By Holly Frost
Oh hey! Assistant here, and look, I have the keys!
More seriously, Sarah has been having a week of colds and weather and various other unfun and games, and asked last night if I’d throw something up for her.
She suggested how to tell if you are an aardvark, but I figure all the Shifters here already know if they’re aardvarks, and another friend mentioned having Spring Fever, and a music student’s mom said something about Spring Planting, and for a change it is NOT snowing here, which means we’re probably at the annual shift from Blizzard to Wildfire season, and do y’all mind maybe not having so many multiple states spanning tornado producing storms over there in the Midwest? It’s a bit concerning, even though I know you’re used to it.
So I’m going to give you a bit of homework, in honor of the changing seasons and the normally crazy weather. Go check your Get Home Bag and your Bug Out Bag. Whatever you call them at your house. Did the wipes in the car bag dry out? Did the kids outgrow the sweatsuit again? Are the meds in your carry bag out of date? That sort of stuff.
For those new to the concept, are there any? If there are, the Get Home Bag is the stuff you carry with you on a daily basis in case the mandatory evacuation notice or the shelter in place or whatever hits while you’re out on your daily activities. It may be what you take to the Red Cross Shelter (why?) or your friend’s house, or curl up in your car by the river with. The stuff you have to have overnight, until you can Get Home. If you have prescriptions, a couple days worth, clearly labeled, with expiration dates, don’t leave these in your car because temperature will ruin them, your purse or backpack is a good location. Probably a multi-tool or similar fix-it all. Some baby-wipes or similar product. Change of socks. People who wear impractical shoes: change of shoes. (These are good for all, but if you wear three inch heels at work, these are more necessary.) A change of clothes is nice. The right size of diapers if you have diapered kids. Water and a snack are important. Ziploc bag everything: you can never have too many ziplocs and they’re pretty water proof.
The Bug Out Bag is the opposite, it’s the bag you grab when reverse 911 or the sheriff deputy pulls up and says “Get out now!”, when the three story wall of fire is a quarter mile away . . . you probably aren’t coming back and you don’t have time to pack, and if you did, you’d spend it getting further away anyway. It has pretty much the same kinds of things in it, and space to toss the important documents box in, because if you happen to have the Social Security cards and the Birth Certificates and the titles, you’re in better shape than everyone else who got hit.
If you have special circumstances and need to dump ice packs and meds in a small cooler or the like, you know what they are, please go make sure everything’s prepositioned properly for grab, dump, go. Someone probably moved the cooler, or the ice packs froze to the shelf, or . . . you know the drill.
These are not exhaustive lists. There is in fact a fairly exhaustive list on this site somewhere, copied from a dead site via the Way Back Machine, and I think put up as a guest post by Doug.
Okay, time to go enjoy the sun, and . . . how did the lawn grow that tall when it was snowing daily, anyway? Yikes!
According To Hoyt 
“They Didn’t Tell Me That There’d Be Homework!” [Very Big Crazy Grin]
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Good idea. My bugout bag has been sitting in the closet for five years. Even the cash has gone bad, let alone the food.
I recommend talking with your/a pharmacist about expiration dates. Some meds actually expire, some just have arbitrary dates. Even if it has expired, I’m still keeping the Oxy I never used after surgery, ten years ago; it can’t be less effective than aspirin.
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Or check that military test they did. I can’t remember what the site is called. They got tired of dumping medications on the expiration date and started testing every ten years or some such. The results were published, and as of four (?) years ago were available online. Most medicines are still effective long past the expiration date.
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Just about all dry medications (aspirin, ibuprofen, lisinopril, etc.) will last a decade and still be effective if stored in a cool, dry, dark location. (Hint – the feds wouldn’t care if opioids degraded. You get caught with 10-year old narcotics you’re not supposed to have, you’re going to jail because they’re still as good as the day they were made.)
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A doctor friend of mine told me that pretty much all medicines are good long past the expiration date, except for one specific category which does go bad and has to be thrown out. (I wish I could remember the category). Most do slowly lose effectiveness, so pills a few years old might be the equivalent of 80% of the dose listed on the packaging. For medicines where you need a very specific dosage, you might not want to take them. But for medicines where you take something like 500 mg, and 400-600 would be fine, then go ahead and keep those pretty much forever.
Do talk to a pharmacist or doctor about the specifics, though, because you really don’t want the side effects of medication that really does go bad. Again, I wish I could remember which category it was.
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Posted a comment that ended up spam-binned. Let’s see if this one goes through.
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Trying to repost in case my first comment was swallowed rather than spam-binned; please feel free to delete this if it ends up duplicated.
A doctor friend of mine told me that pretty much all medicines are good long past the expiration date, except for one specific category which does go bad and has to be thrown out. (I wish I could remember the category). Most do slowly lose effectiveness, so pills a few years old might be the equivalent of 80% of the dose listed on the packaging. For medicines where you need a very specific dosage, you might not want to take them. But for medicines where you take something like 500 mg, and 400-600 would be fine, then go ahead and keep those pretty much forever.
Do talk to a pharmacist or doctor about the specifics, though, because you really don’t want the side effects of medication that really does go bad. Again, I wish I could remember which category it was.
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Will this be on the test?
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The whole point of the post is that the test will be a pop quiz. You don’t know when it’s coming. Theoretically it may never come. But remember how many kids have gotten burned assuming there wouldn’t be a pop quiz tomorrow.
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The Reader hopes it won’t be a BIG pop.
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Ah HA! So THIS is the dream pop quiz I forgot to study for and have woken up in a cold sweat because of for, lo, these 40+ years.
And here I’ve been studying for St. Peter’s Pearly Gates quiz all this time.
At least neither one involves math.
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Actually that’s the important one, but then, this pop quiz may affect the important one. Prudence is a virtue.
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I was going through my bags this week. I need another backpack for a tornado bag. The big back-pack is going in the truck, and the smaller bag in the car.
The funny thing is, in spite of paring both bags down to the absolute minimum, there’s no room for food or water. SMH.
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I use 4, 5-gallon plastic jerry cans for potable water. 40 pounds of water is just manageable to pickup and move around, or onto the tailgate. Do need to change out the water every six months or it goes kind of stale.
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I used 5 gallon Reliance containers for some years for home water (shared well, on mains only). One of those sprang a leak, and the plastic was way too thin. It might be better now, but take a look at any containers, or be willing to return if you get from the ‘zon.
I’ve had good luck with Scepter 5 gallon containers, though they don’t fit together like Jerry cans. Current Scepter went with the Jerry can style, and they offer a rack to fit their cans. (No idea if a standard Jerry can rack would work.)
For longer term storage of water, https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-kitchen/bleach-water-ratio-for-drinking-water/ It’s a good idea to use a fresh bottle of bleach.
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Good reminders.
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That little fire(resistant) safe containing important papers is only a 15-inch cube and easily tossed in the back of the truck. It’s not a bad place to stick a thousand in cash for portable security either. Just remember that cash utility may vary widely, and not last long, when the SHTF. But it does work well if running from forest fires, hurricanes, and other regional disasters.
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In small bills. If you need a bottle of water and you only have a 20, you buy that bottle for 20.
Or more realistically buy ten bottles, but it illustrates the point.
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We are prepped the best that time and budget allow, as far as I know. (Comes from a lifetime of living in Tornado Alley.) Didn’t win a FU lottery, so no bunker or private island.
Check all your batteries, items that eat batteries and stock up if necessary! Besides generators, you can also get large rechargable powerbanks that have enough stored energy to keep phones and such going for awhile. Also can come with portable solar panels. Get some extra light sources also.
Consider sources of fuel for heat and cooking. We order a couple of cords of wood even though we are in Texas. Sometimes winter happens. Plus bottled propane for grill and heaters.
Get extra first aid supplies! Gauze and wraps are cheap online. One single booboo that needs twice daily changings can eat your reserve.
If you can get a good cheap source of Ivermectin, get at least 200 count. We stocked up early during Covid and helped many family and friends. Recently saved me from a hospital stay. There are many reasons Big Pharm/Big Med hates it. It’s difficult to get cheaply domestically, so you may have to get creative.
And make sure you have some card games and such. Also a good pellet gun or .22 if you have tree rats in the area. :)
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” how did the lawn grow that tall when it was snowing daily, anyway?”
I’m fairly certain that some plants continue growing even when they are buried in snow.
Which is super fun when they are plants that you were hoping to get ahead of…
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Snow is opaque at visual light frequencies.
I’m pretty sure I saw evidence, from differential melting, that it is not opaque at all frequencies that the sun is transmitting power through the atmosphere on. I forget what exactly the evidence was, but it was in the back yard at the time.
I’m not sure about photosynthesis through snow. But, I think plants do store energy, and grow over night, so…
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Having sat in snow-covered cars, I can assure you it’s at least semi-translucent.
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Garlic. Grows right out of the snow. If snow is too deep it will happily grow under the snow and pop out at the first opportunity.
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Yes there are many plants that grow right through the snow. Daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, hollyhocks etc. Also peas, radish, turnips, lettuces, kale, thyme, sage, parsley chives, onions, rhubarb, grasses of all kinds, ferns, lilacs, actually, the list is rather endless.
Depends on the varieties for sure, some are more cold hardy than others. But snow is a great insulator and keeps the ground from freezing so, since I live where there is a lot of snow cover all winter and we’ll into spring, we see things green up faster than out on the prairie where there is less snow because our ground doesn’t freeze.
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Skunk cabbage famously melts its way through the snow.
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Emergency socks. One pair. It’s better if you have wool ones in the winter, or thermal socks. In the summer, they should be cotton unless cotton doesn’t agree with you.
See, it’s not fun to have no change of socks if your feet get wet, or your shoes get ruined, or you sweat too much.
Also, it’s handy to have emergency socks around, if you run into somebody else who has no change of socks, or no shoes.
You can also use emergency socks as emergency work gloves or emergency mittens. Maybe even an emergency rope to tie small things together, or an emergency handle, or an emergency potholder.
Basically, a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is, probably also has emergency socks in his pocket.
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Also you can put heavy things into your emergency socks, and turn them into emergency weaponry. Just saying.
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I would not suggest cotton, for the simple reason that cotton can wrinkle up and given you blisters. Look at lightweight hiking socks—I have a favorite style that is bamboo (plus synthetics for stretch) and they have *never* rubbed or otherwise given me grief, even the recent campout when I had to walk around in them all day while my waterproofing gave up the ghost. 14-16 hours in those things, even wet, and no issues once I got a chance to remove them and dry my feet.
(EcoSox is the brand.)
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Good ideas!
I’m working on a re-do of the “get home bag” as I’ve now retired (so mostly home anyway) and am usually close to home now as well. I’ve also moved into ‘senior’ years (70’s) which also requires some additional thinking about said bag. It will become lighter and more focused on a “bail out” situation where some supplies and resource materials will be immediately necessary; blanket, first aid, etc. and actually getting home secondary. Think of the B-17 crew landing by chute in France circa 1943 but with modern gear.
At home I’m working up a sort of minute man set up at home for a rapid response emergency situation and a “go bag” that could be used in addition to the ‘strap on and go’ gear to extend resources for the emergency but not the right-now, this second situation. Again, being beat down and older limits a lot of things so it’s a task at meeting real “need” and not having any “wants” for the first level.
After that, it’s going over the home and having some additional supplies/materials pre staged for a just-in-case deal with some flexibility to adapt on the fly.
As an additional thought experiment – what’s in you pockets right now? My every day carry is also evolving. This summer with t-shirts and light clothing means something like a J frame. As soon as cool weather shows up, it’s a shift to full size nine and extra goodies in the coat pockets for everyday. Knife? What?? only one? Nope, you again need to read your local/personal situation and work out folder, fixed and or both sort of questions. I feel it should never really “end” and you should be doing a review, recheck, and evaluation all the time and a full blown annual re-think.
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We figured out that a bug-out situation is far less likely than a bug-in one. Both local major wildfires (one big, one huuuuuuuge) stayed in forest, avoiding the big pastures north of us. The other directions have safe clearances, either on our property or the neighbor’s. Invasion by the home-grown suspects wouldn’t get far, and Kurt Schlichter’s The Attack scenario would likely skip what passes for a town here. (OTOH, they might try Flyover Falls. Not a likely target in that scenario, though there are others where it could be a problem, mostly at the airport.)
Get-home is problematic right now. The vehicles have emergency supplies (though not in bag form), primarily focused on getting stuck in a snow drift. I started building a GHBag until a knee injury made that moot. (Walking more than a mile or two a day is horrible to contemplate right now.) Once that’s fixed, I’ll continue.
The big concern would be something happening on the weekly shopping trip. It’s 35-40 miles from home, and Flyover Falls isn’t likely to have local rioters. Not sure about Schlichter’s or other scenarios. We’re far enough from the Cascadia subduction zone to make an event not overly bad. There’s an alternative route that’s 10 miles longer, but has decent water availability. Either way, 2-3 (or 4) days on highway or rail-to-trail.
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Fold-up bicycle. Or one of those knee-scooters
Luggage cart, folding.
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Room for cycle is limited. Both knees said hell no to the scooter–beyond the current issue, they each have a history. No bed canopy on the Ridgeline, though its trunk offers an alternative. A folding cart in ISO-STD condition would work for highway and a third of the R2T, but not on the unpaved section. Retrofitting a cart with wider tires (thinking hand truck pneumatic type) might work. Bulky, but possible.
Makes me wonder about the cute-utes I see in F-Falls with a good sized pod up top. The weekly market trip entails two large coolers and the back seat down. Some trips use all the floorspace. Bulky get-home equipment would be an issue. (The semiannual Westside excursion makes for a very full Subaru. Using the truck is sub-optimal.)
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Regarding shoes – if you are in a place where debris might be part of the problem, have hard-soled shoes, or something with a very sturdy and thick sole that you can still walk in. Around here, tornadoes are a concern, and little sneakers are not good for walking through/over/around jagged stuff. Things can also hide in knee-deep water (BTDT at Flat State U.)
I lean toward wool socks, summer and winter. They do take longer to dry after you rinse them, but they seem to be more durable, and stay warm when wet, unlike cotton. Your needs and climate may vary, and cost is a lot less for most cotton socks.
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In our neck of the woods, we have a saying “Cotton Kills, all year”. Probably because trails like the PCT goes through the mountains. Cotton gets wet and it leaches heat out. That is true of feet, body, limbs, and torso. Leaching heat is rarely good. Wool OTOH retains heat, but it also cools. My problem? I have problem with wool. Can wear it as a second layer, just not next to my skin for long.
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Silk! There are non-dress socks made of silk, and I guess they are usually called liner socks. The hiking kind seem to be silk/lycra/spandex.
There are also men’s trouser socks made of silk.
It looks like there are a lot of silk socks that are silk/wool blends, though, and clearly that would not work for you. So be careful.
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In a former life, I backpacked and hiked a lot. Wool socks over trail-grade silk worked really well. The silk ones were carried by one or another of the backpacking stores. Both big names and one-store outfits were common in the SF bay area (circa 1980). All this is to say, I have no idea where I got them.
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REI, maybe?
That is where we got most our backpacking gear.
In fact hubby was really irritated when we went in to re-outfit me (my childhood pack wasn’t going to cut it), and get non-down gear. He couldn’t find his REI card. He’d been a member since inception in San Diego. Really, really, low number. We still have the new number from 1979. Still have most the gear. Updating only cooking pots (for lighter ones). My pack from then, an external frame, while the brand is faded, not a rip or break. It is also lighter than most anything, short of a specialty light minimal style pack, currently on the market. Which for backpacking gear, is rare.
Not that we’re backpacking these days. I could. *Pay for it. But I could. Hubby’s hips and knees are not up for it. For both of us the ground has gotten awfully hard, no matter the pads, and getting out of a backpacking tent of the ground, is challenging, at best.
(* My last trip I’d lost 40#’s and my pack starts at 35#, everything … I paid the next week, and I was a 18 years younger. I’ve never been in “good enough shape” for backpacking. Maybe when I was 25.)
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Possible for REI, though not likely. Most of my packing happened in the late ’70s and through the ’80s, and REI only had a store in Berkeley, CA at the time. Went there once with a friend and I got a pair of wool (blend?) knickers. North face was there, later in Silicon Valley. Sierra Designs and Western Mountaineering (big San Jose store) got a lot of my business, along with some tiny places. SD was in Palo Alto, so it got a lot of customers from HP and Stanford. WM was pretty much a destination store. Huge for an independent, and tending to higher end equipment.
Didn’t really need REI until they opened a store nearby around 1990. At which point I was a regular. Stopped buying from them over the freedom dispenser ruckus a few years back, and Sportsman’s Warehouse has most of what I need. They’re in K-Falls, so easy. REI is in Medford, so not.
I have some of the equipment left over from backpacking, though much of the stuff best suited for a GHB was donated. I think I donated the 1 man goretex minitent. Should look again. The 2 man tents we each had (both of us packed, but before we ever met) are on hand, but would be awkward to take. I still have the down bag from the ’70s, though it hasn’t been used since the late ’90s. Went to lower tech bags with the tent trailer.
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We have one, 3 person tents, ours. And one, two person tents, son’s. Former? Smallest we can go and have us share. Well a we can, I am just regulated to a tiny corner. Hubby is 6’2″, anything smaller and he sleeps diagonally. Tent is one item that is newer. When the tents came out with doors on either side (good quality, that didn’t cost the moon), my response was “I want one”. One door tents meant both of us are being woke up multiple times in the middle of the night.
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My husband got me a very nice 4-season “3 person” tent last year. For me. I describe tent sizing thusly: “They fit that number if there is no gear and everyone is very good friends.”
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Or they are very small persons. :-P
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Or it is very cold out. I wouldn’t actually know. First and last snow camp I went on (with BSA whose troop invited the GSA troop to go) I was 12. We built snow caves. Once was enough. I would smiled, and had gone if more adults had been needed. Enough adults, who actually like snow camping, went. I had to go in the summer/fall camping months. Hubby had no problems getting time off if needed winter and early spring. Rain gets old. Well versed in keeping dry. It was the snow I balked at. Not helped by that really needed to wear a brace on my left knee if using snowshoes or skies. But nope. Just prefer not snow camping.
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Somewhere in the late ’90s, we got a family tent; big enough for then-fiance, now $SPOUSE, me and two small dogs. (Italian Greyhounds, 13 pounds each.) Would work for a bugout situation, though the travel trailer combines emergency housing and bugout (still, hard to see what would force us out).
The main concern is getting home, 99% of the time, it would be me, solo from F-Falls. So, striving for compact. Worst case is both of us, plus the 40 pound dog. Tight squeeze in a two man tent, but possible.
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One thing that came to mind. Certain vehicles (both the 2012 and 2016 Subaru Foresters for us) have pathways where a sufficiently motivated mouse can get into the vehicle (lower cargo space by the spare tire) and thence to the rest of the vehicle. I used to keep granola bars loose in the center console compartments, but the mess showed that was a bad idea.
Two things helped: 1) Granola bars went into a Snapware container, thence into the console.
2) I set up a Glade automotive air freshener, set to minimum, and placed it in that cargo space. Only obnoxious when I opened the top cover.
After dealing with a mouse who had peed in the heating ducts, I was willing to try anything. These worked. (It eventually faded, but took months. Arggh.)
Never had interior mouse issues in the ’03 Silverado, nor in the ’19 Honda Ridgeline. I have a sticky trap in the upper portion of the cargo storage cubby in the Subies, and since the Glade treatment, Hotel
CaliforniaSubaru has been empty.TL;DR: Watch out for rodent issues. These were field mice. We get deer mice (Hantavirus bearing, too), but so far not in the cars. Won’t speak to what gets under the hood; we open the hoods for the vehicles in the garage, though they don’t [bother|can’t get in] the lawn and utility tractor engine compartments.
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I can wear the silk/wool blends. Don’t know why? Wool they are using? Or the silk tempers the wool just enough. Wool makes me itch. Even the good blends. But not as bad as some people get it. I don’t get rashes unless using pure lanolin (yea, that use did not go well. Left two of us really unhappy.)
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Bamboo yarn socks work very well too as liners for wool. Cheaper than silk but effective and very soft and cushy.
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Love my bamboo hiking socks.
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Seconded on the silk. I possess a long-underwear top made of knitted silk, purchased at Cabela’s.
Leaching heat is only good if you’re in danger of heat stroke. And my husband’s socks are ALL wool-blend.
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Water leaches heat out. That’s why sweat works, and why you want to loose up your layers, no matter how cold it is, if you are in danger of sweating. Why really cold weather is safer when it’s snowing — the point at which you can brush it off before it melts is crucial. And DO NOT fall through the ice.
Cotton, however, loses any insulating properties it has when wet. All natural fibers do, except wool.
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I’m 73, and the idea of walking is NOT appealing. Bad knees, still too much weight (despite having lost over 20 pounds recently). And, husband tore his quads this winter, and is still recovering.
So, any situation in which we have to walk out is probably a no-go.
However, I used to have a ‘go-bag’ when I lived in SC. Even though we were too inland for the major flooding, we still experience some VERY wet weeks, when the leftovers from the hurricanes hit us. And, in the Midwest, where I live now, power outages, thunderstorms, high winds, and killer snowstorms are a way of life.
When we moved, unfortunately much of the important paperwork got jumbled – I need to look for my passport this week, as well as other important documents, like marriage and birth certificates. I’d like to say that I will be able to get that done shortly, but I’m more realistic than that.
This week, I may dig out a large plastic bin with a cover, label it FEO – For Emergencies Only – and start filling it as I find things. I still will have to winnow out my radio equipment to a manageable size.
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She suggested how to tell if you are an aardvark,
The aardvark will tell you.
The pink elephants and blue mice are flighty and irresponsible and will lie about whether you are a mouse or an elephant. Fluffy and the sea serpent in the minion pool will not lie but might not mention if you are a dragon and/or a sea serpent. But the aardvark will tell you and offer you some ant bon-bons.
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Homework? I do not remember that being in the class syllabus…
This is a timely reminder as we are in the midst of relocating and we have to set up something for the new location (and the cars; it is a different climate), review the old place, and prepare for a third one.
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Tackle box.
Yeah, I know, “Bag” is perhaps shorthand or euphemism. A tackle box is meant to store a bunch of things – and some smaller stings in VERY easy to get to/identify ways. So it’s NOT crazy to have smaller (dollar store?) pill bottles & such in the smaller divisions, and so on. It latches. And it doesn’t look “weird” in the average home, at least if near the door or such. Add a fishing pole if you need a “disguise”… heck, add actual fishing tackle if it might be useful!
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Well, a standard fishing box will have a multitool (or multiple variants thereof), so that’s one thing that is a good idea. Hooks and line can be useful.
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The humble duffel bag makes much gear look uninteresting. There are multiple sizes from small to YGBFSM. Add an empty laundry detergent bottle to make it look maybe like laundry.
A small but sturdy luggage cart, preferably with bigger wheels, lets you haul gear on smooth terrain with less strain than a backpack.
Bungee cords allow rapid attachment of baggage to cart. A long dowel or pipe makes a handy handle. (use a pair for a really big haul, say on one of those folding “haul my deer” things from hunting catalogs)
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