Survival and Emergency Preparedness

capitalism at it's finest,
pays for gas !

tom mac wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 8:24 am capitalism at it's finest,
pays for gas !

I've made about $800 so far minus gas every week up and back which has been around $600 total. I would be going up and back anyway so I had to factor in the difference in mileage between just driving my truck empty and pulling a trailer full of totes. Based on mileage it cost about $11 more to pull a full load up there and $6 more to tow the empty trailer home. A load of totes =$105 profit. The first 20 barrels had a profit of $200, actually a little more since the guy gave me 5 for free.

Take away expenses of towing the trailer...I cut the sidewall of the tire running over a stump and rippled off the tail light. I replaced the tire with my spare but needed a spare. I found a local shop who had a like new tire. Tire and mounting on my spare wheel was $60. I also upgraded the tail lights with LEDs when I replaced it so that was about $30.

The next load of 30 barrels will have a profit of only $150 due to the volume discount but I don't have to haul them up north and he want's all I can get. The guy who ordered the 30 barrels lives closer to home and will be picking them up so no added expense except to pick them up from the supplier. He is 13 miles away so 26 miles round trip. I will pick up 6 totes and 30 barrels on Wednesday. That's about 1-2 gallons of gas or maybe $10 based on towing an empty trailer down there and full one coming back.

I know, more info than you wanted to know.

My next former next door neighbor used to give me asparagus. Finally, I ordered seeds. After a year, I will never have to buy it again in the store.

I have a plethora of tomatoes this year. Some started from seed and some from purchased plants. Finally, I learned how to germinate plants from a slice of tomato and will save a bit more.

I am harvesting French radishes every day as well.

Just picked up a load of totes today. Will be transporting them north. These are all sold. That's $260 profit. Also shown is a black steel barrel with a hand pump on it. I picked that up free from a guy on the local gun forum. It still has a couple gallons of diesel fuel in it (for my tractor) and a jug of fuel stabilizer good for 2,000 gallons. I'm keeping that. Gotta love fellow gun guys. He no longer needed it



Sold all the totes. Got orders for 12 more.

Our new deep freeze has been delivered. Already working on filling it up. Wife has been working hard to slowly stock pile extras that we use in case of shortages.

Wife canned some hamburger.

Finally finished getting the vehicles switched over to winter supplies, checking batteries in items in the vehicles, throwing in emergency snow chains, and making sure each vehicle had a sleeping bag. So, we are ready for old man winter.

Bmyers wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 7:44 am Wife canned some hamburger.

Pressure cooker method I assume ?

Any special method of prepping meat?
I've tried solid beef but not burger as I feel there may be to much air involed when grinding.

Yes, pressure cook, beyond that I have no idea.

Put some gates up across the drive ways at the woods house

This was the new driveway we had put in this summer. It's 100 yards closer to the house than the lower driveways.


The lower drive way. Turned out to be too wide for the 12' gate. Going to have to redo it with a couple of 8 or 10 footers. The drive is only 12' wide but there is 4-5' on either side. Didn't take that into consideration.


Drive #3 is next to the above driveway but goes directly back to the back 40. I've already cut a connector from the homestead (near the building) to this drive through the woods so we shouldn't have to use this gate.


These gates are just to keep people from driving up to the house and back 40 from looking around while we're not there. Not really good security since you could simply cut the chain/lock with bolt cutters or post down with a saw.
I dug the post holes by hand (good exercise) The other two gates were all sand i.e, easy to dig. The back 40 gate was all clay. Took me almost an hour to dig each hole. Posts were then cemented in place.

Nice work. I know we added these to our post on the gates (see below). We had placed signs on the fence, but they kept blowing off.