Calling All Preppers!

[Coho911]

We're going to have to have a 'North Calgary/Airdrie & area' preppers meetup to share ideas & such.

[tazweiss]

Originally Posted by Lonnie

NO you don't keep your plans to your self as the saying goes it is a wise man that holds his own council. the minnit that you got friends they all have diffrent Ideas that they want to put in place even if they make little sence. and there always seems to be one that scams the rest.

When my group first began to organize, everyong knew that I had the most experience with prepping and survival. They also know that it's my land they'll be living on, in the event of TEOTWAWKI. They all agree'd that I'm the boss. I approve any plans or put then into the plan B or C category. I will accept the council of the members but I make the final decisions. Everybody also agreed that should I decide that a member has to leave because of causing too much conflict, they are obligated to back me up. With my years of military experience, I have developed the necessary organizational skills to run things, so choosing me as the leader was unanomous.
So far any ideas that others have had have been reasonable and the few that weren't usable, I explained why not and the person agreed. I chose my group members carefully and I knew ahead of time that they would get along. We meet at my place on several long weekends throughout the year to socialize and there have never been any conflicts.
There is one thing that I did reassure my group about. If, after TSHTF, a situation develops where I do have to tell a member of the group to leave. I will not do so unless I am reasonably sure that they can survive on their own. To that end, everyone in my group will learn about survival, both on their own and in the community on a continuous basis. Life would be harsh enough, I wouldn't kick anyone out knowing that they didn't stand a chance.

[bare8]

Hi everyone, I just joined and was very happy to see some like minded individuals out there and I'm glad to see most people *cough Steve* are respectful of others. Its interesting that the government and many other institutions talk of preparations for emergencies quite openly, selling kits and giving advice, but when you mention it in public, your a quack!? Is this some kind of High School mentality of what's cool or not cool? Anyways, good for all you who see fit to look-out for yourselves and your families!

[zero]

Originally Posted by tonka

I have a 1 month supply of food on hand simply gets rotated through. As for water i have a purifying system so im good there. Financially i have enough cash to last 3 months and savings to last 2 years or more. If the market would play nice my retirement saving could grow again instead of playing star fish.

savings in a bank or in a vault at home, if shtf and banks are down your savings is useless unless you have it in gold or silver at home, cash will be just paper if something big happens.

[natters]

are there any groups to this effect that meet in the Edmonton area? or is it just a wing it and hope you find some like minded people? :P I am interested in learning how to survive in the climate here, where to find forageable foods and which mushrooms are safe etc. I'm not sure I would consider myself a "prepper" at this point but I think it's important to learn how to "live off the land" if need be.

Any suggestions on finding like minded people in this area?

[Okotokian]

To be perfectly blunt... I have a number of firearms. Most of my neighbours don't. nuff said.

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by tazweiss

They all agree'd that I'm the boss. I approve any plans or put then into the plan B or C category. I will accept the council of the members but I make the final decisions. Everybody also agreed that should I decide that a member has to leave because of causing too much conflict, they are obligated to back me up. .

Sorta sounds like all the women in the group will be your "brides". Often seems to go that way LOL

[Sneeze]

Originally Posted by Okotokian

To be perfectly blunt... I have a number of firearms. Most of my neighbours don't. nuff said.

How many of your neighbours have stores of food?

Unless they are a grain fed vegetarian family I would maybe put some rice under the stairs.

[CaberTosser]

Originally Posted by Sneeze

How many of your neighbours have stores of food?

Unless they are a grain fed vegetarian family I would maybe put some rice under the stairs.

He can always marinade them in Teryaki if they're not grain fed. The rice might make a nice accompaniment though.

Don't forget there's 40-50 gallons of potable water in their water heater(s) if the utilities are down! You'll need something to wash them down with . Also avoid the ones with too much cosmetic surgery, they taste plasticky.

[Bax]

Anyone in the Edmonton area who wishes to get together and chat, possibly with the goal of forming a MAG (Mutual Assistance Group), feel free to PM me.

Also, there is a Facebook group set up for Alberta Preppers.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlbertaPreppers/

[tazweiss]

Originally Posted by Okotokian

Sorta sounds like all the women in the group will be your "brides". Often seems to go that way LOL

I already have a bride and she's quite enough. For the most part, the single women in the group are blood relatives, besides, long ago I taught my wife how to shoot. Having other brides is out of the question. If I tried that, my wife would only miss me for so long before she zeroed in.

[gunmum]

Originally Posted by Bax

Also, there is a Facebook group set up for Alberta Preppers.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlbertaPreppers/

Thanks for this Bax, I've found some great resources on this page
-like making a cheap and easy emergency heater:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qUTrvsRdnE

[r2d246]

If you like that kind of thing you should totally do this:

Get the Alex Jones app for your smart phone.

If you don't have a smart phone you can listen online, google infowars
http://www.infowars.com/listen-to-th...-show-archive/ (you'll be amazed)

and for fun download or watch all The Walking Dead episodes. So much fun to watch. Lots of survival situations in that shtf scenario ha ha. ;-)

[steve]

Im putting the final touches on the shine still. Will be fully prepped for epic sized disasters in two weeks.

Hows your guys alcohol supply going to be when disaster and chaos strikes?

[BeeGuy]

Originally Posted by steve

Im putting the final touches on the shine still. Will be fully prepped for epic sized disasters in two weeks.

Hows your guys alcohol supply going to be when disaster and chaos strikes?

What design did you go with?

[Yéil]

After being posted in Ontario during the ice storm of 98 and then in NS during hurricane jaun, we now have our preps done for contingencies as above. I also grew up in some of the smaller communities in the YT so being prepared for wintering was a must. Making that last trip for supplies either down to Grande Prairie or Edmonton was an annual event, the family would take a couple of trucks and trailers to being the supplies up.

I made a start up list of items to think about purchasing as well as a time line to purchase them so that we could budget accordingly. I can post it if anyone is interested. I found it useful.

[Jebus]

Subscribed for a read. Starting to think about prepping - I'm a city boy with very minimal outdoors skills lol, I mean I enjoy camping...in my trailer hehe.

Never shot an animal, wouldn't know where to start to process it, don't even have my PAL yet - although the Wife and I are going to get it this summer.

[voncosbies]

Hi guys, I just found this thread and gave it a quick scan. I didn't see this anywhere so I figured I'd ask (if it's been addressed I'd really apreciate it if you could send me in the right direction).

I'd really like to find a Canadian dealer for water packaged for long time storage in 500ml+, tetra boxes come to mind. Any suggestions?

Any other prepping specific shops suggestions would be great too!

Thanks!

[Athabasca Jackson]

Originally Posted by tazweiss

I use solar panels and a wind turbine to provide power for my place and I can switch to my generator if I need it. When I bought my place, it was going to cost me almost $20,000 to get power to the cabin. Then I would also have a monthly power bill. I thought about it for a good 3 seconds, then went out and bought four 75 watt solar panels with a charge controller and an inverter. A few deep cell batteries and I was in business. A little later I tied in a vertical wind generator and haven't regretted it for a second. For the lights, I use LED bulbs. And still, no power bill every month.

What was the cost for you to get set up originally?
Thank you in advance.

[SnoochyBoochy]

I am a like minded individual. I am more interested in prep from complete police state government take over. Wilderness survival and growing/harvesting skills and non detection tactics. I would not hunker down but rather have an exit strat somewhere far and deep. I would be ready to survive in a zombie/ruffian environment with plenty of ammo and explosives ideally. I am looking for a rally point or cache on a farm northwest with horses.

Let do this
Snooch

[cheier]

This thread seems to be periodically resurrected, so I figure its ok for me to put my first post in it...

Prepping is one of the reasons I am looking into getting my PAL and hunting. We are looking at getting into gardening, canning and preserving, and hunting to sustain ourselves and hopefully in the long run, reduce our cost of living.

The plan for food is a two tier system. Short term (1 to 2 year) and long term (up to 25 year) food storage. Terms are in how long before spoilage rather than how long we can survive on food stores. Short term would be covered with gardened and hunted goods properly preserved and cycled as part of daily food requirements, while long term would probably be up to 1 to 3 months of emergency dehydrated goods rated for up to 25 year shelf life. I figure this way, you are covered worst case for 3 months if SHTF personally or within society.

I always try and make sure alcohol is covered around my home as I am a home brewer, brewing beer from its base barley, hops and yeast ingredients (sometimes cane sugar, maple syrup and honey). Some say my beers are awesome too, so I figure in an TEOTWAWKI situation, my beer might pass for good currency... I generally keep anywhere from 5 to 30 gallons of ready to drink beer on hand at any given time. I also generally keep enough ingredients around to brew 100 gallons of beer, just because I like having choice when building recipes.

I have been doing research into power solutions and the jury is still out on this one. I've looked into standby generators, and the question became one of fuel type. Natural gas or propane. Natural gas still leaves you to rely on 3rd party supply. Propane leaves you with having to have a tank on your property and potential logistical issues with refilling it in an urban environment (how many people have a propane truck pop up in a residential neighborhood to fill the underground 1000 gallon tank). Other options include a solar array feeding a battery bank, but the issue crops up again about cloudy days, short days during the winter, how many days worth of battery do you need, what if the batteries deplete, etc. It all came back to having a generator of some sort, but in the case of solar, used purely as a supplemental source of power to charge the batteries. Then again, for those months where this may be an issue, you can just store most of your food in a box outside...

For water, I've considered the idea of an underground water tank that could hold up to 3 month supply of water, with flow sensitive water pump and charcoal filtration. As a daily use, it could be fed into by the municipal supply then back into the house, this way the water is always being cycled, until water supplies are down, at which point, it can be configured to accept rain water.

As some have mentioned, I see prepping as purely another avenue of insurance. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars in my life on insurance that I've never had to use, but god knows one day I may need it. No different with food stores and sustainability measures. I could only imagine how nice it would be to have that peace of mind that if the SHTF, that my family would be OK and we can continue to live in relative comfort and security.

Other plans include having ample fire extinguishers in the home easily accessible on any floor and the garage. We already keep a small one under the sink.

Of all the ideas I've mentioned so far, the food plans are the most near term plan that I have slowly begun working on. Currently evaluating a supplier for long term food supplies. Also studying for my PAL, researching food preservation and gardening.

I'm more excited about the fact that going into life with more of a prepper attitude begins to make you more of a self sustaining person. The less I need to rely on third party supply chains, the more I am prepared for worst case scenarios, and the more cost effective, and in many cases, healthier we can live our lives.

[thunderheart]

Originally Posted by cheier

This thread seems to be periodically resurrected, so I figure its ok for me to put my first post in it...

Prepping is one of the reasons I am looking into getting my PAL and hunting. We are looking at getting into gardening, canning and preserving, and hunting to sustain ourselves and hopefully in the long run, reduce our cost of living.

The plan for food is a two tier system. Short term (1 to 2 year) and long term (up to 25 year) food storage. Terms are in how long before spoilage rather than how long we can survive on food stores. Short term would be covered with gardened and hunted goods properly preserved and cycled as part of daily food requirements, while long term would probably be up to 1 to 3 months of emergency dehydrated goods rated for up to 25 year shelf life. I figure this way, you are covered worst case for 3 months if SHTF personally or within society.

I always try and make sure alcohol is covered around my home as I am a home brewer, brewing beer from its base barley, hops and yeast ingredients (sometimes cane sugar, maple syrup and honey). Some say my beers are awesome too, so I figure in an TEOTWAWKI situation, my beer might pass for good currency... I generally keep anywhere from 5 to 30 gallons of ready to drink beer on hand at any given time. I also generally keep enough ingredients around to brew 100 gallons of beer, just because I like having choice when building recipes.

I have been doing research into power solutions and the jury is still out on this one. I've looked into standby generators, and the question became one of fuel type. Natural gas or propane. Natural gas still leaves you to rely on 3rd party supply. Propane leaves you with having to have a tank on your property and potential logistical issues with refilling it in an urban environment (how many people have a propane truck pop up in a residential neighborhood to fill the underground 1000 gallon tank). Other options include a solar array feeding a battery bank, but the issue crops up again about cloudy days, short days during the winter, how many days worth of battery do you need, what if the batteries deplete, etc. It all came back to having a generator of some sort, but in the case of solar, used purely as a supplemental source of power to charge the batteries. Then again, for those months where this may be an issue, you can just store most of your food in a box outside...

For water, I've considered the idea of an underground water tank that could hold up to 3 month supply of water, with flow sensitive water pump and charcoal filtration. As a daily use, it could be fed into by the municipal supply then back into the house, this way the water is always being cycled, until water supplies are down, at which point, it can be configured to accept rain water.

As some have mentioned, I see prepping as purely another avenue of insurance. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars in my life on insurance that I've never had to use, but god knows one day I may need it. No different with food stores and sustainability measures. I could only imagine how nice it would be to have that peace of mind that if the SHTF, that my family would be OK and we can continue to live in relative comfort and security.

Other plans include having ample fire extinguishers in the home easily accessible on any floor and the garage. We already keep a small one under the sink.

Of all the ideas I've mentioned so far, the food plans are the most near term plan that I have slowly begun working on. Currently evaluating a supplier for long term food supplies. Also studying for my PAL, researching food preservation and gardening.

I'm more excited about the fact that going into life with more of a prepper attitude begins to make you more of a self sustaining person. The less I need to rely on third party supply chains, the more I am prepared for worst case scenarios, and the more cost effective, and in many cases, healthier we can live our lives.

nice first post and welcome to the AO forum ... some really good folks on here as i am sure you have seen from lurking before joining. You have some good ideas,, and sharing them is a good thing. thank you .. sounds to me like you are on the right course .. it is paramount that you get you PAL and learn to use a fire arm properly and safely.. learn to fish and set trot lines .. Canning is a wonderful art and makes one proud as they look at the jars each time they come out of the pressure caner or water bath. and the garden .. well that is a very very valuable skill.. I truly believe that learning to live close to and more in harmony with the land is essential to our lives whether SHTF or not

good luck and looking forward to your posts.

thunderheart ..

[Gust]

,,, the good ol'preppers thread ,,,,

[Ruger1022]

Originally Posted by Gust

,,, the good ol'preppers thread ,,,,

I am not hardcore by any means with my prepping, but a lot of my friends think I am crazy. I have a 4-6 month supply of food and a month or so of water. I find it funny that I started getting texts two days ago from my buds that think I was a nut case for being prepared. All of them now realize how fast S could HTF and all of a sudden everyone is interested and I am not so crazy anymore. It's only in an event of an emergency that people are interested in prepping and hoarding.

When the river goes down and the dust settles I am sure I will be the crazy guy with food and guns in his basement once again.

[doetracks]

Suggestions for bulk dry goods purchases in Edmonton??

Bulk Barn not overly a great deal. Costco is a possibility.

Other places a bit off the radar?

[Gust]

Originally Posted by doetracks

Suggestions for bulk dry goods purchases in Edmonton??

Bulk Barn not overly a great deal. Costco is a possibility.

Other places a bit off the radar?

I was trying to find Horne & Pitfield and found this list;

http://www.manta.com/world/North+Ame...ers--B608D000/

[fish gunner]

Originally Posted by doetracks

Suggestions for bulk dry goods purchases in Edmonton??

Bulk Barn not overly a great deal. Costco is a possibility.

Other places a bit off the radar?

Nutters in olds or red deer ,and I dont mean my friends

[doetracks]

Originally Posted by fish gunner

Nutters in olds or red deer ,and I dont mean my friends

Good thing you clarified.. LOL

Thanks

Kind of disappointing that Walmart doesn't carry bulk like the US stores do.

[Big Daddy Badger]

Just curious about how folks are storing their bulk dry goods.
You do know that they have a shelf life right?
You can't be assured that they will retain their quality if they are not stored correctly.

My suggestion is throw some dry ice in the bottom of an air tight container...fill it with the goods then seal.
The result is that things are stored in a negatively pressurized space.

Otherwise... you might be surprised what can happen in there over time.

[Masterchief]

Originally Posted by doetracks

Suggestions for bulk dry goods purchases in Edmonton??

Bulk Barn not overly a great deal. Costco is a possibility.

Other places a bit off the radar?

Have you tried Briden Solutions? They deliver and sell freeze dried foods that last 25 years... I have tried several of their products and are surprisingly tasty. Here's a link to their website

http://www.bridensolutions.ca