United States Prepper Networks

I was thinking that a helpful how-to post that can save you some much needed cash would be good for today. With that in mind I’ll try to help you build a functioning water filter. Directions as follows.

You can make your own “Big Berkey” type water filter for about one third the cost and a little bit of time on your part. The materials you will need for this project are two food grade buckets of two to five gallon size with lids, a “Black Berkey” filter, three brass or stainless one and one quarter inch 3/16ths bolts with nuts and two washers each, three rubber washers of the same size and either a cpvc threaded boiler drain or a flip-up spigot like those found on large coffee pots and some water coolers.
The first thing you want to do is scrub your buckets and lids meticulously clean and then wipe them with some bleach water and let air dry. Then put the lid on one bucket and sit the other bucket on top of the lid. It should nestle inside the rim of the lid nicely, then drill three holes the size of your bolts in a triangle pattern about 2in. in from the edge for small or three for large buckets. Then slide a rubber washer and a metal washer on your bolt then put them down through the top bucket and bottom lid. While the buckets are still in this position drill a hole 1/8th inch less than the thread size on your filter element, usually this will be 11/16ths, but double check that to be sure. Now lift the lid and bucket and lid off together and put a washer and nut on each bolt and tighten pulling the two snugly together. Now you want to drill a hole for your spigot near the bottom of the lower bucket, 1/16 smaller than the threads if using a cpvc boiler drain then screw the drain in keeping it as square in the hole as possible. If using the flip lever spigot make the hole the exact size needed and install spigot making sure you have one rubber washer on the inside and one on the outside. Now put the lid back on your bottom bucket and then screw your filter down through the hole you previously drilled in the center and you are now ready to put your new water filter in to service.Follow the instructions for cleaning the ceramic filter and be sure and pre-filter any “dirty” water and this system will do many, many gallons of water for you and your family.
Good luck and as always, if I may be of any assistance you need only ask. Everyone have a nice day, Gary.

It certainly is starting to look like things are on the brink of a irreversible slid in to an area this country hasn’t seen in 75yrs and I don’t think there is any stopping it now. The new spending package doesn’t seem to be making everyone feel warm and fuzzy like our gov said it would. Well duhhh, us peons out here in the real world could have told them that weeks if not months ago. If you haven’t got your preps together, now would be the time to move it to the front of the line and shift into high gear. I would suggest that you only have a small window of opportunity before the economy starts showing the effects of things that are happening now. Expect prices to rise sharply for most of the basic goods we need and I can see a rise in taxes and other services,if you can call it that, to go up also as the states try to balance budgets. I think now is the time to really hit the basics hard such as dry beans, rice,flour and other things you can use as the foundation to feed your family. You can still find some stuff at prices that will allow you to buy lots. Look in the Mexican section at Dollar General for pinto beans at $2.00 for a 4# bag and 10# bags of rice at $4.25 and they still have Treet at $1.00 per can. I mean the very basics here not the things you wish you could get but can’t afford or are otherwise out of reach. When you need them the most what you have on hand will trump what you wish you had every time. Get the most bang for your buck while you still can. Do what you have to do now and your family will thank you later.
On a related note, I mentioned old cookbooks the other day and I found a couple of links in my bookmarks I’ll pass on. The first is on how the Indians used the very basics,www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/NAIFood/NAIrecipes.htm and the second is an e-book from WW1 that has a lot of very basic stuff http://www.gutenburg.org/ebook/15464 Hope these may help you get an idea of what can be done with just the very basics.
I know everyone talks a lot about food but there is more things that will be needed so don’t make the mistake of honing in on just one thing like food and forgetting other things like water,light,the ability to cook and all the other things that go into staying alive when you can’t run to the store when you’ve forgotten something. Think about things like an extra pair of shoes for everyone and extra clothes and anything else that wears out or gets out grown. Start making it a point to hit Goodwill or Salvation Army stores and yard sales for things you can use to better your position. You will find lots of things like candles(extra care with these),cookware(get cast iron or alum because teflon will not last long over the fire) and many other useful items. Use your common sense and experience and you will find lots of things you can use. If you are just starting to get prepared do as much as you can and try to meet others of like mind and are also prepping and work together to the benefit of all. I wish I had better news but I just do not see any. Everyone have a nice day.

I was thinking about the new people that come to visit these networks and got to thinking of a good way to explain why we do some of the things we do so even new people could understand. Everyone should understand what security means. Normally when you say security people tend to think of firearms and ammo, but I would put forth the fact that I think it is much more than just that to we preppers. In fact I think it is sort of like the word prepper in that it means many different things and some we may not be able to describe. When you finally get that first three months worth of food in your pantry isn’t that security? I certainly feel more secure knowing it is there. When you stand back and look at all those jars of veggies, jellys and pickles on the shelf that got there thru your hard work, do you not feel more secure knowing you can do it again next year and the one after that. Or when you get two months or more of bill money stashed back in cash are you not more secure. When you learn how to fix things that break around the house you become more secure because now you don’t have to call the repairman and spend more money you could use for other things. I believe one of the biggest reasons most of us are prepping is so we are more able to take care of ourselves without outside help or interference. Firearms are part of our security to some of us, but I hope this can help you understand, there is much more to security than that to a prepper. People like us are usually working on many different things at any given time, but the central theme is always to secure that elusive thing called peace of mind. Now that’s prepper security. Have a nice day, Gary.

I’d like to take this opportunity to announce the opening of the new “Preppers Store” here at the United States Prepper Networks. This store may be found here. This is meant to be a place where other preppers can market there products to other preppers and will be mostly preparedness related in some way. We will not have the normal things like survival seeds, lts foods and other things you often see on preparedness sites. For this reason the inventory will be slow to build, but I will attempt to bring you quality products made and marketed by fellow preppers. As I’m sure most of you have noticed all of these sites(blogs) are ad free at present and it is my intention to keep them that way. Hopefully as it grows this store will provide enough income to pay the bills and keep us ad free. Some items will only be found here exclusively such as autographed copies of the book that is in the store now and another becoming available soon. If any of our readers think they have a product that would fit in this store please contact me at (nitewalker@unitedstatespreppernetworks.com). The store is being operated as an online consignment shop and I would be happy to discuss the details with you. I hope that you will consider supporting us and other preppers in this endeavor. Thanks, and have a great day, Gary

I was recently talking with my son about how much it would cost for a 90 day supply of food for a couple just getting started with a prep program, because there seems to be a lot of new folks coming in to the prepper community at this time. My initial response was $100 to which he replied,not everyone could or would be able to eat like Dee and I could. He then preceded to lay out some ground rules which I thought were reasonable and I agreed to. The rules basically were to only use one store, as much variety as possible for a decent diet and as low a price as possible. This quickly became a very interesting endeavor on my part and also this post you are now reading. It was not nearly as easy as I thought in the beginning and I learned much in the process. What I was able to come up with is what this post is all about. The store chosen was Dollar General because overall it beat Food Lion,Martin’s and Walmart,the other possible choices in my area. Please understand this is just the very basic things.
2-10# bags of rice @ $4.75ea $9.50
3-4# bags of pinto beans @ $2.50ea $5.00
2-2# bags of gr northern beans @ $1.75ea $3.50
2-5# bags of flour @ $2.00 $4.00
2-2.5# boxes of Bisquick @ $2.75 $5.50
2-4# bags of sugar @ $1.75 $3.50
5-2# boxes of macaroni @ $1.65 $8.25
2-18oz boxes of oatmeal @ $1.00 $2.00
2-2# bags of grits @ $1.25 $2.50
1-container of cooking oil @ $2.75 $2.75
1-1/2 gal pail of lard @ $4.75 $4.75
2-39oz cans of coffee @ $5.50 $11.00
1-jar of instant coffee @ $3.75 $3.75
1-box of tea bags @ $1.25 $1.25
2-containers of powered drink mix @ $1.65 $3.30
4-boxes of saltines @ $1.00 $4.00
5-18oz jars of peanut butter @ $2.75 $13.75
3-18oz jars of jelly @ $1.65 $4.95
10-16oz cans of evap milk @ $.85 $8.50
5-cans of mushroom soup @ $.60 $3.00
5-cans of cream of chicken soup @ $.60 $3.00
10-cans of mixed vegetables @ $.60 $6.00
10-cans of corn,peas,gr beans @ $.60 $6.00
6-cans of tomatoes(variety product) @ $.50 $3.00
5-cans of Mackerel @ $1.00 $5.00
12-cans of Treet(like Spam) @ $1.00 $12.00
6-cans of tuna @ $.65 $3.90
4-cans of chicken @ $1.00 $4.00
5-20oz cans of fruit @ $1.00 $5.00
2-48oz jars of apple sauce @ $1.75 $3.50
2-boxes of raisins @ $1.00 $2.00
8-boxes Jello(diff flavors) @ $.40 $3.20
Total(if my math is right) $156.40
Now, this works out to about $1.72 a day for a 90 days beginning food storage program. I assumed that everyone has spices and other things that would be necessary to turn the things on this list into some tasty meals.If not I figure you could add a decent variety for another $25.oo. Just so you know, everything on this list is in our pantry here at the old mountain hideaway and we eat it on a regular basis. I understand that some of the things on this list may not be used at your house, but that’s ok. That is what cookbooks are written for, and I suggest you collect some. Especially old cookbooks as they tell you how to use basic ingredients and that’s what you have here. There are other things I would like to have, but I didn’t add in order to keep to the basics And as my dear old Mom said when I showed her what I was working on and she added some good thoughts to what I had, “there’s sure not any cakes or pies on the menu” . Some folks might substitute other things in place of what’s on my list to fit their lifestyle or health issues as they see fit, but I think everyone can see where I was going here. The prices may vary a bit from area to area, but I hope this gives you some ideas of what you can do to help your situation with what I consider a very limited budget. I’ve got an idea for another post roaming around in my little pea brain about how some of these things could be used in meals. I’m definitely looking for comments on what you think and how you would change my list or how you would use the things on the list.
I hope this gives you some things to think about where food storage is concerned.
Everyone have a nice day, Gary.

Announcing a comment contest for the blogs that are a part of the http://unitedstatespreppernetworks.com/. The contest will run from May,15 until June,15 and will work as follows, when you go to one of the blogs and leave the author a comment you will be entered in the contest. Every comment will be another entry, so the more comments you leave the better your chance of winning will be. Each comment will be given a number and then at the end of the month the computer will generate a number which will be the winning number. The prizes will be the winner’s choice from these three books. Patriots, by Jim Rawles, Back to the Basics, by James Stevens or an autographed copy of Fall from Grace, by Michael Short. I will have the prize shipped directly to the winner. We hope to see you visiting the blogs and good luck.

Our friend over at The Survivalist Blog is also running a similar contest for readers and he also has a contest for other blog owners as follows.
M.D. Creekmore over at the The Survivalist Blog – a survival blog dedicated to helping others prepare for and survive disaster – with articles on bug out bag contents, survival knife choices and a wealth of other survival information is giving away a Go Berkey Water Filter System (a $139.00 value)! To enter, you just have to post about it on your blog. This is my entry. Visit The Survivalist Blog for the details.

Adding to or starting your group. Part 6 The make-up of our group.
Today’s post came about through some questions asked in the comment section of part 5 of this series of post. I will gladly will try to answer them in this manner.
First of all I’m a little bit late with the answers, but I had to get some permissions first before I did this post. It’s just the way I like to do things. The way I’m going to do this is start with the longest tenured member of the group and work from there. As you will notice we have no one “leader” so to speak. We are not set up that way. Not saying that’s bad, we are just not set up that way. A bit of background first to help you understand that it is not easy or quick to get a functioning group together sometimes. The first person mentioned was a founding member of the original group with the next four being members of that group. Then numbers 1,2,5,6 and 7 are the founding members of a second group and then we went back and picked-up some of the other members of the first group and this became the group that exist today. The first four members have been together in some form or other in excess of 10 years and the next three 5+ years with everyone else following after that. In doing this I will not use names or give any personal info out, like place of employment unless in a very general manner. Anyone of the group that has special or needed skills, those skills will be listed otherwise you may safely assume anyone mentioned has basic general preparedness skills. Our group has members from age 19 to early 60’s.
1 – gentleman and his wife and daughter, black powder firearms builder and gunsmith, blacksmith, our tube radio expert tech, ham radio operator, also teaches the land nav with map and compass(yes that’s what we use, no batteries needed) and better than average gardener and wild food forager.
2 – gentleman, home improvement contractor with all of the skills associated with the trade, reloader, amateur trapper,amateur gunsmith, ham radio operator, master gardener, better than average wild food forager, outdoor survival skills and the group food storage go to person along with the lady of the house.
A- the lady of this house is a master cook(20 years in the restaurant business both as personnel and management),great food storage person and a financial wizard(managing money).
3 – gentleman, master electrician, master gunsmith, ham radio operator, and motorcycle and atv mechanic.
A – the lady of the house is veterinarian tech.
4 – gentleman, active duty Army with all the skills obtained after 20+ years of service and a certified welder.
5 – gentleman, construction skills, knife maker, jewelery maker, outdoor survival, ham radio operator, speaks Spainish and German, and amateur herbalist.
A – the lady of the house is a herbalist and homeopathic healer using naturally occurring plants.
6 – gentleman and his lady, construction skills, master welder and former church pastor who is our Chaplin and counselor.
7 – gentleman, master wild food forager, fluent in sign language, travels all over the state in his job and is our contact person for other groups and people in the state.
8 – gentleman and his wife and two children, excavating contractor(with equipment), ham radio operator and excellent mechanic.
9 – gentleman, and his wife and children, former Marine(enough said) and electronics expert.
10 – gentleman and his wife and children, excellent hunter and MASTER scrounger.
And then there are several people in the joining process.

This will I hope give you some idea of what can be done by way of putting a group together as far as many different and varied skills. I might add that everyone of these people are WILLING and able to teach their skills to other members of the group. As you can see I’m sure, we are short in the medical skills and we are working always to fix that, but you work with what you have, not what you wish you had. At this we have one new prospective member who may help with that area. I hope this has helped some of you understand and see what being part of a group can be like. Everyone have a nice day, Gary.

Today I want to give you some of the good benefits, and some of the reasons for not, being in a group of like minded people. As it is with people you will find it is the same with groups, some good and some not so good. A group after all is made up of people. A well put together group will have many benefits for a prepper, but a bad one is not worth your time or effort. This is why you need to choose very wisely the people you get involved with in this manner. I know everyone likes to talk about the positives, but if you are not careful there can be many negatives as well. Having had experience with both kinds I know both are out there. I hope to help you avoid the latter with this warning or at least make you aware they are out there in the preparedness arena.
Now I’d like to tell you about some of the benefits that being part of a good group can bring your way. First of all, and I think one of the most important, is the fellowship and camaraderie that comes with a good, close knit group. You would be surprised how many I’ve had people tell me “I thought I was the only one in the area that thinks like this” or “I didn’t realize there were other people out there like me”. It makes things so much easier when you have other people to share the ups and the downs with when they come along. Just the feeling that the group is in it together makes even the toughest things easier. Something happened just yesterday that will illustrate how it should work much better for you. I left my house about 1:30 yesterday afternoon to go and sit with my elderly mom and I didn’t get 10miles from home when my old truck died on me. I called several people and left messages as nobody was home. Ended up having to wait until the missus got off work at three to get a ride home(I wrote this post sitting there). Dave(santa) called a short time later to see what he could do and we were going to tow it home but when he called back to tell me he had a tow dolly he also told me that Jeff(another member of our little group) would meet us there and see if he could fix it. An hour later I drove it home and the man wouldn’t even take money for the part he put on. That is how it’s supposed to work folks.
Another nice benefit is the opportunity for group bulk buys on things such as food, ammo, equipment and other preparedness things. One easy way for you to understand this is to think of something you need for your preps and you have 2 or 3 hundred dollars to spend. Now think of it as a group buy with many people with 2 or 3 hundred, now you have 12 or 15 hundred. Who do you think gets the absolute best price?
Another nice benefit of a group is that with a group everyone doesn’t have to always to buy one of the same thing in some cases.The best example I can think of is books. I think everyone uses books to learn new skills or other useful things. Instead of everyone buying the same book, one person buys it and then shares with the rest of the group. Someone else buys a different book to share with the group and it works great. If nothing else it frees up funds for other parts of your preps. I know this works because there books from my library that are being passed around that I haven’t seen for six months or more.
There are many other ways this can work such as planting extra in your garden if you have the space and sharing the extra with other members in exchange for their help with the harvesting and canning part.
Now that I’ve told you about some of the good benefits let me tell you that with a poor or bad group just the opposite can be the case. When group members are self-centered and only look out for themselves you will reap very few benefits and should steer clear of these groups. And if you should run across a group with a leader who has what I call a “Hitler Complex”, you know “mine is the only way” attitude, don’t even waste your time as it will only bring you grief. These types of groups are out there, but thankfully in much, much smaller numbers than the good solid groups. You just have to be careful and choose your path wisely. Now every group will ask what skills and experience you have to offer and that is pretty normal, but you should get an offer of a face-to-face meeting after a few e-mail exchanges. Please don’t be put off by this as it is how it usually works. When someone contacts me that is what I ask for as I need some info to be able to try to help them either find a group or begin to a new group . An example is our group could use a few more members, but we try not to add members just to be raising the numbers. We try to add people with skills we are lacking in order to make the group stronger as a whole. Sometimes two or more people will contact me and it makes more sense to get them together and start a new group that we can help along and that way you have two groups hopefully close together who can help each other. This is kind of hard to explain in this format but I hope you can get the gist of how it works.
I hope this has helped some of you to understand some of the good and possible bad benefits of belonging to a group. Have a nice day, Gary.

Today’s post is not what was going to be next, but as a point of contention about the control and hierarchy of a quality group. I thought I would address the issue. A good, well put together group has to have some means of making decision that affect the security, well being, and preparedness of its members. I would add here that any group that expects to accomplish their mission of staying together, being better prepared and adding new members with new skills will not be a dictatorship, but will have everyone involved in the decision making therefore making it a true GROUP effort. That being said, in order to accomplish all of the groups goals you will have to spread the workload around. The object is to take advantage of all the different skills of the members. A good example of this would be the fact that you wouldn’t put your only master gardener in charge of the armory even if they could do both jobs. Food is just too important and should require all of their attention.

I will try to outline how this can be done is such a way as to make a stronger and more organized group. This will be just an example of how it could be done successfully and give you some food for thought.

1. Logistics person (some groups call them officers) This person would be charged with helping everyone with getting their food preps in order. Then if the group had to come together in a full-blown retreat situation they would put him/her in charge of food use and rationing if it became necessary. Most likely, should deal with food preparation also.
2. Medical person. this person would be in charge of helping the group get their medical preps in order and try to identify any medical needs of the group that require attention of a preventive nature to keep them from becoming a big problem later. In a retreat situation they would be in charge of all things medical.
3. Security person. This position is elf explanatory as this person would be in charge of the group’s security in a retreat situation. They should also help with the question of weapons by the group members.
4. I don’t know what title you would give this person, but I would put someone in charge of food procurement. Part of the job would be to take care of the garden and livestock for the group in a retreat situation.

These is just four of the possibilities but I think you have the idea. I would like to add two things for your consideration. In most established groups, when it comes to adding new members it is done by vote of the entire membership after much discussion, and one no vote is all that it takes to eliminate a prospective new member.

The second is, in most groups of any size there are two members appointed by the membership to moderate disagreements between members. There only two situations when I think the person in charge of an area has an opinion that could never be challenged, and they are: when you gunsmith says that a firearm needs to go out of service for repairs because it is unsafe and if you have an arms instructor and are out on the range, his word is final.

I hope this has given you a good over view of what and how a well planned group would work. I would also suggest that everyone can to please read Jim Rawles “Patriot”. He does a pretty good job of explaining this concept. I might add that there is a copy of his book circulating through the prepper membership at this time and I would be happy to put one of my copies of the original book in circulation if there is a need. Hope this helps. Have a nice day. Gary

Today I’ll try to address the make-up of a well thought out group. The first thing that should come into the equation is the ability of everyone to work together and function as a group. A preparedness/survival group is not the place for selfish, lazy, or know-it-all people with the bad attitude that goes with them. The object and the sole reason for a group to exist is to help each other by lending a hand, encouraging or teaching. The better prepared a single member is, the stronger the group becomes.
The second most important thing to be considered, I think, should be the skills available in the group. The Patriot by Jim Rowles is a good example of this, but even that doesn’t cover all the necessary skills that could be needed. The skills that I believe would be nice to have in any group are:

1. A master gardener who could adapt their skills to growing in a difficult area, mainly large amounts of the base food that would be required for a group.
2. A skilled carpenter who could maintain and improve the shelter needs of the group.
3. A medical personnel who is capable of taking care of the basic health of the group and deal with the accidents that will inevitably happen.
4. A mechanic whose skills could be useful in many areas.
5. An amateur gunsmith at least. The weapons of the group will need repaired and maintained.
6. A person who has experience with cooking for large groups. This person would also be helpful in the beginning to help other members with what foods to store for the long run.
7. A communication specialist who could maintain the groups radios and help other members with the purchasing of equipment.
8. At least one member with prior military experience to handle security issues for the group. Here you need to be careful as you don’t want or need a strongly offensive minded person. Your first thought in this matter should be defensive.

There are other helpful skills that would be nice to have depending on the area of the country in which the group is located. These could include hunting, trapping,fishing,scavenging (which everyone should learn) and many other useful skills. Every member should be cross trained as much as possible in at least two other skill sets. Do not put all your eggs in one basket with necessary skills. As you can see, a well thought out group would enhance every one’s chances by having different skills to make the group stronger and more able to deal with a wide variety of issues the will come up. Hope this helps.As always everyone have a nice day. Gary