Survival and Emergency Preparedness

tom mac wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 9:17 am And I thought a couple 55 gal barrels was good

I have tree 55 gal rain barrels at my suburban house. I also have a couple for water storage in the basement. Kind of looking what to do up at the woods house. I don't really need water storage yet since we have a well and a generator. The 330 gal tote will likely be used for rain water collection for the garden when we get around to it.

Just got a message from a guy on marketplace who can supply me with 275 gal totes for free. Score!

What am I getting myself into?

Yes... I set up a few yrs back a rain barrel setup for my mom's garden.
Not hard to do and it waters the garden all summer. Was a win - win as mom didn't have to pull a hose around ( she's now 94 )

That is great! Plus, it saves her money, which is always a plus.

Fired up the gennie today.... put a 500w load on it , all is good.

Getting ready to rotate gas but it may be a longer time to do so, at the current price over a month prob.

Start putting aside extra cash for next winter. With home fuel oil at 5.50, it's going to hurt to pay the monthly budget for same if I don't.
I contract next month for oil futures ( one yr contract ), but I just may not this year and let it float at market price ..hoping things change

We ordered our storage building last week. Excavating for the base starts next week. Delivery and setup of the building in 4 weeks.

Basically it's a free standing steel building on a gravel base. Our neighbor put one in last fall and it's pretty much the same as theirs. Same size 24x40'. Color and door configuration will be different. Ours will have 10' walls, 14' at the peak with 12' rolling doors on both ends to be able to pull our travel trailer through. A pedestrian door, front side. Our colors will be different as well.

Our neighbor's building shown below.



It will provide storage for the tractor, RV, ATVs, mini bikes etc. I'll also build a workshop in it. Since it will be on gravel, I hope to dig out a 10x12' room/bunker under it/inside.

That's going to give you a ton of storage space. I wish I could put something like that in my backyard!

David wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 11:10 am That's going to give you a ton of storage space. I wish I could put something like that in my backyard!

The new house doesn't have a basement and is smaller than the old house. I have an RV (30' travel trailer) and a couple small utility trailers, reloading equipment, aluminum boat & canoe not to mention the tractor, lawn mowers, ATVs, mini bikes. And...a shed and garage full of tools/junk and a basement full of guns (at the old house). Our old house is full of furniture and stuff. Going to take a while to get rid of it all. And of course I'll have room in the building for a real workshop/reloading/gun room. Though I think the gun storage bunker may be under the workshop.

Our goal was to down size living space, but we apparently have to upsize storage space

Been working on the landscaping as well.

It is kind of exciting watching the dream of the woods homestead come to fruition one step at a time.

filled some of the backup gas containers and added stabil... Ouch.

Part of the survival preps:
1. earn a few bucks while retired.
Opening up another credit union account for $300 to spend on gear.
2. passing on gear to others that you don't intend using anymore.
gave moving relative plastic containers.
3. learning new sills.
watched on to start tomato plants from a tomato slice. will now be able even to avoid planting seeds to save a few bucks.
4. picked up another 8 free home testing kits for Covid 19

Kind of gotten into the barrel business as well as the totes. The guy I bought the totes from has some 55 gallon food grade barrels without tops. He has a lot of them. He gave me 5 for free to see if I could sell them. I sold them in one day and then had an order for 10 more. Sold them and ordered 20 more. The lady who bought 10 of them is cutting them down and using them as planters. I sold the 20 and have an order for 30 more. I tippled my money on the 5,10 & 20, gave the guy who ordered 30 of them a discount because he wants 30 more. Only doubling my money on those. Meeting up with the guy tomorrow for the first 30, end of the week for the rest of them.

I sold 8 totes last week and have orders for 8 more this week.

Hey, it's paying for my gas going back and forth to the new house



The guy I get them from has a couple hundred of them laying around.