Guns

I realize now that I have yet to discus weapons; specifically guns.

Living in California makes it particularly difficult to buy or own guns. And I won't even go into concealed carry or automatic weapons.

The basic list, in my opinion, of fire arms ownership is as follows:
Pistol
Shotgun
.22lr Rifle
Heavy caliber rifle (.556m/.223cal or higher)

And you should probably buy them in that order, although pistol and shotgun can be swapped I think, depending on you situation and need.

Please note that I WILL NOT discuss here what brand, type or caliber of fire arm you should purchase. I can't. Those decisions will always depend on you. I will give you some things to think about before purchase.

The way to think about what to get would be similar to when buying a car or computer: How much are you willing to spend? What are you going to be using it for (hunting/property protection/personal protection)? How easy it is to repair and availability of parts? And for guns, can you handle that one? With most fire arms you can often go to a firing range and rent them to find out if it something you are comfortable with.

Pistols
Something to think of for women is, smaller is not necessarily better, bigger frames means more mass to control recoil when you fire. Women also seem to be more comfortable with and better shots than men with revolvers.

Question to ask yourself: Are you going to carry concealed? Then is that pistol too big? Should you carry extra ammo? How much? Where?

My suggestion if it's only for home defense and you are not going to carry it would be the biggest damn gun you can find. The .50cal Desert Eagle is stupid huge, but it is the only handgun in the world that comes with it's own special effects! And believe it or not it doesn't kick as hard as you think.

Shotguns
Hunting, property/personal protection
Yes, you can do all three with this firearm, but, you will need a variety of shells to handle your different needs. On the plus side, because of so many different loads available you can do a lot with just this one firearm. You  have many choices of models and prices so you should do your homework about what you are going to need it for to better decide which one to get. Shotguns may be the most modifiable firearm available (depending on make and model) For size length, capacity, options, color, whatever.

.22's
This is basically for hunting small game or rodents.
It is a very small bullet and won't kill anything much bigger that a medium sized dog at best. I personally would go with a .22 rifle over a .22 pistol, simply because I aim better with a rifle, and if I'm hunting the shot must count. Your millage may vary.

Rifles
Hunting, property/personal protection
This one you should consider very carefully as they are expensive and fit a tight niche. On most survival blogs and sites you will hear a debate between .223 and .308 (which happens to be NATO standard military calibers and therefor assumed to be plentiful in case of SHTF {Shit Hits The Fan}) I originally had a .308 until my Ex stole it, but as the years wear on that this was getting heavy! What with rifle and ammo (In the rifle plus extra mags to carry on me) was weighing in at around 30-35lbs. It doesn't sound like much until you have to cary it in your arms hour after hour, day after day. Plus, my kids would not be able to shoot it for at lest 10-15 years until they get big enough to handle it.

One last thing to consider; If you are going to be with a group, or even just your family and they are all (or most) going to be armed, then everyone should have the same basic tools, so that the parts and ammo are interchangeable.

The Kids are Alright

The other day I was watching some cartoons with my kids, when my oldest pointed out something that the media has been slipping in for years. She said; "Daddy, girls always win, and boys always loose. That's not fair is it?"

I love it when children can see the obvious and make moral decisions based on that. All I was there for was to confirm that "Yes, it's not fair, but it's just a cartoon, in real life everyone can win or loose as long as they try their hardest."

Homemade Laundry Cleaner

This recipe was taken from The Survival Podcast, and I fully intend to implement it as I am soooo broke, I need every edge I can get.

Here is the direct link to the pdf
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/docs/deb-pdfs/01-dryhomemadelaundrymix.pdf

This is the text of it:


Here is my dry homemade laundry mix – and I have been told you can use it in HE and frontload machines, because there is no sudsing agent in it I just started making my own laundry soap this year, and I LOVE it!

I use 1/2 a box of Borax, and entire box of washing soda, and 1/4 of a bar of Fels-Naptha soap grated. It is a dry recipe, but I store it in a water pitcher type container – with a handle and a tight lid, and I shake it up sometimes before I use it, just because it seems that the soap is heavier and settles down from the top.

It only takes one tablespoon per load (sometimes I use 2 for really dirty stuff).

I found all the ingredients at my local associated foods store – the box of borax cost $3.36 at Walmart, and $4.79 at the local store. The box of washing soda cost $2.99. The Fels-Naptha was $1.19 -and I only used 1/4 of it- so for the recipe it costs about $.30. This recipe can also use a whole bar of Kirks Castile soap instead of Fels-Naptha (it has more natural ingredients and has a different scent to it) and it costs $1.39.

So my total was $6.65. It made approx. 131 oz. (16 cups) of detergent. Using only 1 tbsp per load – that should be about 256 loads or if I used 2 tbsp. per load it would be 128 loads. Divide $6.65 by the loads and you get .025 for 1tbsp, and .05 for 2 tbsp.

Carmageddon

All of Southern California seems to be freaking out about the 405 Freeway Closure. From what I understand that's about 10 miles of freeway, and it will be closed for one day. Everyone is acting like it's the end of the universe, and if it was even vaguely true, I would highly advise never moving there, and if you live there, get the hell out!

1 Freeway of 10 miles out of hundreds- maybe thousands in the area...
...What would happen if two of them were to close? Or a major quake shut them all down? What would the people there do? Starve? Die of thirst? Riot? Party till they were too stupid to walk? Who knows, but lets watch to see what happens and see if we can learn anything from it, like we learned from Japan, Hatti, and Katrina.

For instance, what if something happened to the 99 or 120 here? Or a major freeway where you live? Do you have alternatives? Now, do you have an alternative that everyone else doesn't know about? And, an alternative to where? Do you have a destination to head for if you had to leave?

Also, something to think about; Is your vehicle prepared for an instant bug out? Tuned up, half tank or more of gas, vehicle emergency kit, food and water, maps for those secret roads we just talked about?

Although, admittably this would be the perfect situation for bugging in. You can't get out, nothing dangerous is going on where you are, so hunker down, crank up the BBQ, pop in a movie and relax...

... Uhh you do have a generator or solar back up for the movie, right? right? Beuller?

The Lessons ARE Being Learned (Continued)

It's amazing; My kids have latched onto the idea of water filtration and wont let go. They have tried repeatedly, since the last post, to find some way to clean and filter water. I finaly put a stop to their experimentation when they insisted that I tape two Q-tips together so that they could scoop water with them from one cup to another.

At that point I realized how serious they were so I had them pull out a couple of empty plastic bottles and showed them how to make a sand filter. It actually worked amazingly well considering how little filtering material there was in the upper bottle.

I made sure that they did as much work as possible collecting pebbles and larger rocks. I had to find a source of sand. Fortunately there was a small trickle by some plants near my apartment. After all of the parts were collected I washed them out in the sink, and explained to my daughters that we had to wash out the dirt, because" dirt and water make what?" "Mud!" they replied. And with that they understood that they didn't want to drink mud. So, I washed down the pebbles and sand to get the dirt out, then poured the sand into a coffee filter and set it into the first bottle, which I had already poked holes in the bottom and cut the top off. Then I poured the pebble on top. This collapsed the coffee filter into an envelope shape which is not what I wanted, but it worked out pretty well anyway. Remember; You can do the same thing for real with two large buckets.

Next, I took the whole contraption outside and poured water into the top for my kids to watch it work. It took a couple of rounds for it to run completely clear, but after that it seemed to run fine. I let my kids go with it and didn't see them again for an hour (please remember it been in the upper 90s to low hundreds the last week).

Science, Survivalism, and Raising Kids - Good Times :-)