The Survival Bicycle

When the gas is gone, the car tires are worn out, and the truck parts are no longer available; you can still get around. The most energy efficient form of transportation in the world is the 10-speed bicycle. It hasn't been that long ago when most Europeans commuted to and from work on bicycles, and the Viet Cong carried supplies from North Vietnam to the Mekong Delta on bicycles.

Bicycles have relatively few moving parts, require few tools to repair, and require little in the way of maintenance. A good bicycle costs way less than a poor automobile, and the fossil fuel cost for a bicycle is zero. You can cover a lot of ground in a short time on a 10-speed, and it will improve your health. So there are a lot of good reasons to ride a bike even if it's not a survival necessity.

I personally have mountain bikes. They are not as fast on the road as a touring bike, but they are more robust and much superior in off-road situations. Riding at a leisurely pace I can make the 10 mile trip into town in an hour.

I don't have a basket on my bike, although they are available. I prefer to use a backpack for carrying any purchases. I have equipped my bike with a small bag that mounts on the handlebars. In the bag I keep a locking chain, a Philips and a regular screwdriver, vise grips, a pair of pliers, and an Allen wrench. I also carry a spare tube and a patching kit in the bag. A bicycle pump and a water bottle are mounted on the frame of the bicycle. In addition I keep several more tubes, a couple of tires, and a spare chain in my storage building.

Besides my bike I have two others for family members to use. I don't use my bike as a primary means of transportation but it's nice to know that it's there if I need it.

Canning and Food Storage Supplies

My wife and I have a booth in one of the local antique malls, so we are always going to garage sales and junk stores looking for things to put in our booth. When we're out junking, I always keep my eyes open for items that I can use for my survival preparations. At one garage sale I bought over 200 canning jars for $24. A super deal.

Canning jars can be reused for years, and the rings around them can be reused also if they're not damaged, but the lids must be new every time you can. I always buy lids at the end of the summer when stores are trying to get rid of them. They always put them on clearance. It's more profitable for them to sell them at near cost than it is for them to store the lids until next spring. If they are marked low I will buy a lot of them. I probably have eight or nine hundred lids in my food storage. They don't take up hardly any room.

Of course it takes more than jars and lids to can food, so I keep a good supply of other things. I like to keep about five gallons of white vinegar on hand and I also keep at least 25 pounds of salt and 25 pounds of sugar. I buy canning spices in bulk and store them in sealed glass jars. Dill seed, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, mustard, black pepper, peppercorns, all spice, nutmeg, and bay leaf are some of the spices I keep on hand.

I also keep a lookout for 5 gallon plastic buckets, one gallon glass pickle jars, and the metal cans that pre-popped popcorn comes in. If the 5 gallon buckets are food grade, I use them to store bulk grains, flour, cornmeal, and dried beans. One time I found half-a-dozen plastic buckets that had been used for kerosene. Obviously I didn't want to store food in them, but I bought them anyway. After a good washing, I used them to store about 240 pounds of 8-8-8 fertilizer. Waterproof and air tight, the fertilizer will stay good for years.

I use the one gallon glass jars to store grains, flours and beans in my kitchen pantry. Because you can see the contents, it makes them easy to locate; and they are moisture and vermin proof.

The metal popcorn tins do not seal air-tight, so I use them to store stuff that will not spoil. I keep salt and sugar in sealed plastic bags inside these tins.

I also keep a large selection of sealable plastic bags on hand. I do not recommend these for long-term storage unless they are going to be placed inside of a glass or metal container. Rodents (or my cat) can easily chew through plastic bags to get at the goodies inside.

Generator Update

You're always learning new things. For instance, I recently learned that my normally reliable generator does not like to start in cold weather. It happened like this. It was late in the afternoon on a cold day (at least it was cold for East Texas). The temperature was around 30 degrees. There was a cold North wind blowing, and apparently a tree or a limb blew down on the power line somewhere because our electricity went out. We had a nice fire going in the wood stove, so we weren't worried about heat; but we were right in the middle of a good TV program, so I decided to fire up the generator. The generator is already hooked up to the house and it has a full tank of gas with fuel stabilizer, so all I should have to do is pull the starter rope and throw the switch that disconnects us from the power grid. I went out and pulled the starting rope for about 15 minutes, and the generator never would start. I was ticked. What good does it do to go to all this preparation and then not be able to get the generator started? So, I got in my truck, drove to town, and bought a can of starter fluid. I drove back to the farm, and as I pulled up in front of the house, the lights all came back on. Typical.

I decided to go ahead and try to start the generator and make sure that everything would be working right the next time. I removed the air filter (about a 30 second job), sprayed one squirt of starter fluid in the carburetor throat, replaced the air filter, and pulled the rope. The generator fired right up. The can of starting fluid now sits right next to the generator patiently awaiting the next cold weather power outage. So be warned by my mistake. Buy a can of starter fluid and have it on hand for cold-weather starts.

Portable Solar Power

My wife recently received a handy little device from the Dell computer company. It is a portable solar panel that can be used to recharge cell phones, walkie-talkies, and other low voltage electronics. The interesting thing about this device is that you can set it out in the sun and charge it up, and then it will hold the charge for up to three months. At any time during that three months that you need to charge a cell phone, or other device; all you have to do is plug it in and let it charge. It takes about an hour to charge a cell phone, and according to the enclosed instructions you can charge about three cell phones before the device needs to be set out in the sun again to recharge. What a great thing. If you have this little beauty charged up, it doesn’t matter what the weather is outside; you have a source of power to recharge your phone, blackberry, or whatever. Pictured Below: Dell solar recharger, about the size of a cell phone.

I went to Radio Shack and bought a cable and some connectors so that I could hook up my portable CB radios to this charger. It comes with a variety of connectors that will fit most of the common cell phones to recharge them. Of course there wasn’t one to fit an LG brand phone which is what my wife has. Not the first time that we have run into this kind of problem with her phone. It doesn’t fit any of the connectors on my hand cranked radio either (the generator on this radio can be used to recharge cell phones also). Even Radio Shack didn’t have fittings to go to her cell phone. The salesman there said that LG is a world of their own and that we would probably have to go to them to get a connector. Hey, here’s an idea; it’s about time to upgrade and we just won’t buy an LG phone. Anyhow, check out these little re-chargers. They could be real life savers in a disaster situation. I’ll bet a lot of hurricane Katrina victims wish that they had had one of these. Pictured below: Dell solar recharger hooked up to my walkie-talkies.

Home Heating - Woodcutting

It’s mid-October. I know that in some parts of the country there is already snow on the ground, but here in East Texas we think that it is cooling down because it only gets into the high 70’s during the day. So now is the time that I am starting to cut wood for my stove this winter. I hold over a little wood from the previous year so that I will be sure to have some that is already seasoned. By the time I burn it, my newly cut wood will be dried out enough to make good firewood. When possible I like to cut wood that is already dead. That way I’m not cutting any live trees. My second choice is to cut trees that I need to get out of the way. This might be a tree that is in danger of blowing down on a power line, a tree that is shading my garden or orchard, or a tree that might fall and block road or driveway. Of course if these trees are not a good hardwood, I have to find another use for them or just let them lay. I prefer to cut oak or hickory. These split easily and burn hot. I sometimes cut an elm if it’s in the way but they are hard to split. Pine and sweetgum are very common on my farm but are not good firewood.

In these times when everything is good, I use my chainsaw to cut wood; then I haul it up to the house where I cut it to stove wood length and split it. I still use wedges and a sledge hammer to split wood. I can’t see the financial advantage to a log splitter. It’s easier to split wood, but those things cost a fortune, they use fossil fuel, and I need the exercise anyway.

If times were bad (i.e. a total breakdown of the social order) I have my old stand-by, a crosscut saw. Actually I have three crosscut saws of different sizes. I wouldn’t want to make all the noise that a chainsaw does, and believe me; you can hear a chainsaw from a very long way off. A chainsaw would only attract attention that I don’t want, so the chainsaw is out during hard times.

The basic tools that I use are a chainsaw, an axe, a sledge hammer, and some splitting wedges. I use a Poulan Pro chainsaw with an 18 inch bill. Don’t wear yourself and your saw out by buying an undersized chainsaw. Also, learn how to work on the saw yourself. Sharpening a chain, cleaning the air filter, and replacing the sparkplug are easy to learn and will save you a ton of cash. Because of our mild winters, I only need about a cord to a cord and a half of wood to make it through the winter with my wood stove. The difference between burning wood and using my electric central heat is dramatic. When I don’t burn wood my electric bill is over $300 a month. When I use my wood stove religiously, it reduces my electric bill to about $100 a month in the winter. Quiet a difference.

I keep my firewood up off the ground but I don’t cover it. I do keep about 4 or 5 days worth of wood on my covered porch so that I have dry wood. As I burn the wood on the porch, I bring new wood up from the woodpile. I have a kindling box built into the garden shed outside of my back porch where I keep a lot of split pine kindling. Getting a fire started in the stove is usually no problem, but if the wood is too wet and it is hard to get a fire going I use a little rich pine for kindling. This stuff will burn under any circumstances. I have even soaked it in water and then set it on fire with a single match. It is so heavy with pine rosin that it is almost like having wood that has been soaked in kerosene.

Remember, a wood stove is not a good choice if everything has gone bad. That wood smoke might attract attention that you don’t want, so keep the kerosene heater ready for use at first, and wait a while on the wood stove if possible. Still, with that said, there’s nothing that says home to me more than driving up and smelling the hardwood smoke coming out of my stove pipe. It just makes me fell at peace with the world.

The Survival Garden Greenhouse

This last summer we finally saved up enough pennies to complete a project that we’ve wanted to do for years. We built a green house on to the back of our country home. Some friends of ours had access to some glass that had been cut for patio doors that had turned out to be the wrong size. The glass panel are double glazed and clear so they were perfect for what we wanted to do. Our friends gave us eight of these glass panels as well as a double insulated single-hung window, and we thought we were well on the way to having a greenhouse. We didn’t want a huge greenhouse, just something about 8ft. by 10ft. We figured that we could knock something like that out in short order. Funny how we can always convince ourselves how easy something will be.
I won’t go into all of the gory details of construction but I will give you a brief outline of how we built our greenhouse:
• We removed the sod from the area where the greenhouse would be and replanted it.
• We dug a 14” wide by 9” deep footing, leveled up our form boards, threw in a couple of rebar, and poured about 30 bags of sackcrete.
• On top of the footing we laid a 20” high wall of cinderblocks (the first time I ever laid brick or block, I was amazed that it turned out both level and square to within a quarter inch).
• We dug down to a waterline running under the greenhouse and added a faucet inside of the greenhouse.
• We framed up the wooden portion of the green house and painted everything.
• We screwed on a corrugated clear fiberglass roof and caulked all the seams.
• We installed the single hung window on the East end of the greenhouse.
• We built the potting benches inside the green house out of treated lumber.
• We built an extension of our existing deck over to the greenhouse.
• We built steps down into the greenhouse out of treated lumber.
• We laid patio blocks and gravel on the ground inside of the greenhouse.
• We built a set of double doors with Plexiglas inserts and mounted them in the West end of the greenhouse.
• And last, we installed the glass panels.

Pictured Below: The finished greenhouse.

It was a lot more work than we had anticipated, and the weather was a lot hotter than we anticipated, and we had to spend more money than we anticipated, but we were very happy with the results. The greenhouse looks like part of our house and not just an add-on. We are looking forward to having fresh hothouse tomatoes this winter, and we will be starting a lot of plants for our spring garden in the new greenhouse.

Home Power - The Generator

The first thing that you have to understand about gasoline powered electrical generators is that they are not a long-term power source. They are useful during power outages, but even the most efficient units use a lot of gasoline if you keep them running full time. Even during power outages it is wise to use the generator only when necessary. Since I have kerosene lamps, a wood heater, and a propane cook stove; I only really need to run my generator a few hours a day to keep the refrigerator and freezer cold and to pump water for a bath and to flush the toilets. While the generator is running anyway, I take the opportunity to recharge my flashlights, my radio, my wife’s cell phone, and her laptop. These items draw very little wattage.

I have had a generator for several years. I did a lot of research and a lot of comparing before I bought my generator. I ended up getting a Black Max Generator from Sam’s Club. It has a surge rating of 6560 watts and regular operating rating of 5250 watts (more about this below). I wanted a generator that had enough power to run my home, but I didn’t want one that would be overpowered and eat up a bunch of gasoline. I also wanted a reliable unit, and the Subaru motor on this generator has worked without fail so far. Pictured Below: My generator ready to be plugged into the house.

One thing that has always been a pain about operating my generator is stringing out extension cords and plugging and unplugging various appliances. I recently had a plug and switch installed on my house so that I can plug the generator into the end of the house and throw the switch which disconnects me from the grid and switches over to generator power. The switch keeps the generator produced electricity from backfeeding into the power lines and electrocuting some innocent lineman who is working on reconnecting the power lines. Pictured Below: The big gray box to the left of the meter box is the switch that disconnects me from the grid and connects me to the generator.

Before I plug in the generator I turn off all the breakers in my breaker box and then, after the generator is running, I turn on selected breakers for the circuits that I want to operate. Lights and ceiling fans draw little wattage. The refrigerator and freezer draw significant wattage, but they only need to run for two or three hours a day to keep everything cool. It's simply a matter of running them during the day when the lights are off. The one-horse 220v. well pump draws a lot of wattage when the motor kicks on, so I try to have the refrigerator and freezer off when the pump is running. Central air conditioning, electric heat, and an electric cook stove are out. They draw far too much energy to be powered by a generator. I do have a small window unit air-conditioner that I can use to keep one room cool in really hot weather. In general, anything that produces heat or has a good-sized motor will draw a lot of wattage. Pictured Below: Small storage building where I keep my generator and a can of fuel.

If you are considering purchasing a generator, you are probably as confused as I was about what size you need. After all, these things run on gasoline or propane, and the bigger the generator, the more fuel you will use. You don't want to burn fuel to produce more energy than you will need, but at the same time you want to be sure that you have enough power to run the things that you need. Let me try and save you some headaches by telling you how I finally arrived at a formula for picking the right size generator. The first thing that you need to know is that generators have two ratings. One is the regular operating wattage, and one is called the surge wattage. You see, some appliances, like a light bulb, use the same amount of watts at all times, while other appliances, like a well pump, take a lot of watts to get started but less watts to keep running once they are in operation. These extra watts to get an appliance going are where the surge rating comes in. Your generator's surge rating tells you how many watts the generator will provide for a short time, but this is not the wattage at which the generator was designed to produce power for an extended period of time. To figure out how much generator you will need, you must add up the total wattage, including surge wattage, of all the appliances that you plan to run at one time. Your generator needs to have a surge wattage rating equal to at least this amount. Now add up the operating wattage of all the appliances that you plan to run at one time. Your generator needs to have an operating wattage equal to two times this number. The reason for this is because your generator will work most efficiently if you only draw on half of the rated operating wattage. More than this will put undue strain on the generator.

If you try to run all of your appliances at one time you will need a huge generator; and you will, consequently, burn a huge amount of fuel. It is much more efficient to use your breaker box to control which circuits you will have on at any one time. I have each breaker in my breaker box marked with the amount of watts that are drawn by the appliances on that circuit (this is somewhat inexact because you may not have all the appliances on a particular circuit turned on, but it gives you a guideline). I have a card tacked up over the breaker box that shows the operating wattage and surge wattage of my generator. When I get ready to turn several circuits on, it's a matter of simple addition. The total wattage of all the circuits operating at one time must have a surge rating of less than the surge rating of the generator and an operating wattage of one-half of the operating wattage of the generator. If I am about to throw a breaker that will exceed either of these numbers, then I know that I'm going to have to turn something else off first.

Of course it doesn’t do any good to have a generator if you don’t have any fuel for it, so keep some gas on hand (stored well away from your home, of course). I keep about 25 or 30 gallons in five gallon containers. About every 2 or 3 months I pour this gas into my truck and go refill the gas cans. This way I always have fresh gas. I keep a few bottles of fuel stabilizer on hand but it is too expensive to use if you don’t have too.