shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Oct 1, 2020 14:47:28 GMT 10
9 Days for a civilian in Syria war. I found it interesting, whilst he had power and water, his food supply was disrupted and with the war going on all around him, he's watching TV, perhaps bored, yet he also understands he might not live.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 29, 2020 14:34:58 GMT 10
You may be an expert in growing [no idea] though it's weird to me you didn't look further into it on HOW.
For instance it makes sense how he can pull it off; - churns over the soil with organic matter - hire a tiller for a day. - lays down tarps to kill off the weeds and weed seeds - puts down rows of weed mat, burns spaced holes where he's going to plant with a jig made of plywood. - lays down drip irrigation - plants appropriately - uses greenhouses to deal with the colder temps in Canada.
The material costs ARE higher, which is the trade off with labor. Makes sense to me. He's probably 6A zone in Canada btw, plenty of ideas on how to deal with 'some' of the weather conditions you face, such as using low cost greenhouses to extend seasons.
Personally I still can't see how I can grow enough KJs in the 10x10m full sun area I have via veggies and I'm researching staples such as grains/legumes [soybeans] which can produce the needed KJs, protein, fats. Never the less the principles of killing weeds by covering with a tarp/silage tarp is brilliant. Lots of labor reduction. There's plenty of videos on no-dig gardens that utilize cardboard instead and allowing it to be eaten and composted right on the beds, though essentially the same principle. I've done enough veggie gardens to at least grasp the labor in removing weeds and having to keep on removing them.
In terms of water, he's got a bore/well there. It's certainly an issue on production, though pretty sure commercial farms irrigate as required. If people were collecting rain water there's a good chance they'll have enough to water plants via drip and rainfall. A little bit of solar and you've got your water sorted. Don't see it as much of an issue, though that would really depend on people's specific problems.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 28, 2020 16:05:07 GMT 10
If its just to charge the battery or when using higher drain devices, the alternator is going to be a far better source of power than any panel. Yeah mentioned it in another thread, good idea. I've thought about hooking up the battery bank I have with the car for a charge if need be. Most alternators are 60-100amps, so you can do about 720-1200W continuously from the alternator so potentially 17-29kwh per day, enough to run a normal house all day, 'if' you have the fuel. Better use for the fuel would be a generator. Panels in comparison on average make about 2.5 times their rated capacity/day so a 350W panel is going to make about 0.9kwh. Now if you were going to go in the direction of fuel you would be better off with LPG bottles [or a large one] as they don't go 'off' and running a gen. Again, only as good as the supply of fuel. It's a good SHTF option to get the car started too. If the import of batteries collapses, I wouldn't want to be stuck with no electricity grid and a flat battery. Making batteries isn't impossible, unsure of local production. We have large lead ore deposits and a large recycling industry. If SHTF, well we're probably not going to have much of anything, though it's possible domestically at least.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 28, 2020 15:52:56 GMT 10
Basically we're screwed, welcome to our new Chinese overlords.
If we had time and resources... Nukes in subs first, deterrence. Airforce - raptors and top training for air supremacy Drone fleet - emphasis on swarm against land and sea targets by specialized ADF personal Electronic warfare Basic training for all able bodies, weekend shoots, lots of ammo. 2 million well armed and pissed of rebels is a hard thing to quell. Ramping up of war production stock, fuel, food, ammunition, logistics is everything
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 26, 2020 10:03:13 GMT 10
Eggs last a little while without refrigeration, what if you focused on storing grain [cheap and you can always use it as a food source if need be] and keep chickens instead? Fat's necessary and hard to get in nature, eggs are a good source.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 24, 2020 3:19:57 GMT 10
From my perspective, you didn't like the simple and solid [such as $12 solar regulator and $22 radios] in favor of diminishingly unlikely scenarios with increasingly complexity. That's not exactly 'better', that's more likely to get you in a spot, cover the basics first!
I think most people here are realistic that catastrophic isn't going to happen and that they're ready for up to most major situations. What you're talking about is a complete and utter mad-max everything falls apart situation. Got 3 months of food and water?
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 24, 2020 1:42:52 GMT 10
The more you look into security, the more you notice that at best you can only slow down a thief. Padlocks can be picked, broken open, cut, sawn etc. Nothing stops a determined person with some basic tools, check out all the videos about how easy it is and videos about thieves talking about security. Almost nothing stops them. Being remote helps in that it's too far to go. Doors can be easily kicked in, have the hinges punched [if outside]. Windows can have tap added and cracked and removed with little noise. I don't consider either of these to be 'secure'.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 23, 2020 1:11:47 GMT 10
So a 10A welder is going to use 240v x 10A = 2400W. Panels will produce a varying amount of power depending on the sun, the rating you see is the maximum. You sure might be able to do it without it, but why not just hook up a couple of car batteries?
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 22, 2020 23:40:04 GMT 10
Refrigerated hi-top container above ground... aka insulated, fit it out yourself and maybe. Otherwise the shed for $$
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 22, 2020 12:35:48 GMT 10
You'll probably cause voltage collapse on the panels. Use them to charge batteries and do the welding that shinester has posted. Yep, what bug said. Unless you have a lot of panels won't have enough current with solar panels alone.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 21, 2020 22:31:25 GMT 10
Charge batteries .. use batteries like this. If you have a welder use that with an inverter.
3 batteries
2 Batteries
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 21, 2020 1:43:56 GMT 10
I'm thinking 3D printing myself. Seen it done with milk cartons.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 21, 2020 1:41:52 GMT 10
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 21, 2020 1:36:04 GMT 10
I look at prepping as a defence rather than an attack plan. I don't have the space, ability, or inclination to start stocking up weapons, attack dogs, or body armour. I just want to be able to feed my family in emergencies, patch up their boo-boos, and get us through 12 months of austerity. Yeah, hold out till the tide changes, makes sense. Personally I like prepping for life, not having a life of prepping. Mostly does it add to my quality of life? The normal food storage allowed me to continue eating food I liked when there was the short time of shortages in the supermarkets. The backup power, great for continuing mostly as normal when the power goes down in a big storm [many times a year]. A dog? Love dogs to bits, we'll be best mates as every dog I've owned has been. Same goes with shooting, it's meditative to me. I love to play with ideas, try out new things, keeps me fresh and explorative. What about the peace of mind of long term food insurance? Am I thinking there's going to be something major, nah. If it happens, I'm be as ready as I am, less stress, if not, extra fertilizer for the veggies.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 20, 2020 13:56:19 GMT 10
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 19, 2020 22:24:20 GMT 10
"This farm is more about survival. It's about, how do we grow the most amount of food with the least amount of inputs in the least amount of time" Here's Curtis Stone, putting together a SHTF farm. His channel is excellent on how do farms in urban environments. This is about 1/2 acre, and I think it's a perfect example of we preppers might want to achieve, lots of food, low space, less time. I'm sure all of the info is in his online vlogs [some are free] which are probably great, though I think you can piece together the main techniques from these videos and his other videos. Part 1 - introduction, objectives etc. List of crops and amount - long season storage type of crops Acorn Squash : Table Queen - 275 seeds - 25g Delicata Squash Bush - 300 seeds - 25g Spagetti Squash - 150 seeds - 25g Cabbage Red - 250 seeds
Cabbage China Express - 760 seeds - 2g Potatoes Red Norland - 10kg Potatoes Yukon Gold - 10kg Potatoes Russet - 10kg Celery Tango - 1000 seeds Celerlac - Brillant Celeriac - 1531 - 0.4g Parnsips - Gladiator - 1490 - 5g Carrots - Mokum - 38400 - 75g Shallot Ambition - 5000 Red Onion - 10700 - 50g Red Onion Sets
Spanish Onion Sets Lettuce Romaine - 5000 Beets Cylindara - 11875 Dry beans - LOTS of them Garlic
Leeks Varna [summer] - 4020
Leeks Bandit [winter] - 1445 Kale - winterbor - 2835 Spinach - bloomsdale - 60,000 Spinach - space - 5800 -------------- Other items - better to spend right up front. $1075Ca Silage tarps - cover the whole farm - rotary till the whole area, add compost and then cover with tarp until needed to kill off weeds.
$600Ca(ea) - Catapilla greenhouses - way cheaper - uses chain link fencing top link. For fall crops going into winter [is Canada]
Reefer - aka a small insulated cargo container used as a fridge for food storage $2000Ca - Landscape Fabric - edges and on the beds [weed mitigation]. Use as often as you can.
$1000-2000Ca - Irrigation - Pressurized water - taps for each block - drip tape [simple]
soil for starting [seedlings]
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 19, 2020 16:37:13 GMT 10
Money way - You don't need to put the router on the roof, you only need to put the antenna on the roof, run an antenna with a lead to the router. These start at about $10 and go up.
Non - money way - If you put the router on say an old chimney inside a couple of plastic bags, that router will be on one side of the house. The phone will probably work near a window on that side even with a tin roof.
Yes routers are dim a dozen, people usually just get them with their internet company and when they switch they get the new router. You could make up a few that work with car batteries for nothing but time. Don't need an Ethernet switch unless you're running cat 5 cable and need lots of nodes or over 100m, aka you won't need it.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 19, 2020 16:26:42 GMT 10
Weaknesses
Resupply Food - 1 points - I have seed and fertilizer, some fruit trees and a small veggie patch but not enough land Stored Water - 3 points - This has always been a struggle for me, couldn't get the partner to agree to a IEC recently. Shelter - Power generation - 2 points - I have a large battery bank but few panels. I've not built my preps needing power, though that could lead to potential bartering. Security Training/experience - 1 points - this one is a tricky one to improve in this country. I might be a decent shot, though that's not much by itself. Security enhancements - 1 points - I've been looking into security detection, denial and deterrent a lot recently, not ready to implement though in process. Security - network/group - 1 points - My work focus has diminished my social life/prepper meet ups. I really feel that unless they're you're neighbors or they're turning up to your house then it's not going to be much use. Xfactor Medical - 1 points - a great deal of time required here I haven't had the inclination to do. We can handle the basics.
Being real with myself, 60 points for me. ---------------------------------- I find it useful so I can see these weaknesses.
My current focus is Security - short term - get a large dog [only waiting on the breeder] that will work with our situation - reinforce door screws - increase the kicks required to open the door. Keep forgetting to do this very easy project. - get some kind of extra security bar for doors - aka stop people kicking the door down - solar motion floodlights - on order - motion lights - on order - do laser dry firing practice regularly [building targets, waiting on parts]. Better than nothing, though the main aim here is familiarity with the firearms. Back this up with on the range when we can again.
- metal grill/fencing to stop people 'getting' to the door in a crisis. Will store. - plywood ready-cut for windows and extra front door. - fencing barriers/wire to slow movements to put up in a crisis.
- camera system for the house - easy but also considering power usage/choices. - Extended camera system for the surrounding area only put up if SHTF. The main issue is trees, lower frequencies are better but trickier to send video. Working on my knowledge/experience first before dipping my toes in.
Garden - as per the farm that Curtis Stone did, I would like to work on a smaller version of it to iron out my knowledge pool and get supplies for a larger one once I understand what I need and irrigation required etc. The focus on low time is particularly important to me, I have little time left in a week.
Water - I will double use the water storage with the garden, aim for off grid water for the plants serving as a reserve and ready supply of water.
Neighbors. - we're pretty restricted here currently, though I would like to work on the relationships with the nearest ones and see how we go from there.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 19, 2020 15:44:16 GMT 10
It's interesting. These kind of shows take such a narrow view of what circumstances the 'prepping' is meant to address. The scoring system reflects that. In other parts of the world there are people living in what we would categorise as serious SHTF circumstances, long term, and making a go of it. And they do it with about 5% of the 'preps' in that list. Prepper dogma would suggest all these people should not be alive. Morale, resilience, familiarity with ones AO, a small network of reliable friends and keen improvisation skills seem to be the real factors that sort the wheat from the chaff when bad things happen for a long time. I would agree, for almost all situations... Human history has been full of great hardship and adaption. Some aboriginals can take a pocket full of .22s and an old rifle and life for years in the bush. If you have too many hunter gathers in an area and soon that becomes impossible due to a lack of resources, so we became farmers to support larger populations. We build aqueducts to move water tens of kilometers. In the siege of Sarajevo [Bosnia war] only about 3% of the population was killed despite being 1425 days long, thankfully hundreds of thousands were saved by the UN bringing in food supplies. People adapted, almost all were malnourished in the end, many acted barbaric. [there's a great audio series about this]. We also have the 1500's in which starvation was the cause of death of 15% of the population in Europe, the height of the world, the big issue, population. There's the Cubian 'special times' where trade to most of the world was stopped caused great shortages, people went hungry but they were still able to produce close to the necessary needed KJs [8500] instead of the usual 12000kjs that they had been used to. Most people learned to and grew food. Yes, most of the time it's not absolute and a total nightmare of zero food. The two cases that come to mind are in Soviet Russian and China in which about 50 million starved to death. Estimates put a failed power grid in the USA would lead to a 90% fatality rate in a year. Higher populations and a dependence on essential resources for food supply such as fuel [farm, transport, collection] provides a bigger risk. So for most of history we managed to get around situations, though there were always people who made it. I think that's what it's testing, how can we be fairly certain on how to make it no matter what happens? That's a very hard thing to know, there's many potential issues. If an army came in and took everything, there's no way I can oppose that. If you have a community of people, you can repel almost anything but that. So where is that line? I don't know, though I do think it's a good gauge on that test, how can you handle most things that might come? There's no provision for nuclear in the test, yet if such an event occurred, unless you have shelter from fallout and it's heavy [high levels of radiation] you won't last long at all. Personally I think that the test is quite the opposite of narrow, I think it's very broad and it's a hard ass test. It's asking a lot of people it's for the absolute and worst of situations, that have almost never occurred in history. If you were in China with your preps, you might survive, unless the army or population found you and killed you for the food. If you were in Bosnia, you probably would have survived anyway, though Primal Survivor [as per the link] became a prepper after so that things would be easier. So what is the test for? I believe it's for the absolute worst that could happen. Even without power 10% of Americans would survive, something like 5% of Americans are prepared, at least 5% didn't need 'preps'. What does the test do, it shows you what you might need in the worst situations, if you're not prepping for that, you're not going to score high. We all know that 2 weeks of food, some water and maybe a veggie patch will get you through most everything no dramas.
|
|
shinester
Senior Member
China's white trash
Posts: 3,119
Likes: 3,578
Email: shiny@ausprep.org
|
Post by shinester on Sept 19, 2020 15:21:15 GMT 10
Go with the BLUE panels, never the red ones [produce half the power]. Solar panels are incredibly simple electronics and other than the wire connections will work if not cracked. I personally wouldn't worry about testing them if they're not cracked [look at the cells], though if you like, putting light on them ought to generate a voltage you can test with a multi-meter. Yes old panels are great value, so cheap, no reason to buy new ones when there's usually only 1-4% difference in efficiency and 0-20% loss of generation depending on age and they're 1/4 - 1/2 the cost. No brainer.
|
|