One thing I’ve learned over the years when treating large cuts: You can never have enough gauze. Whether you have a stack of 4″ x 4″ gauze pads, rolled gauze, z-fold compressed gauze, Israeli bandages, ABD pads, or all of the above, keep all of your medical kits well stocked with more gauze than you think you’re going to need.
And while we’re on the topic of treating wounds, here are your basic rules of thumb:
Always apply pressure. Pressure is your best friend when you’re trying to stop blood in its tracks. If it’s a superficial wound, cover it with gauze and keep adding more gauze until the bleeding stops.
If pressure doesn’t stop the bleeding, or if blood is squirting or spraying out of the wound, you’ll need to apply pressure and, if the wound is on an arm or leg, also apply a tourniquet. Find a Stop the Bleed class where you can learn how to properly apply tourniquets and even practice putting one on!
Once the bleeding has stopped, you can use an Ace wrap, medical tape, or an Israeli bandage to keep the gauze in place until you can get to more advanced medical services.
If you are interested in taking a Stop the Bleed class, reach out to us via our Classes and Training Page and we’ll figure out how to make it happen. In our class, we will teach you the basics around stopping bleeding, and show you how to use all the various gauzes and tools mentioned in this article.
With the new year comes an all too familiar reality in the northern US: Winter has arrived. And with winter comes snow, ice, cold temperatures, messy driving conditions, and occasionally getting stuck on the side of the road for hours.
If you haven’t already seen it, hundreds of drivers have been stranded on I-95 after an accident, many of whom are now out of food, water, and fuel.
Are you ready? Here’s a quick checklist of things you should have in each of your vehicles. This is a good time to make sure you’re up to date, your batteries are fresh, and none of your meds are expired.
A Fresh Car Battery
Check the date on your car’s battery. If your vehicle starts a little slow in the fall, there’s a chance it might not start at all on the cold winter mornings. If your battery is struggling, get it replaced now instead of waiting for a far less opportune time!
Snow Brush
For your safety and others’, it’s important to have a brush/scraper that you can use to clear your vehicle of snow and ice before driving. It’s important to clean your windshields, windows, headlights, taillights, and license plate. Also make sure you don’t have a bunch of snow on top of your vehicle that could fly up and land on a vehicle behind you.
Jumper Cables
So your battery wasn’t as healthy as you thought? Keep a set of jumper cables in your trunk so you can have someone get you up and running. Go directly to your favorite auto parts store, and now you really need to replace your battery. Jumper cables are also great should you come across someone else whose battery just gave up the ghost.
A Spare Tire
At least once a year, check your spare tire to make sure it’s properly inflated and in good shape. Also, make sure you have a jack and a wrench that you can use to swap tires should you get a flat. The side of the road during a blizzard is not the ideal time to discover you don’t have the correct jack for your vehicle or that your spare tire needs a spare itself!
Sand or Cat Litter
Should you become stuck in snow, one of the easiest ways to get traction is to toss sand or kitty litter under your drive tires. Rear-wheel-drive vehicles can also benefit from the extra weight over the drive wheels.
Small Shovel
Along with sand, a small shovel will allow you to dig snow out from under the vehicle or your tires.
Water and Snacks
In the rare instance you’re stuck on the side of the road or on a highway for several hours, it’s important that you have some kind of food and water with you. Make sure you don’t leave water bottles in the vehicle overnight where they may freeze and burst. For snacks, keep a stash of fruit or granola bars, candy bars, or similar sources of calories and protein.
First Aid Kit
You should have at least a basic first aid kit with treatments for small cuts and scrapes, common over the counter medications, and in the winter, some hand/feet warmers. If you want to go a bit further, you could keep a trauma kit in your vehicle as well.
Full Tank of Gas
Whenever you’re warned that a significant winter storm is coming, you should top off your gas tanks. Ideally, during winter months, your tank should never be less than half full. This will stave off one of the worst issues when your trip takes a lot longer than you expected – running out of fuel.
Blankets
If you wind up spending so much time stuck on the road that your car runs out of fuel, it’s important to have blankets that you can use to retain body heat. Small fleece blankets are compact and easy to stash and don’t take up a whole lot of space.
Flashlight
A flashlight can be used to provide light inside your vehicle, for signaling others, or for making yourself more visible should you need to walk on the road side.
Cell Phone Charger/Bank Charger
We rely on our cell phones everywhere today. If you get stuck in a snow storm, there are many reasons it could be important to have a working cell phone. If your car dies, you can continue to charge your phone using a bank charger. Just remember to keep the bank charger charged and check it regularly.
Hats, Gloves, and Boots
When you drive in the winter, assume that you’re going to have to get out and walk – to your destination, to a nearby house, or to a nearby gas station. Everyone in the vehicle should have warm coats, a hat, gloves, and boots. Having these things will also help you stay warm even if you stay in the vehicle.
Conclusion
The chances of being stranded for 20+ hours on the side of the road are slim, but it does happen. And when it happens, you have only what you prepared in advance. Some of these things, like keeping your tank full or keeping your battery fresh, will set you up to avoid being stranded in the first place.
Now more than ever, we need to be part of a real community. After a year of solitary confinement rolled out on a global scale, billions of humans are feeling the stress and pressure of being separated from others. Suicide is skyrocketing, abuse of opioids and other drugs is out of control, and words like despair, depression, loneliness, and hopelessness are heard on a daily basis as the entire world has been turned into a giant prison.
In what seems like a well-coordinated effort, governments all over the Western world are shutting down businesses, banning the gathering of people in homes and churches, and fining or jailing people for crimes like going for a walk or having lunch with a friend. It seems, at times, like community will be a fantastic idea that we’ll share with our grandchildren in remembering the days of old. But it is in times like these that we need to be part of a larger group of people — not in isolation.
So how can we foster and grow a community when there is so much stacked against us? For starters, see the blessing hidden in all of this. As more and more people are finding themselves banned from social media, or at least unable to speak freely anymore, we are reminded that real community doesn’t take place on websites or over cell phones.
Look out for your neighbors
You’re not the only one feeling the pinch of isolation. Your neighbors are feeling it, too, and they need community just as much as you do. If you have a good relationship with your neighbors, find some opportunities to get together. Share a meal together; work on a project together. If you’re worried about the spread of COVID, then find something outdoors. Find out if they have any needs that you might be able to help with, or see if they might be able to help you when you’re in need. Community starts at home with those who are right next door.
Get involved with a local church
One great place to build relationships or find like-minded souls with whom you can congregate is at a local church gathering. Though in some places, like Canada, the church is being pushed underground, if you are still allowed to gather with other believers, take advantage of it! And make it a point to build relationships, not just to sit in a pew on Sunday morning to listen to a sermon.
Make a list of trusted persons and stay in touch
Whether next door or across the globe, you need a group of close friends and a plan to keep in contact with each of them. If you see some of them on a weekly basis, that’s great. If not, find a time that you can talk on the phone or over all the fancy video conferencing services that are available today. Remember, they need connection just as much as you do.
Invest in your family
Those people who live under our roof are often the ones we take for granted. Use the additional time at home to foster relationships with your spouse and your kids (or parents, or roommates, or whomever you have living with you). Go on hikes together to get out of the house. Have family game nights. Shut off the screens and media IV drip and build deep and lasting relationships. The work put into those relationships will pay off for years to come.
Find backup ways to communicate
Many of the communication methods we’ve come to rely on in the last several years are starting to disappear. Social media sites are removing accounts by the thousands every day if their conversation doesn’t align with the determined narrative. Instead of Facebook Messenger or twitter, switch to secure applications like Telegram or Signal. If those disappear, you may have to get more creative, but now is the time to work on alternatives, not after the lights go out.
One of the most important, and yet oft overlooked, pieces of an effective preparedness plan is food. There are far more exciting things to do like collect guns and ammo, buy books on homesteading, or even play with all kinds of modern amateur radios. Piling up buckets of rice and beans just isn’t much fun. But go a few days without anything to eat and you will suddenly have a new perspective on the importance of stocking up food.
In the near future, we will address the topic of growing your own food from seedlings to a plentiful harvest, but the main topic right now is the purchase and storage of food that has already been grown. That said, if you can find fruit or vegetable seeds in your stores now, pick up several packets and keep them in a cool, dry place. We’ll make use of them down the road.
The Need for Calories
The average person consumes about 2,000 Calories each and every day. The Army has a handy calculator that you can use to gauge more precisely how many Calories you may need. A man who weighs 185 pounds, in the middle of winter, needing to work heavily to keep firewood moving, animals fed and milked, and machines running, may need as many as 5,200 Calories to avoid losing weight!
If you figure your family will need on average 3,300 Calories a day, that equates to roughly 750 pounds of food a year per person. So how much would you need to store up to keep your family of four going for a year? 3,000 pounds of food. That is a lot of food, a lot of money, and a lot of space!
Long Term Food Stores
Most likely, many of us will not find ourselves without any access to food for more than a few days at a time and you should have enough to eat in your pantry to cover that. Should the power go out for a few days and local shopping centers run low on supplies, you’ll be covered. But what if a major geopolitical event brings an end to trucking in your area and you could be without grocery stores for a couple months? This is where you should focus your purchasing efforts.
Ready-to-Eat
There are two types of food that you can purchase in bulk: ready-to-eat, and raw goods. Some good ready-to-eat options might include:
Spaghetti and sauce, or other pasta
Oatmeal
Canned soups, vegetables, and fruits
Pancake mix (just add water style)
Boxed food like macaroni and cheese or stuffing
Canned tuna and chicken
Peanut butter
Baked beans
Raw Goods
Raw goods take a bit more prep work and may need to be mixed with other ingredients that you may or may not be able to purchase in an emergency situation. That said, these items can be stored safely for years and provide a great source of Calories.
Flour or whole wheat (if you have a mill)
Rice
Cornmeal
Oats
Beans (black beans, navy beans, pinto beans)
Valuable Extras
By themselves, these may not be the most appealing options (especially if you have young kids), but they will provide sustenance and keep you from starving to death. You can greatly improve the flavor and presentation of these foods as well by keeping a few other staples on hand as part of your food storage plan:
Salt
Sugar (white and brown)
Herbs and spices
Chicken and beef bullion
Freeze dried fruits and vegetables
Canned tomatoes
Syrup
Vegetable oil
Vegetable shortening
By keeping recipes on hand that make use of items you’ve stocked up, you can know what you need to purchase and also know that you will have more options than a bowl of rice and beans every night. We have begun compiling a list of simple recipes that you can print off and keep with your long-term storage food. We will continue to add to the list over time, so keep your eyes peeled.
One last important note: Don’t just stash away thousands of pounds of food and hope that when the time comes, you will know how to use something like cornmeal or flour. Practice the skills now. Get a tortilla press and boil some rice and fry up some canned chicken, and see if you can make a meal of burritos using just the supplies you have on hand. Also, as much as possible, start working your supplies into your everyday living. Use the food you purchase but restock your shelves. This will guarantee you’re experienced at using your food and will also keep your shelves fresh.
We’ve been told for years that we’re entering the paperless world and that everything’s going digital. In some ways, that’s true. But we still have a lot of very important documents that cannot be lost and could be needed in difficult circumstances. Getting these documents organized, stored safely, and backed up is critical.
Physical Safe Keeping
To begin, you need to collect all of those important documents. Every family will have a different list, but here are some pretty common ones to get you thinking:
Drivers licenses and passports
Marriage license
Social Security cards
Birth certificates
Other licenses (ham radio, concealed pistol, CPR certificates, etc.)
Life insurance policies
Deeds for your home
Deeds for other property (cars, trailers, ATVs, etc.)
Bills of sale from old assets
Tax returns (seven years)
Once you’ve collected all of these documents, you need to get a lockbox in which to store them. If you don’t have a lot of documents, you can get something fireproof and waterproof like the SentrySafe CHW20221, or if you need more space, the SentrySafe SFW123GDC. Be sure to keep the key in a safe place as well.
Finally, be sure to keep the documents up to date. Some of them renew yearly, some less often, but when you receive updated documents, be sure to get them into the box and shred any old copies.
Digital Safe Keeping
After you’ve collected all of your documents you should scan them into PDF documents and store digital backups of them as well. You can get a fairly inexpensive and easy-to-use duplex color scanner like the Brother DS-620. Whatever you pick up, make sure it can scan duplex (both sides of a page at once) and easily combine the pages together into a single PDF document.
Be sure to organize the files and give them useful names so you can quickly find something later if you need. Then, pick up a few USB drives, ideally with metal enclosures so they can take a beating, like this Kingston Digital Traveler, a 32GB drive under $15.
If possible, you should use an encryption service like Windows BitLocker to encrypt the entire drive before you put any files on it. Finally, copy all of your PDF documents onto your USB drive. Keep one on your key chain, give one to your spouse, and give one to a close friend so you can always track a copy down if something like a house fire destroys everything.
Lastly, with all the space a 32GB drive offers, you can also store electronic copies of books on important topics like gardening or plant identification or even some good fiction. Having backups of all this stuff is good regardless, and having several encrypted copies is even better.
As with the hard copies, be diligent about keeping your digital backups up to date as you get newer documents.
Spaghetti can be stored long-term, as well as many different styles of spaghetti sauce. You can serve spaghetti with just sauce, or with meatballs, or as part of a bake. The basic prep for spaghetti works with nearly any form of pasta, but spaghetti is cheap and easy to store.
Ingredients
1 lb spaghetti
4 qt water
1 tsp salt
Instructions
Bring salt and water to a boil. Add pasta and stir occasionally, cooking for 10-12 minutes until pasta is soft. Drain pasta and serve hot.
If your long-term storage plans include flour and cornmeal, this is a fantastic treat to serve alongside chili, soup, or any other meal. This recipe calls for fresh eggs, but if you don’t have a source of eggs, there is a substitution below.
Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
⅔ cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
3 ½ tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
⅓ cup vegetable oil
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400°. Lightly grease a 9” round cake pan. Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, and then pour into cake pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
NOTE: If you do not have access to raw eggs, you can substitute 1½ tblsp of vegetable oil, 1½ tblsp of water, and 1 tsp baking powder for each egg.
Oats can be stored dry for many years and provide a simple, warm, healthy meal to start your day. You can customize oatmeal in many ways with brown sugar, fruits, or milk. They’re simple enough you can even make oatmeal over a campfire while out in the great outdoors.
Ingredients
½ cup quick oats
1 cup water
Pinch of salt
Instructions
Boil water and salt. Stir in oats until softened. Old-fashioned or steel cut oats will need to cook longer. Add sugar, fruit, or other toppings to suit.
Rice is a simple staple to store long-term and is incredibly versatile in the ways it can be used with other food or by itself. The general rule of thumb is 1 part rice to 2 parts water. You can add cilantro and lime juice if you’d like for better flavor in burritos or plain.
Ingredients
1 cup rice
2 cups water
3 tbsp lime juice
1 cup chopped cilantro
Instructions
Bring water and rice to a boil in a saucepan. Once boiling, reduce heat to simmer, cover, and simmer about 20-25 minutes or until all water is absorbed and rice is soft. Stir in lime juice and cilantro, if desired. Cover for 10 minutes and then serve.
A staple for many various meals is the tortilla. Tortillas can be used for wraps, quesadillas, fajitas, tacos, and probably other meals as well. This recipe works well with a rolling pin, or to save yourself some frustration, consider a 10″ tortilla press.
Ingredients
1 ⅓ cup all purpose flour
⅔ cup cornmeal
4 tblsp vegetable oil
½ cup water
½ tsp salt
Instructions
Mix flour, cornmeal, and oil. Then mix in water and salt. Divide into 10 even balls and let stand, covered for 30 minutes. Roll the balls or use a tortilla press to about 8” in diameter. Fry each tortilla in a hot cast iron skillet until spots start to brown. Stack warm tortillas to keep them soft.
