Practical Prepping Protocol even if Poor

How tobpurge, process, and freeze 'em.

Note how low the work calories are versus fishing. That difference saves your lives as then less food is needed plus less risk for injuries.

Beginning tomorrow, July 26 and through the weekend, AmRRON will be running their yearly training exercise. This is primarily a radio exercise but many people use it as a full exercise of their preps including turning their power off when the scenario demands it.

The scenario this year will involve a cyberattack against PLCs which are the little computers embedded in everything these days. Should be interesting to follow along. I'm not a member of AmRRON and won't be participating but I'll have my CB and FRS radios tuned to channel 3 just for giggles as well as monitoring the HF comms.

[link to amrron.com (secure)]

This is terrific information, AC1210!! I know they exist in this state but I've never eaten one - so good to know a protein source is readily available, and you have generously provided everything we need to know!

People, I recommend copying this material about crayfish, and being ready, or even practicing already, to use the information to provide yourselves with this unusual and available meal. Kids will find it great fun, and we will be very happy to have the protein.

Perhaps catch and freeze now, having at least one meal of them ready!

AC 72341210, we are indebted to you! Wish we could give you green karma!

Now is the time to learn and then test it in the field. When the SHTF is a terribe time to finally look at a wild edible plant book and discern which is which.

A book or a video is useless unless you know it and can do the skill.

Kids love to learn fron early childhood to 12. Their friends affect how much they continue to learn as city kids will mock ancestral skills as "primitive". That bad friendship can stall their practice.

Most teen boys and girls see the value in it and then continue.

They are way more self-confident as they know they can survive.

Thank you for this information, Cyberpunk! Good to know - and the reminder to be using all our preps is terrific - we who have purchased items we do not yet have experience using - time to sort that out before the situation becomes a "must"!!

People, if you have comms in your preps, listen in! Learn and remember!

Have some common sense and look at the nutritional value of various wild edibles as it makes little sense to know 100 wild edible field greens with scant calories.

It's better to know 20 medicinals that are common. It's better to know what grows around you. You want the plants that can do the most things for you to maximize their value.

Like a birch also has a sap you can drink or just be a water source. And that bark can be made into a kind of charcoal but you can collect an oil and that burns for torches and is great to waterproof leather. So that is all very useful and saves having to know many different ones to fit every role. Bitch sap also has a hint of wintergreen in flavor so can be a seasoning.

You gave us good information about the birch tree - very good information.

Why start with an insult?

We'd love your input on other medicinals, if you could share with us in a positive tone, rather than beginning with bitterness, of which you might not even be aware!

What other delightful plant information would you like to tell us about? We'd be happy to know!

Just tonight has been fun, I've bought a fancy cable to hook my computer to my radio and I'm trying to learn how to use digital modes. It's a good weekend to do this because you know there will be traffic and where to find it.

Pooka, you might take notice of this, it's in your general neck of the woods. AmRRON is encouraging operators to run low power FM and AM stations to rebroadcast information in a grid down situation. The link takes you to a real life example of such a station in a wildfire situation.

[link to amrron.com (secure)]

Imagine being able to give information over low power FM radio that everyone has access to, legally. And, maybe it gets ramped up during an emergency? C'mon, everyone can tune into AM/FM radio, even if they have to go to their car.

It's an exciting project, one that I imagined years ago. Now there is a project to make it happen.

Ref eating wild plants, I had an experience to pass on.

When I was in my early 20s, I studied Euell Gibbon's books on wild plants. I confidently gathered some for a meal.

Dandelion greens cooked in butter...delicious.

Wild onions...great.

Arrowroot steamed...What the heck did I just eat?

It was NOT arrowroot. Not sure what, but I immediately recognized that I had consumed oxalic acid, a common plant poison. Rushed to ER and took the antidote.

The acid burned my mouth and throat. I had consumed a lethal dose, but got the antidote in time.

I would advise against trying to consume any wild plant unless you get expert advice and instruction.

Just read elsewhere that mixing Povidone iodine - the stuff we need to have on hand anyway to paint on the skin in case of nuclear fall-out - and sugar, will heal wounds, even infected ones. Needs to be cleaned with sterile water 1=4 times daily, then reapplied, until odor and liquid have ended, then once per day til healed.

Smart healing, using what we have on hand. Infection will be our biggest health enemy after the balloon goes up, so anything simple but powerfully effective is highly desirable.

Thank you for this! This is wonderful and the very kind of help I wish to be after the balloon goes up! I have still not programmed the BaoFengs, but expect to do so very soon - perhaps this weekend, if you will be around to fish me out of any sudden soup!

So very glad that you were able to reach the antidote in time! We definitely need education, or to have been familiar long-term with certain plants - I grew up in W WA so I know many plants from childhood - or have excellent books with multiple photos of each plant as well as a great description.

Taking a course would be best of all. Check your community college!

If you think my extremely mild tone is insulting, do not look for a Native American elder as a mentor.

A young prepper has to do what offers the most useful information as they most often have little free time. You cannot learn many wild edibles and useful plants all at once. You will mix them all up. It will become a blur.

The name is less imprtant than the function. TomBrown Jr said to walk in the woodlands and meadow and think headache medicine,burn medicine, tool handles, arrows, etc. That is how you remember.

I was thinking about getting some sheep












Never mind

You'll do just fine, get those repeaters in your handheld and you'll stand above the people who only wish they'd done something.

Still encourage you to get an amateur license, nothing like being in an exchange and giving your callsign.

But, as I mentioned, there is a channel 3 effort underway to connect unlicensed people with ham operators. If you have a CB, MURS or FRS radio then there is an effort to connect you with a ham operator over channel 3 on any of those services. I'm hoping to make a connection over the weekend with local radio enthusiasts on those channels.

What disturbed me was your assumption that none of us here have common sense. That is a very broad assumption which I deem insulting, yes.

We do want to learn, at least most of us do, most earnestly, but I don't think the door to education opens with being told what dunces we are first.

I like the idea of learning a thing by the function rather than the name - that would certainly stay with a person longer, and have more effect in future. Thank you for that.

I do plan to take the test and achieve at least the first license. Looking forward to it, in fact.

Your encouragement always means so much!

My, what long teeth you have, granny!

Point out where I said that????????

[link to www.precisionnutrition.com (secure)]

Everybody talks about dandelions as they are ubiquitous. But what is the problem? There is nutrition there but scant calories. In a survival situation, gathering dandelions woukd produce a net LOSS and so that kind of action will ruin you. Yet people don't think about that. They don't apply common sense. That goes for just about all meadow plants.

Nutrition Info

One cup of chopped, raw dandelion greens (about 55g) has 25 calories, 1.5g protein, 0.4g of fat, 5.1g of carbohydrates, 1.9g fiber, and 0.4g sugar. Dandelion greens are an excellent source of vitamin A, folate, vitamin K, and vitamin C (in its raw form), and a good source of calcium and potassium.

Prepare see the vitamins and minerals and indeed the calcium is useful but still will ruin your goals of staying alive.

Probably the best aspect of the Alone tv series is communicating this wisdom. The folks who make it past 50 days are in lipolysis and breaking down fat to survive and they minimize actions and huddle in their sleeping bag as just going out to get dandelions would end their energy reserves and that would send them home.

This week, a guy who took a moose is coasting because he has an ABUNDANCE of meet but a critter, likely a wolverine, took the moose fat. That was a gallon of fat estimated at 35,000 calories or say 13 days worth of energy.

There is no way to get that back and no wild edibles that could replace this other than another moose.

There are no plant sources like that even walnuts or pecans. And that would take lots of work to process. Even if he had acorns, the tannin removal would take a lot of work calories.

This is why you need meat and fat to survive.

BTW, when I accidentally poisoned myself, my BOOKS saved me.

When I felt the burn of the oxalic acid, it was like hot needles sticking in my tongue and throat.

I immediately knew I had fouled up big time.

I grabbed my book, Bushcraft, an Australian book written over 40 years ago. I knew it had a chapter on determining which plants were poisonous. Quickly, I recognized that my symptoms were for oxalic acid poisoning.

Lethal dose is about one gram. It kills you by creating calcium oxalate. Pulling the calcium out of your blood usually kills you with a heart attack.

Then, I grabbed my Poison Handbook, one of my medical books. It said the antidote was calcium, i.e., MILK. I immediately drank an entire gallon.

So, the antidote was easy to come by.

I have read over ten thousand books in my lifetime and still have an extensive library.

I always tell my children and employees, "You don't need to know everything. You need to know WHERE to find everything".

Had I waited for an ER doc to recognize what had happened and what to do about it, I might have died right there.

The only four antibiotics you'll need when SHTF.

[link to globalworld.video.blog (secure)]

Last Edited by Pooka on 07/26/2019 03:31 PM

BTW, when I accidentally poisoned myself, my BOOKS saved me.

When I felt the burn of the oxalic acid, it was like hot needles sticking in my tongue and throat.

I immediately knew I had fouled up big time.

I grabbed my book, Bushcraft, an Australian book written over 40 years ago. I knew it had a chapter on determining which plants were poisonous. Quickly, I recognized that my symptoms were for oxalic acid poisoning.

Lethal dose is about one gram. It kills you by creating calcium oxalate. Pulling the calcium out of your blood usually kills you with a heart attack.

Then, I grabbed my Poison Handbook, one of my medical books. It said the antidote was calcium, i.e., MILK. I immediately drank an entire gallon.

So, the antidote was easy to come by.

I have read over ten thousand books in my lifetime and still have an extensive library.

I always tell my children and employees, "You don't need to know everything. You need to know WHERE to find everything".

Had I waited for an ER doc to recognize what had happened and what to do about it, I might have died right there.


Amazingly well done! Saved your own life through your books. I think today's children and young people are given such short shrift by not darkening the doors of libraries, not receiving books as gifts from babyhood on up, not realizing that a book in the hand is worth twenty cellphones and computers when the internet cannot be accessed, for whatever reason.

Wish parents could start over and give books, beginning with the cardboard type for babies, and continuing age-appropriately, including encouraging a child's subjects of interest by supplying appropriate reading material so they are familiar with obtaining facts and knowledge from the printed form.

Oh, well. Another soap box I frequently take foot upon.

So glad you knew what to do, from your books!

/Rant off.

By all means know what "fish antibiotics" are useful and when. Those are almost the same as human antibiotics with slightly less testing for quality control and are a fraction of the cost and available without rescription. But taking antibiotics without medical training is nuts and acceperates antibiotic-resistance.

Many plants have antimicrobial qualities and many are in your meadow in your yard as they will pop up. Don't create sterile lawns of just grass. If you like that, realize that it goes to "seed" when not cut, thus a food source.

Grow medicinal plants. There are whole books on the subject. A physician in 1880 in America would grow an herb garden and collect medicinals. The go on a "circuit" on his horse and in his saddlebags were his and rarely her medicinal herbs.

The very first one you learn is honeysuckle which I discussed because while nonnative, it is available everywhere.

The other one that LOTS of our ancestors brought over from the old country was Common plantain ie soldier's herb and about a hundred names. That is almost certainly in your backyard. A smart six year old and a regular eight year old can identify it. That is antimicrobial, a plant that knits skin wounds together, a pain reducer, a burn treatment, slows bleeding.

Native Americans when irritated called it "white man's foot" ie the settlers came through here.

That herb saved soldiers since the ancient Roman legions.

Comfrey is in the category for very serious wounds and broken bones.

Garlic is in this category and so are onions.

A plain old pine needle tea that is brew strong as an infusion can treat a wound. Pine sap is an emergency bandage and though sticky will seal the wound and kill germs. You can find that old sap everywhere or make a nick and a blister of it will come out. Save an old dried hunk for later plus it's emergency fire starter.

Not the best video but excellent clear sharp photos. It is easy to identify. Your ancestors used it all the time. They stopped and started buying items instead which is weird if you ask me.

There are a couple of cute videos with homesteader kids using it on a bee sting or a blister or a cut. Pretty amazing really for a modest common weed.

This is the old school way an old wise granny or grandpa would make a poultice. It's a little messy and the green will stain so watch for that.

With a serious wound, you should boil clean white material with ends so you can tie it off as a bandage. That sterilizes it. Throw it away. You cannot reuse it.

You could make a garlic/onion with maybe a little honey water wash to clean the wound site first. That is important with a puncture wound where a wood shard or dirt might be in there. If it is, it will exude a pus which are a series of waves of white blood cells of various kinds to attack the germ.

Watch for fever and redness going up a vein. That is a RED FLAG.

Sure use sterile bandages IF you have them. I mean, you might be bugging out and have to make do in the field and ten miles from a town. It might be two days before you can send someone on a scouting/supply run when the SHTF.

A burn can turn infectious as the barrier was broken. And greenhorns are NOT used to being around campfires. A nightmare is a kid trips and falls into the fire and their limbs touch the coals. So it's wise to know what you can use if you got nothing standard like a first aid kit.

An old buscrafter will often have welding gloves to handle items for the campfire.

Regardless, the first job when getting to the campsite is one person sees to the fire pit, the wood on hand, deal with damp, makes a poker out of a greenwood stick, and makes tongs.

You are need all that. Somebody else is setting up the tent and somebody else is getting kids fed and prepping the meal. Typically people leave after work on Friday so there is mad dash to do everything before darkness falls and then makes all this more difficult.