Author: cityprepping-author

We have said in a few prior blogs that our nation can get to a point of martial law without a formal declaration of martial law, and we are at that point now.  If you’ve been following the news, you’re probably aware of federal agents with no clear name tags, insignias, and using unmarked civilian vehicles to grab individuals off the street.  Reports are coming out that Chicago may be soon receiving the same treatment.  Before you run to the comment section and point out that the individuals destroying public and federal property should be dealt with in any manner necessary to get things under control, a reaction we admittedly had when we first read the reports and saw the videos coming out of Portland, Oregon, there’s a lot we need to unpack here and detail why this is very problematic.  Some of the laws put in place to keep us safe from tyranny are being dismantled or circumvented in the name of keeping the peace.  We watched a similar thing play out after September eleventh when the Patriot Act was initiated.  We traded our freedoms in the name of safety and we’ve never gotten those rights back.  You need to be aware of how this is happening, that it is happening now, and what you can do about it.  Secretive Federal Protective Services armed like the military are a dangerous erosion of your freedoms and liberties.  You cannot ignore this assault on your constitutional rights.  If you’re a big First Amendment person, you should be outraged that the public voice is being stifled by secret police forces which are currently being deployed and caught on video which we’ll talk about more in a moment.  If you’re a big Second Amendment person, you can’t assume you’re going to be able to stop the government if it comes for you in organized numbers, unmarked vehicles, and wearing masks. To be clear, we am very pro-order and anti-anarchy.  While we’re seeing those that would attempt to create chaos in cities like Portland that should be deterred, we will always applaud those that would use their voices for peaceful protest.  We, however, cautious of government overreach in our lives as much as we are a proponent of good policing and solid laws.  We are suspicious of anyone who paints people with broad strokes of condemnation, regardless of who those people are.  Let’s look at the facts here and question the possible outcomes. And before we go into the details of what is happening, it’s important to note that we tolerate today will be the norm tomorrow.  We can’t think of a time in history where soldiers grabbing people off the street with no due process has ever ended well.  And we’ll talk about that more toward the end of this blog.  On a side note, the Onion, which is a satire news source has done a phenomenal job with this situation insinuating that this is part of a Surprise makeover series.  Section five of Executive Order one-three-nine-thirty-three, signed on June twenty-sixth, twenty-twenty puts a contract on your personal liberties.  It states that “Upon the request of the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Administrator of General Services, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, personnel to assist with the protection of Federal monuments, memorials, statues, or property.”  The federal government, however, has interpreted this as a means to deploy a paramilitary force in some cities that is not “assisting” the local law enforcement.   We firmly believe that what is happening right now in Portland and a few other cities across America right now is a test.  We’re not talking about the protests being a test of First Amendment rights.  We’re not talking about the instances of vandalism or looting.  To be clear, we believe that vandals, violence, and anarchy should be dealt with through the full measure of the existing laws.  When local or state officials request assistance from the Federal government, it should be granted, but we are not seeing that.  What we are seeing are secret police forces, absent a clear mandate or clearly defined rules of engagement, composed of individuals not well-versed in individual liberties or laws…we can’t even say arresting here…they are, literally, grabbing people off the streets and whisking them away in unmarked cars to God only knows where. Secret police are the hallmark of authoritarian regimes, and we have a neutral rule of law established to maintain all of our rights and to define for us who are the bad guys and who are the good guys.  When we allow the selective determinations of right and wrong to be made by a loosely formed para-military composed of multiple agencies and absent a clearly defined mandate from which to operate, we set all citizens up for the possibility of their rights being trampled.  We don’t have to look too far back into the recent past to see how the Russian Federation used unmarked green army uniforms during the Ukranian crisis that eventually led to the annexing of Crimea.  Were the people whisked away really bad guys?  Had they done something wrong?  We don’t know.  We don’t know what agency to ask?  There lies the second problem with this.  In the fog of conflict, can we honestly say that these unidentifiable forces are enforcing a larger mandate or law?  What is to stop these group of federal agents from simply deciding that a person is suspicious enough to apprehend and whisk away?   If we allow unidentifiable agencies to make these detainments, what is to stop any small group of people, perhaps not even associated with any federal agency, from dressing up in tactical gear and whisking people away in unmarked vehicles?  Can any group with guns and tactical gear now prey upon our community, our families, or any of our fellow citizens, because they don’t need to declare who they are and we don’t have the right to know?  If they’re not specifically caught in the act, it could happen today in Portland and possibly tomorrow in your city.  Whom would you contact when your husband or wife is forced away at gunpoint?  Which agency do you call?  You can see how this can go every which way of wrong. When protests erupted across the U.S. the Posse Comitatus Act prevented the use of federal troops to secure cities.  But the Posse Comitatus Act only applies to the military.  This is, in some ways, being circumventing deploying people of federal agencies other than the military.  Border Patrol, ICE, DHS, even the Bureau of Prisons guards are being used according to Attorney General William Barr.  He has written that the forces have been drawn from federal agencies including the U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Prisons, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. So pulling from non-military agencies to equip and deploy a paramilitary force and circumvent the Posse Comitatus Act of eighteen-seventy-eight is a direct threat to your liberties.  It’s the imposition of martial law without a formal declaration or State request, and in spite of several state and local authorities who have made it known that such a force is not welcome in their jurisdiction unless specifically requested.  This Posse Comitatus Act of eighteen-seventy-eight bars federal troops from participating in domestic law enforcement activities, such as arrests and detentions. Pulling from federal agencies allows for a paramilitary group to be boots on the ground in our cities and towns without any clear mandate, purpose, or control measures.  They are free to trample over any Constitutional right.  Would a court find such a paramilitary force to be a violation of Constitutional rights?  Maybe, but this would take years to litigate and make a determination, and the Posse Comitatus Act is being side-stepped right now. Another of your rights that has been suspended right now is the writ of habeas corpus.  This is “a summons with the force of a court order; it is addressed to the custodian (a prison official, for example) and demands that a prisoner be brought before the court, and that the custodian present proof of authority, allowing the court to determine whether the custodian has lawful authority to detain the prisoner. If the custodian is acting beyond their authority, then the prisoner must be released. Any prisoner, or another person acting on their behalf, may petition the court, or a judge, for a writ of habeas corpus.”  The problem here is we don’t know if any individuals secretly being whisked away in unmarked cars by masked and unidentifiable forces are being given the means to request a writ of habeas corpus.  We don’t know if they are being taken to local or federal prisons.  The other people they are with when they are being apprehended are not being told where they may be going, so where could a writ of habeas corpus even be sent.  We are not hearing from them again.  That should scare you a lot.  That’s some mass grave in dark forests type stuff.  I’m not saying that’s being done now, but I can’t say it isn’t being done either, because we are being held completely in the dark on these secret forces and their actions. In Portland, at least two people that we know of were pulled off the streets and ferried away in unmarked cars without obvious probable cause.  There are videos of these two cases.  Responsibility for one of these detainments has been admitted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  In a quote, they said, “CPB maintains that the individual was suspected of criminal activity and had to be removed from the area abruptly for fear of a violent mob. Its officials also defended the lack of name tags on the grounds that agents have been targeted by doxing campaigns (the publication of their home addresses and personal details on the internet).”  Suspicion of criminal activity is not enough justification for unlawful detainment.  If you disagree, let us assume that you are out with your family returning home.  An SUV vehicle was reported to have been in the same area you are passing through and has been rumored to be out to destroy or deface a statue on federal property.  Is that enough justification for a group of customs and border patrol officers to pull you over in your Honda Odyssey, force you away in an unmarked vehicle and strand your family without you and without any reasonable assurance of where you will be held or for what crime?  If you don’t think it can happen all based upon the opinion of one person and outside of the laws meant to protect you, you ought to take a good long look at it.  Will you “Stand Your Ground” against a heavily armed and body armored, unknown pseudo-military force that lacks a clearly defined mandate?  Doing so would likely cause your death. Separate from the question of federal law, several states have adopted laws and regulations requiring law enforcement to identify themselves even in non-standard police gear. Under New York City’s Right to Know Act, for example, officers must tell civilians at the start of some interactions their name, rank, command, and shield number.  In the District of Columbia, any uniformed officer assigned to a First Amendment assembly must have enhanced identification even if in non-standard riot gear.  This may be the way to go to at least establish some minimal rules of engagement with a civilian population.  Absent of clear rules of engagement we invite abuse of power out of the ignorance of the law. As Ronald Reagan famously said “Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.”  Is this the generation where it dies?  We cannot assume that any person’s detainment makes them automatically a bad person who needs to be arrested.  Doing so sells out our liberties as well.  As disrespectful as it is, that person who flips the bird to a secret police and gets detained or carried away because of it, requires us to protect their rights to have expressed their opinions.  Their rights are our rights and must be fought for and protected.  If we don’t do that, as Reagan said, “…we will spend our sunset days telling our children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” What can you do?  Well, for what it is worth, if you disagree or agree with these clandestine federal forces in your town or the next city over, you should still vote.  It is one of the few ways we can make our voices heard for and against anything our government is doing.   Most of all, look for where anyone’s rights are being violated or potentially violated and lend a hand where you can.  Even if what they believe is the antithesis of what you believe, don’t fall for the soundbites and dismiss them with a label or, worse, dehumanize them by labeling them an animal.  Listen, help, record, vocally complain, let any secret forces know you see their actions in the light.  Look for the good in all people and protect their rights like they are your own…because they are. As always, stay safe out there.

When It’s Safer Inside

1. Preparing Your Environment
2. Preparing Supplies
3. Plant Food
4. Prepare for Fire
5. Be the Gray Man
6. Plan Your Escape
7. Have a Plan to Bug Out

When the world is falling apart outside, sometimes the safest place you can be is in your own home or apartment.  With recent events in our nation including rioting and protesting, it has left many feeling unsafe to venture out.  If things were to take a turn for the worse, are you prepared for an extended period indoors?  Are you prepared for bugging-in instead of bugging out? Even during a global pandemic, some have found it difficult to remain in their homes for any significant amount of time.  Their dependence on food delivery and other outside services have become apparent.  Can you imagine what a hell it would have been for many if they also didn’t have the internet or streaming entertainment services?  Staying inside for an extended period of time requires the right environment prepared in advance and the right mental attitude.  In this video, we’ll look at 7 tips to make your bugging-in a survivable experience.  Apartment units are not the ideal place to bug-in during a disaster, primarily because of the lack of space they provide and issues with security. However, not everyone has a bug-out place they can go to before a disaster, and leaving one’s apartment is not always an option during a disaster. With so many people living in apartment buildings, preparing for a disaster is even more important.  Apartment buildings present several challenges when it comes to prepping, but it can be done and in this video, we’ll provide 7 tips on how you can bug-in an apartment. We’ll also identify the challenges that you’ll face once you start doing your preparations.

1 – Preparing Your Environment

There are several challenges to being a city prepper in an apartment.  Space is one of the primary reasons why prepping in an apartment is a problem.  A small space makes prepping harder since this limits your capacity to stock up on important supplies like food and water.  You have to be creative in storing your supplies. There are numerous space-saving products out there that you can buy or build to provide you with the extra space you need to store your supplies. You can also maximize the space that you already have like making use of the space under your bed or couch to store your items. You can also make use of vertical space, meaning stack your storage items so it uses minimal space in your apartment.  Think in terms of a grocery store: stock vertically and make sure you implement a rotation system so things don’t expire and become useless. Apartment living also has a host of security concerns.  Since apartment complexes are built to maximize space and fit as many people as possible in a small area, this means you’ll be packed in with many other people in a tight space. Having people nearby can be both a good thing and a bad thing. If you’re lucky enough to have like-minded people living in your apartment complex, you can help each other with prepping.  But the reality is that most people will not prepare which is why you’ll need to have some safety measures in place. Consider upgrading your door lock like installing a deadbolt if it doesn’t have one yet. Also, get a door security bar to prevent any easy access to your doors. There are numerous cheap but good options out there that you can easily install and remove without damaging the door. If possible, give serious consideration to strengthening your door frame.  One of the common ways that people enter illegally into a house or apartment is through a door.  There are several products on the market which allow you to strengthen your door frame.  Cover your windows with blinds or light diffusion films and keep them closed when you’re not home or after dark. With blinds, you prevent people from eyeing what’s inside your apartment unit. If your windows are accessible from the outside, you will want to add security measures to make sure no one enters through your windows. Get to know your neighbors since this will help you find like-minded people and also avoid those who could be a threat to you during disasters.  If you’re dealing with a large space, consider installing detectors or security cameras to add to your protection. You also need to have the means to protect yourself and your family in case of a break-in.   It’s not uncommon to receive a notice that some people will need to come to your apartment to make an adjustment, do a repair, or check something. This kind of scenario affects your privacy greatly since this allows people to enter your home and observe you and your safe environment. To ensure your privacy, even if certain people need to go into your apartment, you need to properly store important items so they’re not visible or can be accidentally discovered. Consider putting those important items in a drawer or closet that you can lock.  You can also place some of your emergency supplies in a closet or cupboard that you can lock so they’re not visible to everyone coming in and out of your apartment.  You don’t always know who this individual is coming into your home to do the repair so be sure to keep your preps private.  Finally, beyond securing your windows and doors, be prepared for your in home defense.  Whether that’s a knife, self-defense training, a gun, or a can of bear spray, make sure your person is protected as well as your premises. The considerations you need to make depends on the unique environment of your apartment, but you need to prepare your environment in advance.  You won’t have time after the fact.

2- Preparing Supplies

Careful preparation has to be implemented for the supplies you will need for an extended bug-in scenario in an apartment setting. Since space is going to be the major problem when you do your preparation, it’s imperative that you only prepare the basic and necessary items that you will need during an emergency. You can use 5-gallon plastic buckets with lids as a dry storage space for your supplies. This will allow you to stack them, and will provide an easy means for bugging-out, if your circumstances necessitate that. Food, of course, is one of the important supplies that you will need to have since you will need it in order to survive during a disaster. You’ll need to focus your food preparation on non-perishable foods. Not only will this help you in case you don’t have a way to keep your refrigerator powered up during a power outage, but this also means you won’t have to worry about food spoilage. Canned goods have a long shelf life, but they are also perishable.  They won’t last forever and are heavy to transport.  For a week to a month bug-in period, canned goods can supplement your longer shelf life foods. Make sure that the foods you’re packing are high in calories. Foods that provide heavy calories, which you will need more of during an emergency situation, are most valuable to you in a crisis situation.  Special vanity diets quickly become irrelevant when food is linked to your survival. Consider storing foods that you can eat by just boiling in water or without even the need to cook. This will save you the need to have an ample supply of fuel and cooking oil in your home. Water is the second essential supply you will need to prepare if you are bugging-in an apartment. This is the trickiest supply you’ll need to store since it can take up space in your apartment. But this doesn’t mean that you should forgo preparing water since having access to clean water during an emergency can ensure that you’ll survive.  Having a small water tank or container is the best to help you survive during an emergency, but space may prevent you from having this. Collapsible water tanks, water bricks that can easily slide under the couch and bed, water bobs that you can fill up in your bathtub at the start of an emergency, and water purification tablets, are all good options if you have some forewarning of a disaster. Beyond food and water, the list of essentials for an apartment dwelling city prepper is long: A first aid kit and supplies of medicines to deal with common illnesses or ailments like cold, cough, flu, upset stomach, and pain should be well stocked at all times. A toolkit that contains the basic tools you will need like a hammer, some nails, screwdrivers, screws, and several rolls of duct tape can help you make repairs or help you repurpose things within your living space. Toilet paper has recently risen to prominence as a prepping supply.  There are ways to compress toilet paper without damaging it if you want to save storage space. A 5-gallon plastic bucket with a lid can easily be repurposed as an emergency toilet, and bidets can easily be installed to conserve supplies, assuming water services are not disrupted.  Feminine hygiene products are also essential.  These can also be used for dressing wounds. You’ll also need to have a source of power and light should electricity go down. You can store batteries for your flashlight or radio. Just make sure to constantly check the batteries since they have an expiration.  Don’t underestimate the value of a hurricane or emergency candle.  You can also use a crank flashlight or crank charger in case you run out of batteries so you’ll still have access to light and power.   A small portable solar generator will be critical as long as you have a place where you can place your panels to get direct sunlight. It’s also good to have several blankets stored in order to help you and your family stay warm during the winter. You can also consider using sleeping bags since they’re better at keeping you warm and it’s easier to pack them in case you need to bug out of your apartment.

3- Plant Foods

Though apartments have small spaces, this doesn’t mean you can’t plant vegetables and other edible plants to provide you with a long-term food solution. There are numerous vegetables and plants that only need a small grow area. We recently completed a blog on the 25 best plants to grow in your apartment, so we won’t go into too much detail here.  What you need to prepare now is for the possibility that what you can produce is also all that you may have to survive upon.  Mushroom kits require no light to grow.  Sprouts and microgreens can provide you a harvest in as little as 7 days.  There are a wide range of options for edible plants, and, again, I encourage you to take a look at the video on 25 of the best. You can’t really ramp-up a serious home growing operation, however, once a calamity has struck.  It is something you need to establish somewhat in advance.  researched several options for growing vegetables in an apartment.  While many people rule this out due to the limited space, don’t.  Any extended period of bugging-in will require you to supplement your non-perishable food stores.

4- Prepare for Fire

Keep your apartment prepared for fires.  Another tip for bugging-in an apartment is you need to be prepared for fires. With so many people living in one complex, you are somewhat dependent upon other people in your building making good choices and practicing good safety measures. Imagine what could happen when the power goes out and everyone is suddenly reliant upon candles and barbecues.  That’s potentially a great number of people with very little experience, cooking with open flames on their decks and leaving unattended candles burning inside.  You need to be prepared in case a fire breaks out in your apartment or in your neighbor’s apartment. You will need fire extinguishers and fire blankets to use to fight fires. Know where the fire exits are in case you need to evacuate the premises, and always have some of your prepared supplies bug out ready in case any fire forces you to have to flee for survival. Consider having protective masks for you and your family in case you need them to avoid inhaling toxic fumes.  Smoke inhalation kills quickly, so keep a gas mask handy that might give you the minutes you need to survive and escape if that’s something you’re able to afford.

5- Be the Gray Man

Be the Gray Man – we mentioned earlier the importance of getting to know your neighbors enough so they know who you are, but not too much that they know everything about you. Well, this is basically you becoming the gray man. You are visible enough to be one of the crowd but not standing out so much that you are attracting extra attention from everyone. It’s important that you avoid bragging to everyone that you are a prepper since you are making yourself a target during emergency situations. Not everyone will be prepared when a disaster strikes, so telling everyone that you are a prepper is like inviting them to knock at your door during a disaster when they need a candle, a cup of beans, water to cook them, batteries for their radio, and so on. Observe OPSEC, or Operational Security, by keeping your prepping a closely held secret.  Be a friendly face in your apartment complex enough where people have concern for your well being, but not enough that you’re the go to person.  You may want to help a few people, and that is great.  If you do, always downplay your supply levels and ask the person not to share that you’ve helped them out.  This will keep a hoard of neighbors showing up at your door.

6- Plan Your Escape

Look for Alternative Escape Routes – Unlike a house, where there are usually several doors to exit and enter the house, most apartment units will only have one door for the entrance and exit. This is why you need to find an alternative exit from your unit should the door become inaccessible. You need to have a plan to escape via your apartment’s windows should the door become inaccessible or in a worse case scenario prepare for the potential that you may have to break down a door if you have the tools necessary.  A retractable, window, fire ladder is essential if you live on an upper floor. Can you escape to the roof, across the roof and down another stairwell?  Can you escape out the backdoor instead of the main street?  Can you easily grab your supplies and escape?  In addition to having a pre-made bug-out bag, what other prepping supplies can you easily pack and bug-out with if necessary?

7- Have A Plan To Bug Out

Have a Plan to Bug Out – After you have made all of your preparations for bugging-in an apartment, it’s important that you should not rule out the possibility that you will still need to bug out. Whether the circumstances of your original need to bug-in have changed or, like we mentioned earlier, a fire breaks out and forces you to evacuate, you may need to flip your bug-in plan to a bug-out plan. You need to plan for a bug-out location, which is outside the city that you are living in and is potentially unaffected by the disaster.  You also need to have multiple routes outlined on how to get there from your apartment, will you travel by vehicle, on foot, or by bicycle? What routes are you going to take and what other alternative routes you will have in case the original route is unpassable? You also need to prepare a bug-out kit that will contain everything you need and you can easily grab. Make sure the kit will have enough supplies to last you for the duration of the travel and for at least a few days of stay to your bug-out location.  Realize also what additional things you might be able to grab from your supplies before needing to abandon them all together.  Make sure anything you leave behind is well hidden in case the opportunity to return to your apartment becomes a possibility.

Conclusion

Bugging-in an apartment is challenging and presents many more difficulties than even a suburban house. But with the right planning and some creative solutions, especially in terms of storage space, you can still survive a disaster or emergency situation even if you are living in an apartment.  Prepare your environment.  Prepare your supplies.  Prepare for fire.  Keep your plans a secret.  Plan escape routes, and prepare for the fact that you may eventually have to bug-out. As always, please stay safe out there.

A Looming American Crisis

1. Eviction Options
2. Have a Sale
3. Learn What You Need to Know
4. Keep Your Head About You
5. Know What You Have to Help Others

As the widespread economic fallout of the coronavirus continues to impact the financial health of everyday Americans, many homeowners and renters find themselves in desperate need of help. By the start of May, close to four million borrowers were already in either government or bank forbearance programs, choosing to delay their mortgage payments for at least ninety days.  This number represents seven point three percent of all active mortgages.  This mortgage forbearance program along with a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions was all part of the ninety day Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, commonly referred to by its acronym CARES.  Law offices are already indicating that they have a backlog of hundreds and possibly thousands of evictions ready to be filed when the states lift the restriction on filing in August.  And while some of the thirty-five million unemployed have regained employment as the nation learns to work through the pandemic of the century, most remain unemployed.   Without a solution in sight, many who were already forced to live paycheck to paycheck, a pandemic that continues to linger, an economy hampered by border closures and a continuing trade war, and partisan politics stymying efforts to bring relief to a suffering populous, America faces a looming housing crisis that could leave millions homeless.  Are we looking at a repeat of the two-thousand-eight housing crisis or worse?  Can we expect a wave of foreclosures with Christmas and the New Year?  Are you prepared or are you preparing for your own or someone you know’s homlessness? In this blog we will examine many of your options when faced with the threat of homelessness.  Even if your house is completely paid off, disasters can still sometimes force you to have to leave your safe home.  And even though you may be secure, your neighbor, friend, family member, or loved one may face the very real threat of homlessness. Many colleges identify major threats to student learning as shelter and food insecurity.  Shelter insecurity is all around us and isn’t as typical as a few people panhandling or living under a bridge.  It’s hard for us to accept the possibility of our homelessness or the reality of homelessness for those we know.  Being homeless doesn’t make a person a loser or a freeloader.  Most people, at some point in their lives suffer setbacks and may not have anyone in their life to turn to.  There are options and things you should know should you or someone you know face the very real threat of homlessness.  So, let’s look at what you need to know for yourself and others in this looming crisis…

1) Eviction Options

Eviction culminates with the Sheriff showing up at your door and forcing you to leave the premises.  Before you or someone you know reaches this point, there are things that can be done.  When the notice arrives, and in most states it must be posted at the premises and mailed as well, immediately begin exploring your options.  Can you get into a new rental?  Can you take on a roommate or two to reduce your costs and catch up in rent payments?  Can you borrow from family or friends or move in with family or friends?  In some states filing for bankruptcy can stop an eviction process but only if it hasn’t gotten too far into the process. Whatever you do, don’t run from your problem or dismiss it and wait for the day they come to put you out on the streets.  If you start immediately, you may find several legal means to fight the eviction.  There may be local government, religious, or non-profit housing assistance or advocacy programs.  Everyday you gain brings you one step closer to getting back on your feet.  Do your research the minute your housing becomes threatened.  If you wait until the day that law enforcement comes to enforce a court order, you may find yourself on the streets with too many possessions to fit into your car, forced to live in your car, or in a local homeless shelter.  Plan ahead to be prepared.  Have those conversations with family and friends and let them know you are struggling.  They may provide you with options or assistance.

2) Have a Sale

In the weeks before the police show-up to escort you off your property have a sale of anything you won’t be able to take with you.  The TV, gaming system, bike, blender, coffee maker and other possessions will no longer be as useful to you as your cash liquidity.  Tell yourself you can get your possessions back again when you are back on your feet, and you can.  You will probably not be able to raise enough to get caught up on rent, and you may not want to in order to pursue other options, but having the cash on hand can get you moving safely in a new direction in life. If you have a mortgage, consider selling your home early while you still can and downsizing to a condo or townhome.  Possibly risk the tax burden and hold onto the money and rent until things get better for you and the country.  If you live in an area where housing prices are high but you’re no longer tied to the area through employment, now might be the time to move to a different state where any equity can set you up in twice the house with half the cost of living.  I am not a financial consultant, and I don’t have a crystal ball to predict the housing market; but you will want to weigh your finances carefully and consider the tax risks of buying a less expensive property, cashing out investments, or borrowing against retirement funds.  Just don’t try and hold on to the old lifestyle.  Your circumstances have changed and you need to rapidly redefine your surroundings.  Sell possessions and property you don’t need and prepare for the next chapter of your life.  You may find that defaulting on your credit cards, declaring bankruptcy, or holding onto whatever money you have left is a better option than trying to hold on to a present life that is untenable.  

3) Learn What You Need to Know 

We take for granted how easily we can Google any answer to any question we may have, but what will you do when your cell service and internet service are gone?  If you are facing a potential homeless situation, learn in advance what you will need to survive.  In the days and weeks before you find yourself out on the streets and really if there is even a remote chance you might find yourself out in the cold, research and know where the shelters are in your area.  Where are the food banks?  What government, church, or non-profit charity resources are available to you and your loved ones. Brush up on your camping and survival skills in case you are forced to find a location to camp for an extended period of time.  Consider all your options for temporarily or permanently relocating.  Maybe the city isn’t the right place for you anymore, but your sister or cousin in the suburbs can let you live for a time at their house.  If you are wrong and you make it through a temporary setback without ending up homeless, you will be armed with knowledge you can use to help others in your community. Consider all your options and rate them from the best option to the worst option.  Obviously, living in a tent or under a tarp is the absolute worst option, but maybe there are things in-between that will allow you to buy enough time to get back on your feet.  Make the effort to write all your options down, rate them from best to worst, then research each option so you have a range of possibilities and broad knowledge of solutions and remedies for whichever circumstance you find yourself.  Create a checklist of items you will need or still need.  What are the items common to all options?  Those are the ones you need to be able to take with you or acquire with whatever limited funds you have.  If you have been prepping for a long time, you are probably well on your way.  If you are new to prepping, you will need to do some research, explore the videos on this channel and find out what you need to know to survive other disasters where you may find yourself without shelter.  The more you know about what you face and how to overcome it, the more likely you are to make it through.

4) Keep Your Head About You

So much of survival is mental.  It is easy to feel like a failure in life or ashamed of the circumstances you find yourself suffering through.  You have to keep your head about you.  Hopefully, this will be the worst thing you suffer through in your lifetime, but keeping positive by knowing that lives do turnaround will keep you moving strongly in the right direction.  In rough times we try to remind ourselves that we are not the first person to suffer through what we face.  We remind ourselves that others have suffered more through the same or worse.  And we remind ourselves that we don’t suffer alone.  In this looming housing crisis, there may be millions suffering right along with you and also competing for any available resources. Realize that your personal security needs are heightened when you don’t have the passive protection of walls and fences.  You will need to keep safe without the walls of a home protecting you.  You will need to discover new ways to get food and water, to stay dry and protected from the elements; but your struggle will make you stronger and more resilient in the long run.  Often we try and do everything right but still find ourselves in trying times and troubling circumstances.  We prepare for the worst we can think of and face even worse than what we can imagine.  You will need to develop a mental toughness.  Remember that your great grandparents may have suffered through two world wars, a pandemic of their own, and a great depression.  They made it, raised children of their own who eventually brought you to where you are at today.  Throughout history, people have persevered through horrible tragedies and lived to see brighter days that they appreciated with greater gratitude.  You can too.  Don’t lose heart.  Don’t lose faith.  Develop the mental toughness to make it through to the brighter days.

5) Know What You Have to Help Others 

If you are set and will make it through any housing crisis just fine, is there something you can do to help others.  The sooner we can get people off the streets and back to work the sooner we can recover as an economy.  If homelessness is a possibility for you, what do you have that you will not be able to keep that might help others.  Helping others is the way we help ourselves.  Even if your help is not fiscal or a tangible good, giving of your time to help others can lift your spirits and your community up.  It also helps you to see with clear eyes how bad things may actually be without relying upon the media to tell the whole story. After any crisis, be they economic, natural, or manmade, we have to rebuild.  We do that individually and together.  Of course you need to take care of yourself and the needs of your loved ones first, but sometimes we can spread what we have to others, share what we have with others, and build a network that raises many people up.  Prepping supplies we can’t take with us and we can’t sell, maybe able to help someone in more desperate need than we are.  Know what you have in your physical, mental, and spiritual reserves to help and give to others.  Together we rise and together we fall. Finally, know what others may be going through.  As people struggle to find a safe place to stay, they may cross your path or pass through your community.  Remember your compassionate heart, and understand that sometimes even if a person plays the cards perfectly right, life could have still dealt them a losing hand.  It doesn’t mean they’re crazy or a loser, and maybe there is the opportunity for you to be the ray of light they need in their lives right now.  Maybe you can be the tiny ripple of hope they need to carry them through.

Conclusion

With the CARES Act ending and no comprehensive plan on the horizon, with looming evictions waiting to be filed, and mortgages remaining unpaid, America could be facing a housing crisis worse than what we endured in two-thousand and eight.  Thousands or hundreds of thousands may find themselves forced to live on the streets, migrating to secure opportunities or housing elsewhere, or simply struggling to hold on to their shelter security. If you find yourself possibly being one of those facing homelessness, don’t delay or postpone your actions.  Know your eviction options. Unload the things you will not need and increase your cash liquidity.  Don’t try to hold on so much to the present that you fail to plan a future.  Learn what you need to know. Keep your head about you, and keep your spirits up knowing that things will get better.  And always look for opportunities to raise yourself up by helping others.  Some do not have a network of family or friends they can rely upon, and others are blessed to have such a network.  Through any disaster many suffer, and a homeless crisis is no different. As always, stay safe out there.

5 Alternative Currencies To Survive

1. Food
2. Precious Metals 
3. Crypto Currency
4. Extra Gear
5. Renewable Sources

We have long believed the dollar to be invincible.  America has been the reserve fiat currency of the world for our lifetimes.  Every other country has transacted in the reliable dollar.  Every failing economy has rushed to convert their assets to the dollar for stability.  But can the dollar maintain its vaulted status in a global recession or depression?  Can the dollar maintain its reserve currency status through a pandemic, an unprecedented global slowdown, a trade war, closed borders, over thirty million people unemployed, a federal reserve that is flooding the economy with an avalanche of freshly printed dollars created out of thin air, and the rise of several other economies and currencies?  Are we looking at global confidence leaving the dollar and moving to more reliable currencies?  Where does that leave you when the dollar becomes worthless?

On this blog, we discuss emergency preparedness and preparing for natural and man-made disasters.  In this blog we will examine five currencies which will become greater in value when the dollar loses its value.  We’re not a financial expert, and these blogs are strictly for educational purposes, but it doesn’t take an economist to see that the US economy is facing serious challenges.  It’s foolish for us to assume that the dollar will always hold its vaulted position against other fiat currencies, resources, and rising crypto currencies.  If you’re not following what’s happening in our economy currently, you really should as it is already impacting many at this very moment as the value of the US dollar is slowly eroding away and you should begin to make plans for what you’ll do if the dollar completely loses its value entirely, something that is a possibility.  To the prepper, currency comes in many forms and not just printed paper money and minted coins.  Currency is a medium of exchange for goods and services, and that medium can change when economies collapse and printed money becomes worthless.  

So we’ll share with you the 5 things we’re currently stocking up on.  Some of these are for worst case scenarios and some of these are just smart investments in my opinion based on my research.  Again, when it comes to investments, we are not a financial advisor and we encourage you to do your own research.

So let’s look at these 5 items.

1) Food

Of course, in the worst of possible scenarios where global economies have collapsed or tremendous natural disasters have hit, nothing is more valuable than the food sources you have safely stored.  A mason jar full of beans, rice, or flour, may be worth more than an ounce of gold.  Food retains its liquidity and can be traded for almost anything you might need.  When supplies run low, the value of this commodity becomes greater than any other item someone could possibly own in that moment.  If you can’t eat or feed your kids, what good is anything else that you own?

It’s important to remember your operational security or OPSEC when transacting or storing food.  If people know you have supplies and they are truly desperate, you will have a target painted on yourself.  Never reveal all your stores.  Always make any food-based transactions away from your storage location, and remain mindful of the desperation levels of others.

Rice, beans, pasta, MREs, canned goods, freeze dried foods, anything with a long shelf life and decent caloric content will be worth more than currency in any prolonged crisis or disaster.  Make sure you have your storage levels high enough to sustain yourself, your family, and then extra parsed out for trading.  I’ll be doing videos in the coming weeks that will go into greater detail in regards to storing food and how much you should have.  

2) Precious Metals

Precious metals have long been an insulation against inflation and a weak currency.  When economies look to be faltering, you’ll often see the rich rapidly throw their money into precious metals.  As a result, this causes the price of precious metals to increase as the demand increases while the supply decreases which you’ve seen play out over the last few weeks and months.  However, the problem with precious metals for the prepper is one of liquidity.  You can’t go to the local store and trade an ounce of silver or a gold nugget for a loaf of bread.  If your precious metals aren’t stored with you, you may not even be able to access them.  They are far from worthless, though.  Gold and silver have intrinsic value in people’s minds.

Minted silver rounds and gram to quarter ounce denominations of minted gold will still maintain partial value for individual trades.  Many people ask in the comment section and have emailed me asking why I recommend gold or silver if an economy may soon collapse.  The answer is simple.  If you’re holding cash during a collapse, it will become worthless.  Precious metals have what is called, “a store of value” which means they store value while other items will not.  Again, this is why you’re seeing many people move toward precious metals here recently as holding cash if an economy collapses will put you in a bad position.  As I mentioned a moment ago, you will have some limited ability to do exchanges with precious metals during a total economic collapse, but nowhere near the levels of what you purchased it for.  But which would you rather have if the market collapses?  $2000 cash which will be practically worthless or a 1 ounce gold piece that will allow you to do a transaction?  This is why I physically keep precious metals.  Also, when economies do recover, either in the US or elsewhere, silver and gold will allow you to directly reestablish yourself economically.  While your stores of food will be less valuable after a recovery, your gold and silver will maintain value throughout a global economic downturn and through a recovery.  The number 1 advantage of this is that you have a strong store of value that will allow you to rebound once things recover.  I’ll post a link in the description section below where I personally purchase my precious metals.

3) Crypto Currencies 

The third critical currency to have in your prepper supplies is some crypto currency.  At the moment, crypto currency, namely Bitcoin, Etherium, and Link constitute about 10% of my overall investment portfolio.  Here like the gold and silver minted coins, liquidity is the issue.  You can’t really go into a store and trade Bitcoin or some other crypto currency for a loaf of bread, at least not at the moment, but that will soon change. However, if there is a large scale migration away from the dollar or if it collapses entirely, the US government will try to control the fall.  They’ll freeze people’s abilities to wire transfer money and they’ll close banks.  It has happened before.  So I’ve personally chosen to begin moving off the dollar as I see it as risky with an economy that is beginning to teeter on the brink of a recession and potentially an all out collapse.  Holding large amounts of cash exposes you to risk.

So what is the value of Crypto currency for a prepper?  We see 3 main advantages:

• Crypto currency is decentralized.  No bank can control it or manipulate it like the Fed is currently doing to the dollar.  
• Store of value.  Like precious metals, crypto allows you to move off the dollar and store the value of your currency in another form.  While we realize those that may be hearing this for the first time may be completely confused as we were when it was first introduced to us, we would encourage you to study it further.  We’ll post links to resources that helped us when we were first starting out.
• We can transport it anywhere.  Whereas precious metals, food, and other commodities have to be physically transported, as long as you have your crypto keys which you can back up on a ledger or in a secure online vault or exchange, you can literally transport all your crypto assets anywhere.  

We realize many reading this part of the blog may be completely confused by this information and if you had told us all these points even a month ago, we wouldn’t understand a word you’re saying.  We’ll post links to blogs that serve as a great starting point if you want to learn more about this technology.  We personally believe blockchain and crypto currency will have a profound impact on our world’s economies in the near future and you need to at least be up to speed on this technology.  Many investment agencies and individuals have started announcing their move to Bitcoin in the last several months as both an investment vehicle and a store of value.  Now that we’ve got our head wrapped around it and spent the last month studying it, we understand why.

4) Extra Gear

If the idea of precious metals and crypto currency is one that you consider too risky, remember that survival gear will be highly sought after if there is an all out collapse.  Like we saw in this last panic when the pandemic started, people realized that supplies were about to become limited after the fact.  If a true collapse occurs and people realize that they need an axe, they won’t find any.  So, if you have an extra or a couple extra, you have a tangible good to trade with.

Your extra gear is a rich commodity.  Fishing poles, ammo, hunting supplies, survival knives, water filters, medicines, fire starters, lighters, feminine hygiene products, first aid supplies, zip ties, tarps, leather work gloves, reading glasses, duct tape, candle wax paracord, soap, tooth brushes, the list goes on and on.  If you have a good supply of any one of these things you will be able to trade surplus for other items you may need.

Gear is currency when the dollar becomes worthless and the economy is down for an extended period of time.  Remember the old adage that “Two is one and one is none.”  The more of a valuable item you have that will be in high demand and short supply, the more you will have to trade for other essentials to get you through.

5) Renewable Resources 

Finally, any renewable resource you can bring to bear will provide you a currency.  A mini Sawyer water filter that can purify up to one-hundred-thousand gallons of water provides you with one-hundred thousand trading opportunities.  A solar generator for charging will provide you a consistent stream of customers seeking to charge their essential equipment.  Knowing how to set a trap to hunt with or a catfish trap in the river will provide you meat to trade with.  Knowing how to and having the space to garden will provide you a renewable source of food to trade with.   Your sourdough starter or fermentation skills will be precious when yeast or alcohol can’t be found. 

Any form of renewable resource becomes a priceless commodity during a prolonged economic crisis.  Take a critical look at your knowledge and skills, just like you critically look at your supplies.  What can you bring to the table in a collapse?  What can you produce that people will still want?  How can you keep your value high through what you produce while normal economic means become worthless?  Can you retain value through sustainable production of some kind?  Can you cultivate one of your skills to produce tradeable, tangible goods?

Any renewable resource you can provide which is in short supply will be valuable through an economic crisis.

Conclusion

We don’t know the future of the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world.  Everyday it seems that it is being artificially propped up, and that may indicate a potential future collapse.  The poet Robert Frost wrote that “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”  To presume that the dollar will forever retain its vaulted place as the world’s reserve currency is foolish.  The threats to the dollar’s position and dominance are very real and we should prepare ourselves for the possibility of its rapid, overnight decline.  It’s a very different world than the Great Depression years of the nineteen thirties, but we are facing similar economic downturns, unemployment, and looming evictions and foreclosures.  If confidence in the dollar continues to erode, a cascading erosion of value could occur.

Prepare yourself through these five outlined alternate forms of currency.  Choose the ones right for you and the area you live in.  While I don’t have a crystal ball, I have done my best to try and advise this community of the threats I have seen coming over the horizon and have tried to provide useful information so you can prepare.  The economy is weighing heavily on people’s minds right now, and rightfully so.  You need to position yourself in the best way possible.  If nothing happens, then you own valuable assets that will serve as a solid store of value and potentially solid investments.

As always, stay safe out there.

What to Grow in Your Apartment to Survive a Collapse If you are ever forced to spend a prolonged period in your apartment, either in lockdown or quarantine, or you ever have to in the future, you’ll quickly realize that while you can, technically, survive on your cupboard, stored foods, dehydrated foods, beans, and rice, nothing beats fresh vegetables and plants for their essential nutrition and their psychological boost.  So much prepper information is out there about high protein, high starch, calorically dense food you should have in your supplies, and there’s plenty of information about starting your micro-farm if you’re fortunate enough to have a sliver or parcel of land. If you’re prepping in an apartment environment, you shouldn’t just be prepping to bug-out.  That may not be an option all the time.  You need to prepare for bugging-in, and that means, to survive an extended bug-in, you will need to grow enough rich plant foods to help you survive an extended period in doors. This is the second blog in this series 15 through 25 along with my tip for a bigger harvest at the end.  If you’re reading this blog but missed the first one, you will want to watch that one for information on creating your growing space in your apartment and the first 15 best plants to grow to supplement your nutrition during an extended lockdown.

15. Mushrooms.  It used to be really hard to get the conditions just perfect to grow mushrooms in your home.  Add to that the very unappealing fact that you’re growing a fungus in your home, and even today the mushroom is overlooked.  Now, though, there are so many kits on the market and so much more material out there on how to grow them that they’re a great option.  This edible fungi is rich in vitamin B, phosphorus, potassium and copper.  If you set them in the sun for 15 minutes before using them, they’ll carry a good dose of vitamin D along with them.  The real plus for mushrooms is the fact that they grow so fast, continue to produce and usually can grow just fine in total darkness.  That makes them essential to your apartment garden in a grid down situation.  Consider having a dry kit stored in your prepper supplies.
16. Carrots.  Carrots need a deeper area to grow, but they will grow very well and very long in a 5 gallon pail from your local hardware store.  In addition to having a decent nutrition density, you can eat the entire plant.  Harvest some of the green tops while the root grows out.  You can add them to salads or even make a pesto out of them.
17. Potatoes.  Until this season, I thought you needed a decent sized area to grow potatoes.  This season, however, I’m easily growing them in a 5 gallon, plastic pail.  One potato that turns a little green or has a lot of eyes because it’s past its prime, can be planted in a pail and yield you many more.  Many will remember a recent Hollywood blockbuster where Matt Damon survives for months on potatoes.  They’re a good source of starches and carbohydrates.  Originating in South America, there are well over 4,000 different types of potatoes, 200 of which are sold in the United States.  The ancestors of the Incans thrived on them over 10,000 years ago.  Whatever you grow in the tuber family, don’t eat the leaves or any green fruits, as there is a toxin in them.
18. Sweet Potatoes.  Along with the potato, the sweet potato gets a solid mention.  It has a slightly higher nutritional value than the average potato.  It also is loaded with beta-carotene.  The sweet potato is also easy to grow with the pail method, so having one type of tuber plant is a real plus.  Tubers will keep for a long time if you keep them dry and out of direct sunlight.  Don’t wash them when you harvest.  Only wash them when you’re ready to prepare them to eat.
19. Yams.  Yams are not sweet potatoes, though many don’t know the distinction.  For all the reasons tubers are good in your garden, Yams are right there too.  The terms yam and sweet potato are often used interchangeably in grocery stores. But they are two different starchy vegetables that deliver different nutrient profiles. In most cases, the “yams” sold in grocery stores are actually orange-coloured sweet potatoes.  Whatever you call your yams, know that they’re loaded with nutrients you need and easy to grow.
20. Dandelion.  Another weed makes my list of 25 here.  The dandelion was once a staple food in the American diet.  People actually cultivated them right out of their lawns.  They are loaded with vitamins a, k, and the mineral iron.  It grows like a weed so it will easily grow in your apartment garden.  The flowers, leaves, roots, the whole plant can be eaten and there are a number of recipes online from salad greens, to roasted for a coffee substitute, to dandelion wine.
21. Chamomile.  While not a nutritional powerhouse, chamomile is easy to grow.  In fact, it’s said the rougher you are with the plant the better it tends to grow, so you don’t have to treat it with kid gloves.  While not devoid of nutrition, it is known for its calming effects, so it’s worthy of this list.
22. Sunflowers.  If you can handle the height requirements of sunflowers, they grow easily on porches.  The entire plant from root to flower is edible.  Typically, we only think of the seeds.  The seeds are a very good source of fats and proteins.  Sunflowers can also serve as trellising for your beans and peas.
23. Peppers.  In the interest of time, I won’t list out all your options in the pepper category.  There are too many.  Whether you grow a smoky and sweet Marconi or bird pepper variety it doesn’t matter.  Peppers are loaded with carbohydrates, vitamin c, b6, a, k, e, potassium, and folate.  The indoor or apartment gardener has an advantage over the outdoor gardener with pepper plants.  Insects love to eat pepper plants, but they have a much harder time getting to your third floor balcony.  Peppers are a great patio container plant with a very high yield and great nutrient density.
24. Kale. Kale grows very well and can be harvested slowly over an entire growing season.  It deserves a spot on the list for that reason and because it has a good nutrient density score and it is easy to grow.  I could have just as easily put mustard greens in here for the same reasons.  One big advantage for the urban gardener for this plant is your growing area, even if out on your balcony, will likely not have slugs or too many insects that would feast on these plants in your typical garden.
25. Turnips, beets, and radishes.  I’ll finish our list of 25 with these three root vegetables.  Turnips, beets, and radishes grow easily and you can eat the entire plant.  They have a high nutrition value, so they deserve consideration for your micro survival garden.  You can easily harvest the leaves throughout the season, so you can eat the whole plant over a long period of time.

There are so many possibilities for your apartment prepper garden.  We could have listed a couple of hundred plants, we think, and it was hard to limit the list to just 25.  We’d love to hear what you’re growing in the comments section.  If you recall from the beginning of the video we said that we would have a tip for pollinating your plants down here at the end.  For plants that produce a flower, then fruit, you will want to plant at least two and use a Q-tip to pollinate them since you likely won’t have many insects to help you do the job.  To do this, rub the Q-tip in the flower and continue that process until all the flowers have been gently rubbed.  This mimics what a bee would do with the pollen in nature. For greater detail on the garden itself, check out our earlier blog; but we will leave you with two more pieces of advice.  While a micro-garden may not be enough to sustain you through a crisis, it can easily stretch out dwindling supplies for much, much longer.  It can provide you with minerals you aren’t likely to get on a survival diet.  To take full advantage of an urban prepper garden, you have to start now.  You can’t wait until a crisis hits and hope to plant some seeds.  You also should look into methods of fermentation and a countertop dehydrator.  Don’t let one bit of your plant go to waste.  Start now to learn how to cook, preserve, and eat the plants you grow.  When a crisis does befall you and you find yourself sheltering in place or quarantined, you’ll be able to easily ramp up your system and make full utilization of it instead of having to wait 60-90 days. Many of the vegetables we buy in grocery stores can be easily grown in our own home. Onions, lettuce, beetroot greens, and celery don’t even need soil to regrow. It is important to remember not to expect high yield from your vegetable garden. They will likely only act as a supplement, albeit an essential one, to your food supply, providing additional flavor and nutritional value to the food you eat.  Plants give us a psychological boost.  Sure, they produce oxygen and provide some physiological benefit to us, but the psychological benefit of being around growing things and the psychological benefit of caring for another living thing cannot be understated.  This can provide a small boost to you when you are bugging-in for an extended period of time.  This can make your time locked inside feel less like a prison sentence.  Having a positive mental attitude and an attitude of survival is one of the most critical aspects of determining whether a person really will survive or perish.  Plants can greatly contribute to our clarity and positivity. If you found this blog informative and helpful, please feel free to like and share it with your friends, family, and community. If you have any comments or anything you would like to share, please feel free to leave a comment in the section below. We do read many of the comments and respond to them when we are able to. We at City Prepping would love to hear what you’re growing, your success stories and your failures.   As always, please stay safe out there.

The prepping community can feel a little overwhelming to newcomers.  There are thousands of eventualities that people prepare for and an endless supply list.  Everyone has an opinion about what you need for any given situation.  So, what’s essential to you in your situation?  Where do you start to begin to prepare for the disasters or events that could threaten your survival?  Perhaps you are getting prepared for when a natural disaster strikes or you see something more ominous on your horizon.  Regardless of the reason you started prepping, you need to know that every disaster, manmade or natural, has a timeframe.  The time leading up to the disaster will determine how well you can weather it.  And, your chances of survival when a disaster strikes will depend on your understanding of how disasters unfold, how people react, and how you should react.  Do you know what you should be prepping?  Do you really have what you need to survive? In this blog we will look at the five things you need to do now in your prepping to increase your real chances of survival in any crisis or disaster situation.  There are a number of blogs on this site where you can find greater detail about the points in this blog, so we want to encourage those new to the prepping community to explore this channel further.  For those who have been prepping for a while, we think you’ll find this blog as a checklist to keep your plans for preparedness on track and in-line with the current threats we face.     Here are the five things you should do now because when a disaster or crisis situation does strike, you will quickly lose the opportunity to prepare.

1) Secure Your Essentials 

Of course, the first thing you need to do before a disaster strikes or in the immediate moments after a disaster strikes, is to secure your essentials.  Food, water, shelter, and your personal security should all be top priorities to you.  You should have food stored that you know how to prepare, and while there are different opinions on how much you should have stored up, much will depend on the type of disaster you face.  Having a year’s supply of food does little good if you are forced to bug out of your once safe location because of rising flood waters or fire.  Bulky cans and bags of beans are not impossible to carry, but may become problematic if speed is of the essence.  We have other blogs on foods to store, and we will put a link to those in the description below, but consider the weight of your food and the caloric value of it as well as how much you and every member of your family unit will need to survive at least a minimum of three weeks.  Dehydrated and freeze dried foods are lighter in weight, but they need water to rehydrate them. Water is the other essential you should secure in the time before disaster strikes and in the moments immediately when the disaster strikes.  Your water supply may seem to be operational now, but it depends on a working, functional infrastructure to deliver it to your home or apartment.  Unmonitored municipal water supplies can become contaminated with chemicals and sewage.  When disaster strikes, immediately fill any containers you have, including your bathtub.  Take a moment to hydrate yourself too.  If your water supplies are threatened, you will be glad you took that moment.  Filling containers and your bathtub, will greatly support your existing water supply.  A fifty-five gallon drum of water can sit for years at the side of a garage, unseen and unused until you critically need it.  A personal water filter or filtration straw, like we recommend, can provide an individual with one hundred thousand gallons of clean water for under twenty bucks.  Just having a mini Sawyer makes you better prepared for disaster than everyone else, and because of its pocket size you can quickly grab it and go if you are forced to flee.  Above all else, secure your food and water supply. Finally, secure your shelter.  Before disaster or civil unrest strikes and endangers your safety, make sure that your doors and windows lock.  Make sure your location is secure. Consider a home security system.  Make sure that your personal safety is considered.  There are many methods for personal security ranging from a simple knife or can of mace up to and beyond a complete weapons cache and a ton of ammo.  You need to assess what you feel you need to keep yourself and your loved ones safe in the crisis and situations you might face.  Think of your shelter as your person as well.  Is your body protected?  Are you safe?  What can you do to increase your personal security and the safety of your shelter?

2) Diversify Your Resources 

The second thing you need to know is to diversify your resources–energy, food, and assets.  As mentioned earlier, if all your food supplies were in bulky cans, you’re in trouble if you have to bugout.  As you prepare for disasters or civil unrest, diversify the types of supplies you have.  Don’t rely upon any single thing. Make sure that you have multiple sources of power.  Batteries won’t last forever and losing power in a disaster is a common occurrence.  Portable solar cell batteries and chargers have significantly dropped in price over the years.  Having a means to recharge rechargeable batteries with solar generated energy increases your energy independence.  It diversifies your energy sources.  In an extended crisis, you might also find it a valuable resource you can barter with.  What would it be worth to a person to get their batteries recharged when the power is out for a long period of time? Diversify your food resources as well.  Make sure that you have alternate means to stretch and replenish your stored food supplies. Know how to forage. Know what you can grow. Know whom you can trade with.  In any crisis, food is better than gold.  It’s the first thing people will look for.  It’s the first thing people will wish they had more of.  You can only store so much, though.  There is always the possibility that the crisis may outlast your stored supplies, so whether supplementing your food with food you can grow or learning to forage in your environment, you need to learn how to diversify your food supplies. Diversify your assets with a similar mindset.  Having even a couple of hundred dollars in cryptocurrency or silver, could be a smart move if the dollar collapses or the economy slips from a recession to a depression.  Spread any financial assets into a diversified mix that improves liquidity and access while reducing risk exposure to single dependence on the US dollar.  We are not a financial consultant and our blogs are purely educational, but it makes sense that your ability to survive through a prolonged downturn may rely upon your ability to keep financially afloat.  That will mean you will have to have a range of fiscal resources at your disposal as well as a sense of their value and an ability to barter.  

3) Sell, sell, sell.  Buy, buy, buy. 

When a disaster or crisis strikes you may still have some time.  In fact, if you are thinking like a prepper already, you are anticipating the possibilities.  If the pandemic taught anyone anything, it’s that runs on essentials like food and toilet paper happen pretty rapidly as soon as the general population begins to sense the looming catastrophe.  You don’t even need a disaster to strike.  You just need the herd of people to believe a threat is looming.   When disaster strikes or is about to strike, your time is limited to sell things you will not need in the long haul if a prolonged economic decline, for instance, is really at your doorstep. Have you been considering whether you need that second car, for instance? If you don’t, someone might be wanting it, but a week from the point of the downturn, it will be hard to sell anything. If we are on a cusp of an economic depression, now might be the best time to refinance your house or reallocate your savings.  In the months after the lockdowns from the pandemic, the purchase of big-ticket items slowed. The price and sales of used trailers, fishing equipment, emergency supplies, and fishing and hunting supplies skyrocketed. Demand was high for these items, but many held off on the purchase of that new but not very practical new car.  Even now, eight months into a pandemic, we were shocked to discover that we couldn’t buy a fishing rod and reel at some sporting goods stores.  Whether that is because people sense a looming threat, whether supplies of product from China has ground to a halt in a worsening trade war, or whether people are just looking for a cheap way to entertain themselves during a pandemic, we don’t know.  It doesn’t matter to the fact that fishing supplies are sparse right now.   Take a holistic look at your prepping supplies.  Are you prepared for a variety of disasters?  Do you have the things you would deem essential?  We never encourage people to go out and max out their credit cards or increase their debt for a disaster that may never befall you, but do make a list of the items you feel are essential.  Start slowly and incrementally making those purchases.  Over time, you will find that you have what you need hopefully before you truly need it.  Even simply saving jars and filling them with rice or dried beans over several weeks can lead to an adequate supply of food when disaster strikes.  Think incrementally now.  Whatever decisions you make regarding what you should sell or what you should buy, give those decisions their due thought right now rather than wait for the time when decisions must be made in desperation.

4) Stock Your Skills 

The greatest resources you have to survive any disaster or crisis are your skills and knowledge, but you cannot simply wait to develop those skills and knowledge when or after a disaster or crisis occurs.  Don’t put off to that day what you should be learning today.  We recently posted a blog on ten skills you can develop now to survive an economic depression, so you may want to take a look at that. Do you anticipate that you may be fishing a local lake or river to supplement your food sources or to sell or trade fish. Is fishing one of your skills? When was the last time you actually worked on that skill?  What do your tackle and supplies look like? Assuming you can’t just run to the local store, do you have what you need? Do you anticipate needing to repair or make your own clothes? What do your supplies look like? Do you have the bolts of fabric you will need to make enough garments for your own needs and to have products to sell? Do you have enough durable rather than dainty fabrics?  When was the last time you actually made an article of clothing from scratch?  Are your skills where they need to be? Are you going to garden or cook or forage for food? Do you have the essentials you’ll need like seeds or flour or plant identification books to get you through an extended economic collapse? Whatever your skill is, beef up your supplies now. Runs on stores in the days leading up to and following an economic collapse or disaster will deplete store shelves and it will be too late. You will constantly be looking for what you need, like the majority of desperate people, and likely not finding it.  Again, don’t feel like you need to max out your credit cards.  We feel strongly that you can effectively prep incrementally, a little each week.

5) Location, location, location 

The fifth thing you should do now to prepare yourself is to know your locations.  If you’re prepping in an urban environment, do you have bug-out locations with other people? Can you go across town to a friend’s house if your location is no longer safe? Likewise, does your friend know they can come to your location? These pacts amongst friends and family will provide you a network of safe locations should you be driven from or forced to flee your home or apartment.  Is there a rural or suburban family member in your network you can bug out to? During the Great Depression, people were forced to move to find work or food. Natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes can leave large swaths of land uninhabitable.  Today, we are more spread out from our families and often separated by thousands of miles. Have an option B and an option C. Run possible scenarios through your head and make some loose plans for where you can go when things become untenable where you are at. Of course, if you are already in a rural location, you probably don’t need a bug-out location.  But having a pact among your neighbors can still keep you safer in a drawn out crisis.  For the urban and suburban prepper, having a remote bug-out location or two is always a solid bet.  It allows you options, and so much of survival is centered around not running out of options.  Do realize that bugging-out has many challenges.  It can be difficult and dangerous to leave your bug-in location and travel to your bug-out location.  Consider making a dry run to test the route you’ll take and maybe return on an alternate route.  Just as a commuter after several years has multiple. possible routes should one route become congested, you too should have multiple routes to your safer locations.

Conclusion

It’s easy to have a tremendous amount of built up anxiety about what is happening in the world today and what might possibly happen in our immediate future.  Prepping provides you a means to calm those anxieties and replace those feelings with the confidence that you have prepared where you can and can face the challenges.  Develop an incremental approach to your preparedness.  Cover the major concerns first and then start ticking away bit-by-bit on the smaller, long term survival needs.  In the times before and the moments immediately after a disaster strikes, you may still be able to make some long term preparations.  Don’t waste this relatively calm time now.  Secure your essentials first.  Look to diversify your resources.  Make the transactions now of the items you don’t really need for what you still need.  Stock up on your skills, and know your locations.  You can be ready when you need to be by starting slowly and methodically now. Have you been prepping for a long time?  What’s your best advice for new preppers? We learn a tremendous amount from you as well, and together we stay prepared for whatever the world throws at us.  If you found this blog useful and informative, please feel free to share it with your friends and family. As always, stay safe out there.

Edible plants you can grow

• Spaces
• Light & Water
• Which Plants to Grow
• Rate of Production
• Start Slow But Start Now

Our food supply is very vulnerable, and the recent pandemic has greatly exposed that.  With experts warning us that a 2nd wave of the coronavirus is right around the corner, learning how to raise your own food in an apartment will be an important skill.  When farmers found their distribution lines disrupted or couldn’t find the field workers they needed to harvest, when grocery stores had bare shelves, and with a reduction in imports, we can see that it only takes a little push to throw our normal food sources into a panic-driven shortage.  Our reliance on other people for producing and even cooking the food that we eat puts us at great risk of malnutrition, even starvation if a more severe disruption to the food supply happens. The problem for the city prepper is always a problem of space, but creative solutions and the right growing choices can make your apartment into a micro-farm that will allow you to greatly supplement your food supplies and provide you the vital nutrients you may need to survive an extended bug-in period.

In this blog, we will look at the vital elements of the apartment farm, the best plants, setups, and the essential nutrients you should focus on to survive.  Prepping is about self-reliance.  While an apartment or small suburban home doesn’t afford enough room for rows of corn, chickens, or even a garden that provides enough to give us independence from outside food sources, there is a way you can grow enough food to supplement your stored food and provide yourself with the vital nutrients you need to get you through a long bug-in period.  One of the ways that you can be more self-reliant is to use the space that you have and grow a percentage of your food. It’s always easier to ramp up an existing micro-garden then it is to start from scratch.  If nothing ever happens, you’ll lower your grocery bill and eat healthier, so it’s a win-win scenario.

Spaces

Space is the biggest challenge you face when you are looking to garden in an apartment. You don’t have the luxury of a front or backyard where you can grow your small garden.  A balcony, window sill, skylight, rooftop, grow tent, wall garden, or small hydroponic system are all considerations when considering where best to grow food.  Let’s quickly examine each.  The balcony is one of the easiest growing spaces, especially if it is elevated and somewhat protected from would-be thieves.  You can use a variety of pots, pails, hanging plants, or railing attachments to create a viable grow space.  Trellising even a small wall of your balcony can provide you a large harvest of vertical growing plants: legumes, some squash, and cucumbers are some examples.  Tomatoes can be grown very effectively as a hanging plant, and small tomato varieties like the pea-sized currant tomato look more decorative than your typical garden tomato.  The reason we recommend this is because of the nutrient profile of tomatoes which we will cover later.  If large pots or pails are an option, you can grow anything from sweet potatoes to artichokes to celery.  Later on, we will discuss the types of plants you should choose. 

Buckets are also a great option because they can be moved if conditions become too harsh or to find that sweet growing spot on your balcony.  A typical 5-gallon bucket with a few holes drilled in the bottom can produce a large yield.  Just one of these buckets filled with soil and one potato can provide you a harvest of several pounds on new potatoes.  Many will remember a recent Hollywood movie where an astronaut survived on Mars with only potatoes and some botany knowledge. 

Herbs are relatively easy to grow and provide a psychological boost through color and flavor if you are forced to bug-in for a long period of time.  Herbs tend to like full or partial sunlight (at least four hours), so consider positioning them on the sunniest part of your balcony or in window sills with direct sunlight.  When choosing herbs, be certain that parsley and chives are in your mix.  These two herbs are very nutrient dense .  You could keep herbs inside by a window and leave the balcony for the plants that require bigger pots and a little bit more space.  The window sill and even pots that attach to window frames are other viable grow spaces .  While the sun may be harsher in these locations, the plants can act as a natural shade for both comfort and privacy.  If allowed, an outside the window hang wall garden structure can provide you another set of options.  With permission, some very urban environments allow for rooftop gardens.  Indoors, small hydroponic setups have come down in price over the years, and simple grow tents or converted grow spaces in closets can be assembled for much cheaper than an out of the box setup, though that’s an option as well.  While a small hydroponic system won’t be enough to keep you alive, it can supplement your food stores.  Finally, a grow tent is an option for apartment dwellers with very little light available.  Unfortunately, a grow tent will not help in a grid-down situation as the fan and lighting system would not work.

Whatever spaces you decide upon, calculate up the estimated average amount of direct and indirect sunlight your area is receiving.  Supplementing light can be accomplished with a well-placed mirror or a plugin grow lightbulb.  Barring either of these options, choose plants that will thrive better in shade.  An opposite set of problems presents itself for the growing environment with too much direct sunlight.  This can result in dried up or cooked plants.  Clever shading and misting can help with this.  Finally, make sure growing spaces have air circulation.  This is even more critical for the indoor grower.  Absent a breeze, even a very small fan can provide your plants with enough air circulation to breathe.  Fans are absolutely vital to an indoor grow. A plant can quickly absorb all the CO2 around them, the fan helps keep the supply of CO2 constant. This improves photosynthesis, nutrient absorption, and general plant health. 

The biggest advantage to the indoor or balcony garden is fewer insects.  While they can still find their way to your balcony plants, the fact that they have to travel a greater distance from the ground across a non-green zone will naturally deter some insects.  Insects like to travel from plant to plant, not from the plant across parking lots and up three flights.  If you are on the third floor of your apartment complex, for instance, you don’t have to worry about slugs eating your lettuce.  Even grasshoppers aren’t likely to find your faraway location to be a sustainable place to stay.  While you may still experience Tomato Horn Worms on your plants, as this is the early stage of life for a type of moth, their numbers may be small enough to eradicate by hand or through the use of an organic solution like Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT).  This naturally occurring soil bacteria is harmless to humans but fatal to worms and caterpillars.  In our own garden, we wait until the worms have become too difficult to eradicate by hand, as BT also can harm the butterfly population.  Assess your entire living space and determine what areas can provide you with viable growing options.  Calculate up the amount of available light.  Consider things like air circulation and the frequency of watering.

Light, Air, and Water

Aside from space, your garden will also need sufficient light, water, and air circulation. We mentioned above about using grow lights to increase your light. This equipment may be necessary, especially if your apartment doesn’t have a good source of sunlight. It can provide the needed light for your plants, and even allow you to control how much light they can get and when they will get it.  Fortunately, the cost of grow lights has dropped from hundreds of dollars to under 20 dollars with the increased use of LEDs.  Grow lights not attached to a solar unit, of course, would not be reliable in a grid-down situation; however, supplementing natural light with LED grow lights and a small solar panel is an affordable possibility as LEDs consume lower amounts of energy.

If growing in windows, you should consider removing any barriers to light that you might have on your windows like sheer curtains. For security purposes, this might lead to the inside of your apartment being too exposed to the outside world. For this problem, you can use light-diffusing window films, which still allow light to pass through while blocking the view from the outside.  

When it comes to watering indoor plants, the general rule is that smaller plants usually require more frequent watering. Plants that get more sunlight also require more regular watering. The amount of water used is approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the pot.  Collecting rainwater on a balcony can keep your plants with a supply of water and prevent you having to use precious drinking water.  Remember, plants can use water that is unfit for you to drink.

Larger plants require more ventilation than smaller plants.  If an open or cracked window isn’t a possibility, you may want to have a small fan you can periodically turn on to keep the airflow moving through your space.

Which Plants to Grow

The range of plants you can grow will amaze you.  For the purposes of prepping, however, you should be focusing on reusing what you have and on plants that provide nutrients that may be missing or in low quantity in your stored foods.  Nutrient density provides you the best results for your efforts.  Lettuce, though it may not seem like it, has a very high nutrient density score.  The nutrient density of a food is the ratio of beneficial ingredients to the food’s energy content for the amount that is commonly consumed. A high score is a tip-off that the food contains more beneficial nutrients compared to calories. A nutrient density score gives a snap comparison between nutrients you should eat more of (think: vitamins A, C, fiber, calcium, iron, etc.), and nutrients you should eat less of (think: saturated fat, added sugar, sodium, etc.).  I’ll put a link to a ranked list of nutrient-dense foods in the section below (https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2014/13_0390.htm).

Prepper supplies typically focus on high caloric foods.  That is a major part of survival.  Vegetables, however, have fewer calories so the focus is more on vital nutrients.  What would be considered high-calorie vegetables: beans, yams, corn, potatoes, peas, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and carrots, still only have 53 and 298 calories per cup, with beans and yams skewing the scales.  Without beans and yams, the average of the other vegetables mentioned is between 53 and 160 calories.  With a minimum of 1,000 calories per day required to slow down the physiological effects of starvation, eating or even harvesting 19 cups of carrots per day isn’t likely in your micro-urban garden.  So, the plant choices should focus on nutritionally dense plants that provide a wide range of vitamins and minerals.

Kale or Collard Greens, which are packed with B, A, C, K, and critical trace minerals like potassium, calcium, and copper is a good choice for both pots and wall gardens.  These leafy vegetables are easily grown in a window sill in merely a cup of water.  They are both nutrient-rich and nutrient-dense.  The same is true with green onions.  That store-bought scallion or the center of your onion can easily be sprouted into a new plant in a cup of water on your windowsill. 

Since the focus is not on solely surviving on your micro-urban garden, plants that have proven medicinal properties are also a good choice.  This is where herbs are, again, a wise choice.  The American diet has moved away from eating dandelions, but the entire plant, root, flower, and leaf is edible.  It’s also used as a diuretic to help with many conditions like liver problems and high blood pressure.  Commonly considered a weed, it will grow easily in a balcony garden.  Chamomile, rosemary, peppermint, lemon balm, oregano, lavender, basil, Marigolds, Purple Coneflower, Holy Basil, all of these plants also have some medicinal properties to them.  They are also tremendously easy to grow.  Do some research and favor plants that provide some relief for any pre-existing conditions you may have.  Your reliance upon getting prescriptions filled may disappear in an extended crisis, so the right herbs may provide you some relief.

Sprouts and microgreens increase in nutrition as they grow.  The dry seeds can easily be stored in your supplies and eaten in its dry or soaked form.  From a survival standpoint, sprouts are your best option.  Sprouts have an average yield of 7 to 1, so a large mason jar of dry seeds in your supplies could yield you over 7 pounds of sprouts.  To put that into perspective, that’s about 112 of those 3-ounce alfalfa sprout containers in the store.  That’s also 950 grams fat, 3230 grams of protein, and the same amount of fiber.  As they only require water and a windowsill’s worth of light, and can easily be stored in dry seed form, sprouts can be an amazing survival food.  Sprouts and microgreen sprouting have become very popular, so there’s an abundance of products and writing on the subject.  The key with sprouts is that you can harvest nutrient-dense foods in around a week.

What you grow, again, depends on the space and light.  Obviously, you couldn’t grow watermelon or pumpkin because of the size and length of the plant.  Tomatoes, however, can be heavily pruned and grown either in a container or a hanging container.  Again, here, the nutritional profile is what is important.  Even if you don’t grow them, having them in dried form in your food stores will provide you with essential calcium, potassium, vitamin C, and almost 1,500 IUs of vitamin A.  They can easily be hydrated.

Your store-bought lettuce, onions, garlic, peppers can create low-yield harvests for you.  One pepper’s or tomato’s seeds can produce well over 100 plants, which is more than you could possibly maintain in an apartment.  Before you find yourself in a “need to” situation, I recommend trying to regrow your lettuce from the bottom two-inch base in a cup of water.  Sprout an onion from the inner core or garlic, so you can have the experience and know-how you might apply it in a situation where your survival may depend upon the knowledge.  A green onion only needs a few days to grow back to full length and you can regrow them 2-3 times in water.   You only need the bottom inch of a green onion to regrow it on a windowsill.

What you choose to grow is a factor of space, nutrient, and caloric density, and the amount of time you can dedicate to the process.  You should work towards always having a little something supplementing your store-bought food and sufficient supplies to be able to ramp up a larger operation to fill in the nutritional gaps of your supplies.  In a follow-up video to this one, I will cover City Preppings recommended 25 plants to grow in your apartment, so you can subscribe to this channel to receive an alert when that video comes out.

Rate of Production

Because space will be an issue in an apartment, don’t expect your vegetable garden to have a high yield. Your yield will likely be low, giving you only enough vegetables to consume for a few days or slowly over time, but that’s okay. The small vegetable garden in your apartment should not be your primary source of food. Its role is to supplement the food supplies that you already have. Herbs and vegetables can add flavor to your food and provide key nutrients.  Fresh vegetables, even in small amounts, can provide a needed psychological boost when you are tired of typical survival staples like beans, rice, jerky, pasta, and the like.  While it takes a few months for vitamin deficiencies to manifest in the form of scurvy or otherwise, even a few fresh vegetables can stave off greater health problems and boost your mental outlook.

You can increase your overall rate of production by knowing what you can eat.  Make sure that you make use of all the edible plants like carrot tops, broccoli stalks, kale stems, turnip greens, and more. These vegetable parts may seem like a waste, but they’re really a tremendous source of nutrients.  Carrot tops, the leaves of a pepper plant or celery stalk, even many types of flowers are edible.  Although you may be accustomed to seeing flowers only as decoration, you can add many of them to your diet for color, texture, and vital antioxidants.  Learn what parts and types of plants you can easily grow and can eat now before you find yourself in a situation where you have to learn by trial and error.

Harvest the seeds out of your plants, dry them on paper towels, and store them in labeled and dated ziplock bags in a mason jar.  If you have to bug-out to a safer environment, you can easily grab a future bounty of food in seed form.  By doing this, you are stretching the use of the plant.  A small ziplock bag of dried seeds could potentially yield you thousands of pounds of edible food.  Seed saving has a history dating back over 12,000 years, but our dependence on other people growing our food has largely eliminated the practice from American culture.

Low yield does not mean useless.  Survival is often a long process.  It often requires drawn-out patience and careful planning.  In this sense, a low but steady yield provides you with the most critical survival component-time.  Even a small, steady harvest from your apartment plants can supplement your supplies and provide you with vitamins, minerals, and the psychological boost you need to stay put when others are going stir crazy.

Start Slow But Start Now

You can’t expect to be a master gardener.  We’ve gardened for years, and we know people who are far better gardeners than we are.  But you do need to start now.  An apartment garden isn’t something you can start up after a crisis has befallen you.  You can’t read a book after a crisis then harvest the next day.  Start small, but start now.

Learn to garden your available space and to cook what you are able to produce.  Prepare your supplies with the potential to rapidly increase your garden operation in the event that your micro-garden suddenly needs to become a means of survival for you.  Skills like gardening and cooking always trump tools.  If you know how to do something it’s better than having a tool without the knowledge of how to wield it.

Start slow but start now so you know what combination of plants works best for you.  Your first harvest of strawberries might only yield you a handful, definitely not enough to survive on in any meaningful way; but your trellised peas or cucumbers might grow exceptionally well on that sunny wall of your balcony.  Though you might not be able to eat all of the cucumbers, it’s an excellent opportunity for you to learn a skill like pickling for food preservation.  The more skills you know, the more likely you will be to thrive and not just survive in a crisis situation.

Start slow, but do start now.

Conclusion

After all this information on spaces, light, air, plant types, nutrition density, harvest yields, and developing new skills, hopefully, you are convinced to start some type of food growing in your home or apartment.  While this blog has focused on the truly urban growing environment, the suburban gardener has vastly more options and choices and harvest yields by virtue of having more space.  Remember that herbs and vegetables are a critical source of vitamins and minerals, which is something that you will need plenty of during a disaster situation. Having a vegetable garden is important and ensures you will have access to these types of food during a collapse. We’ve discussed in this blog that it’s possible to start a small garden, even if you are living in an apartment. Though space may be an issue, there are ways to get around that. You can use space such as your windowsill, rooftop, hanging planters, or a patio for your garden. You can also use 5-gallon pails or buckets as pots for your plants, which can allow you to move your garden around when needed.

Many of the vegetables we buy in grocery stores can be easily grown in our own home. Vegetables like green onions, lettuce, beetroot green, and celery don’t even need soil to regrow. It is important to remember not to expect high yield from your vegetable garden. They will only act as a supplement to your food supply, providing additional flavor and nutritional value to the food you eat. It’s critical you start your vegetable garden now instead of waiting for a crisis to happen. If you don’t start early, you’ll have to wait 60-90 days before you can expect to have any harvest to use. That is also assuming you already know how to garden. You should also take into consideration that some rate of failure will happen, especially if you are still learning.

One final thought we did not address but probably should, the final aspect of micro-gardening.  Plants give us a psychological boost.  Sure, they produce oxygen and provide some physiological benefit to us, but the psychological benefit of being around growing things and the psychological benefit of caring for another living thing cannot be understated.  This can provide a small boost to you when you are bugging-in for an extended period of time.  This can make your time locked inside feel less like a prison sentence.  Having a positive mental attitude and an attitude of survival is one of the most critical aspects of determining whether a person really will survive or perish.  Plants can greatly contribute to our clarity and positivity.

If you found this blog informative and helpful, please feel free to like and share it with your friends, family, and community.

As always, please stay safe out there.

A Better Way to Remember and Survive

1. What Is The Rule of 3
   1. Air – minutes
   2. Shelter – hours
   3. Water – days
   4. Food – weeks
   5. Hope – months
2. Remembering the  Rule of 3: (A.C.H.E.D) “suffer from a continuous dull pain”
   1. Aspirate – Air
   2. Cover – Shelter
   3. Hydrate – Water
   4. Eat – Food
   5. Desire – Hope

Whether it’s an earthquake, a riot, or a terrorist attack, being prepared is critical in any situation as disasters can happen anytime and often without warning. Being prepared is not only about having the necessary supplies and gear, but it is also knowing what to do. You could be at home sleeping when an earthquake suddenly strikes or out on a hike in the mountains when a fire ignites and traps you.  You could be safely in your office when the power goes out or an act of terror throws the city outside into total chaos. When this happens, what should be your top priorities in order to survive? One of the rules that preppers and survivalists follow during any crisis is the Rule of 3. It’s a rule that can help you do certain things first to ensure your survival. Memorizing this rule can increase your chances of survival in any dire situation.   It’s easy to be frightened or overwhelmed when the calm of our world suddenly falls apart.  In this blog, we’ll discuss what the Rule of 3 is and how to apply this principle during any catastrophic situation.  We’ll also look at an easy acronym to remember to ensure your survival priorities are stronger than the crisis you are facing. What is the Rule of 3 The Rule of 3 is a rule that survivalists and preppers follow to help them remember what is the most important thing they need to do first when they’re put in a disaster situation. Read anyone’s survival story and the chances are they knowingly or unknowingly survived because of the Rule of 3.  No one knows exactly where the rule started, but some believe it was taken from the United States Air Force S.E.R.E. Program –Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. The Rule of 3 essentially means you can live and survive for:

• 3 minutes without AIR
• 3 hours without SHELTER
• 3 days without WATER
• 3 weeks without FOOD
• 3 months without HOPE 

AIR: Three Minutes Without Air Oxygen is the most basic and important thing we need to survive. Without it, we won’t have a chance to survive for more than 3 minutes. This is why you need to put priority in finding breathable air during a disaster period. For example, if you’re in the middle of a wildfire, the first thing you need to do is to prioritize finding a way to breathe properly without the toxic fumes and smoke entering your body. Has the building around you collapsed?  Look for air flow and try and find breathable pockets of air.  Can you tear a piece of cloth, wet it and make a bandana?  This will keep toxic dust from blocking your airways.  This same method will work for a short period of time in a fire or smoky situation.  The wet cloth will help to filter the air and deflect some of the heat.  If your boat capsizes, look for the direction of the bubbles.  They will always rise up.  If you can’t escape, is there a pocket of collected air under your boat?  Air – it’s the thing you need the most.  If you cannot aspirate for a period longer than 3 minutes, death is certain. SHELTER: Three Hours Without Shelter If you find yourself in a situation where moving to a safer environment or extricating yourself completely from the crisis is not possible, you will need to prioritize the next part of the Rule of 3– Shelter.  In heavy rains, never camp by a river.  In a fire, never rest until you are below and downwind from the fire, as fires will burn with the wind current and up.  In an earthquake, make sure you have shelter from the elements.  The second part of the Rule of 3 is all about shelter.  Once you’ve found a way to have breathable air, the next thing you need to prioritize is shelter. The environment that we live in can be harsh and our bodies are not designed to withstand what nature can throw at us. Shelter is critical, especially if you find yourself unable to make it back home because of the disaster. Providing temporary shelter is one of the primary relief actions that governments take so people in affected areas will have a place to sleep and keep themselves safe after a calamity has destroyed their homes.  Shelter serves the critical role of shielding you from the elements and the environment. WATER: Three Days Without Water When breathable air and shelter are not an issue, then the next thing you need to focus on is finding clean water to drink. Water is critical to our survival, more so than food. The adult human body contains up to 60% water and several of the vital internal organs, like the brain, heart, and lungs, are all made up mostly of water. This shows how important water is in our life, which is why we can only survive without water for 3 days. When you find yourself in a disaster situation, water should be your priority, especially if the situation may last for days.  In addition to storing water for an emergency, consider filling bathtubs or other large vessels at the onset of an emergency situation.  You can survive for days without food, but you won’t survive much more than 3 days without water.  FOOD: Three Weeks Without Food Food is important but it isn’t your first priority after a SHTF scenario. There are countless stories of people surviving for days, even longer without any intake of food. An example is when a Thai soccer team and their coach survived being trapped in a cave for 17 days in 2018 without any food. They used the dripping stalactites for water and meditated to help them not think about food. Our bodies can survive without eating anything for 3 weeks as long as we have water to drink. Not having food can cause starvation, which will have other side effects and can even lead to death. This is why it is still vital to prepare enough food supplies or find sources of food after a grid-down scenario. People who survived during a calamity for weeks and months were able to do so because they also found a source of food aside from water.  HOPE: Three Months Without Hope The last rule is a bit subjective since this will really depend on the person and the circumstance. In a prolonged crisis, your survival may rely upon your personal reserves of hope.  Can you maintain positive progress towards your survival?  Can you look forward to another day, week, or month when no possible solution is on the horizon? Though others believe people can survive for roughly 3 months without any hope, we think it is actually the most critical thing you need for your survival. If you’re already losing hope that you can get out of the collapse, what would motivate you to try to survive in the first place? The problem with losing hope is that it clouds your mind and prevents you from seeing the entire situation and noticing that there are still things that you can do. This is why we believe hope should be the most important thing you need to prioritize when you’re put in a disaster situation.  Remembering the Rule of 3 (A.C.H.E.D) “For minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months I A.C.H.E.D.”  The Rule of 3 was created for survival in the wilderness to help people prioritize things when they’re put in a tight spot. However, this code can also be applied in your preparation for surviving in an urban setting during a disaster.  The challenge for most people is remembering the rule of three.  The incremental periods of time are easy enough to remember: minutes, hours, days, weeks, months; however, the order of what you need to survive has to be memorized.  The chances are that if this is your first exposure to them, you have to struggle to remember them. If that is the case, how could you remember them in the stress of a disaster situation?  Remember instead the phrase “For minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months I ACHED” This phrase will expand the applicability of the Rule of 3 and help you to remember it during the stress of a crisis in an urban environment.  Remember the Rule of 3 by remembering the word “ACHED.”  Ached is to “suffer from a continuous dull pain,” and any SHTF situation can be a prolonged and continuous pain that needs to be dealt with.  As an acronym, ached stands for Air, Cover, Hydration, Eat, Desire. Air is the critical component where minutes matter.  Cover, here, we also expand in concept to include cover as in a hat, protection from the sun, rain, and win and cover as in “cover me” to remember to create a defensible shelter of protection, as well.  While you may already have shelter in some crisis situation, you need to be aware that cover also includes protecting your body directly and indirectly.  The H in “ACHED” is hydration.  Here too , I am trying to expand the definition of water.  The liquid in canned foods, the morning dew, rain, the toilet tank, even water remaining in the pipes leading to your house are all sources of hydration, so it’s important to expand the definition from just finding water in the wilderness.  The “E” is simply “Eat.”  Finding sources of consumable food, foraging in an urban environment, gardening in plots of land, balconies, or even window sills are all methods of critical food resources after a crisis.  And finally, the D is “Desire,” defined as “a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.”  To be hopeful and desirous of emerging from a catastrophe, staying positive when everything looms like a dark cloud over you, finding the calm moments when you are spending the majority of your time in a panicked frenzy for survival, will be the key element to your long term survival.   So remember, minutes, hours, day, weeks, and maybe even months you “A.C.H.E.D.- Air, Cover, Hydration, Eat, Desire,” but if you prepare and keep your head about you, you can survive. Conclusion The Rule of 3 can help you know what you should focus and prioritize first, not only in preparing but also in case you find yourself in the middle of a disaster with no gear or supplies available.  Remember the priorities by remembering the phrase “For minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months I ACHED.”  This will ensure you know the priorities of survival in any given situation, and you remember that the pain will be temporary if you apply the principles, prepare, and persist. We hope you gained new insight when it comes to focusing and prioritizing your preps. As always, please stay safe out there.