The Doomsday Prepping Crash Course (5 page)

Many preppers spend years practicing hand to hand combat.  They repeat the same drills and exercises hundreds, if not thousands of times.  They do this so that when they are placed in a dangerous situation, the moves will be second nature to them and they can act without thinking and successfully fend off their attacker. 

While it's true that it takes a lot of work to master hand to hand combat training, it's important that you not let this overwhelm you to the point that you don't get started right away.  Remember, as with anything that has to do with prepping, you have to start somewhere and the best place to start is at the beginning.

The fact that this takes so long to master can actually work out in your favor.  Self-defense training can be physically taxing and a fringe benefit of routinely training your body in this way is that your level of physical fitness will improve dramatically.  This brings us to our next chapter which is on preparing your body to survive a doomsday event.

Preparing Your Body to Survive Doomsday

When doomsday finally does arrive, many of the tasks that we used to be able to rely on technology for will have to be done by hand.  This may even include getting from point A to point B.  If the transportation system goes down, you may find that you can't just hop in your car when you need to go somewhere.  Gas may not be available or it may be so expensive that you can't afford to purchase it.

Many preppers have several evacuation or "bug out" plans in place.  Bugging out means that things have gotten so bad at your home or in the city that you live in that you're forced to leave for your own safety.  Many bug out plans call for grabbing your bug out bag and evacuating on foot.  You may have to travel quite a few miles on foot and if you're not physically fit, you might not be able to make it to your bug out location at all.

In preparation for such a time, most serious preppers feel that becoming physically fit is very important.  The fitter you are, the better prepared you'll be to cope with the manual labor that you'll be forced to endure.

Fortunately, getting fit is something that can be done without spending a lot of money.  Of course, you can get a gym membership but you can also get fit by hitting the streets and starting a walking or running regimen.

Going to the gym will undoubtedly offer more options in terms of the types of exercise equipment you'll have access to but there are plenty of exercises such as pushups, situps, and pullups that can be done without spending a dime.  With a little creativity, you can become quite fit without ever stepping foot in the gym.

The bottom line is that the better shape you're in physically before doomsday hits us, the easier surviving will be for you.  You'll be kicking yourself if one day you end up having to try to survive while you're still overweight and out of shape.  The best advice that anyone can give you regarding this matter is to start getting in shape now.

Planning for Your Post Doomsday Transportation Needs

There are many different scenarios that could lead to the breakdown of society.  Many preppers predict that whether it's extreme hyperinflation or a massive solar flare, our transportation system will be down and unusable.   If this happens, you may not be able to hop in the family car to get to where you need to travel to.

Of course, one option is to travel on foot and if you took the last chapter to heart, you will have taken the time to get yourself physically fit before doomsday arrives.  Traveling on foot is one option but you won't be able to cover much ground if you find yourself hoofing it.  This is, of course, a very slow way of traveling.

Perhaps a better option would be to make sure that you have some good bicycles on hand.  If you're pedaling a bicycle you'll be able to travel many more miles than if you are limited to traveling on foot.

Money Saving Tip:
Craigslist is a great place to find used bicycles at very reasonable prices.  Do yourself a big favor and avoid the allure of the shiny bikes with low price tags that are typically found in big box department stores.  For the same amount of money, you can usually find a much higher quality bike that is used.  If you spend much time riding a bike, you'll soon realize that there is quite a big difference in the rideability and durability between the inexpensive bikes found in super shopping centers and quality name brand second hand bikes.

If you live in a rural area, you may want to consider getting some horses if there is money in the budget for it.  When it comes time to survive the hard times that are ahead of us, horses can provide a great means of transportation.  They can also be used to perform work.  A horse or mule can be trained to carry a rider, transport supplies when wearing a pack saddle, or even pull farm equipment or wagons.

Due to the tough financial times that many Americans have been going through in recent years, the prices of good horses have gone way down.  This means that as a buyer you have a lot of leverage.  Don't settle for just any old broken down horse.  Be sure and buy one that has been suitably trained for the purpose you have in mind for it.  The horse market is so soft right now that you can find well trained horses for very affordable prices.

Should you find yourself having to get around on foot during the winter months, having snowshoes on hand can really make a big difference.  If you live in a part of the country that gets a lot of snow, there is a possibility that the snow plows won't be clearing the roads for you after a major disaster causes a doomsday event.  This means that you might find yourself having to trudge through the snow on foot.  If you've ever tried walking for some distance through deep snow without snow shoes, you know how tremendously taxing it can be on your body.

Remember, you can't pick and choose the time of year that a natural or economic disaster could lead to a doomsday event.  There's just as good of a chance of it happening in the dead of winter as there is of it happening during the nice summer months. 

Heating Your Home without Electricity or Gas

You should plan on the electricity grid going down after a major emergency.  You should also plan on the natural gas supply lines being down.  This means that if your home is heated with either of these utilities, you may not have a way of keeping your family warm.

This next bit of advice is one that doesn't come cheaply but it could save your life if you are forced to try and survive during the dead of winter.  The advice is to equip your home with a wood burning stove.  Exactly how much this will set you back will depend on the model of stove that you purchase as well as whether or not you have the time and skills to install it yourself.

If you do have the time and skills to do the installation yourself, an entry level wood stove can be installed for about $2,000.  If you don't have the necessary skills it will cost you significantly more because you'll have to pay someone to install it.  Many people don't realize the importance of having a wood stove until it dawns on them that they can't heat their home because the power or gas has been turned off for one reason or another.

Along with installing a good wood stove in your home comes the responsibility of stocking up on firewood.  If you live in a rural area, you have the option of cutting your own firewood which will reduce the cost to you considerably.  If you aren't able to cut your own firewood, you'll have no other option than to purchase it.

Firewood can be purchased in "rounds", meaning that each piece is cut to length but not split.  It's usually a bit cheaper to purchase it this way because your supplier doesn't have to go to the trouble or incur the cost of splitting it themselves.  While it is a bit cheaper to purchase firewood this way, you'll have to split it before you can burn it.  If you're fit enough to do this yourself, it can be great exercise.  If not, you'll need to purchase firewood that is already split. 

A good tip is to arrange to see the wood you are interested in purchasing before you have it delivered.  Check to make sure that the wood you are thinking about buying has been seasoned and stored properly.  This means that it has had plenty to time to dry out.  If you buy green wood that hasn't been adequately seasoned, it will burn very poorly and you'll be really frustrated with it.

Some firewood suppliers they to cut corners (no pun intended) and the wood will be split but it won't be split into small enough pieces to actually use.  If you order a shipment of wood before looking at it, you may find out that you'll have to do more splitting to make the pieces of wood small enough to burn well in your stove.

Making Sure That You Have a Way to Cook Your Food

Much of the food that you put up in your food storage will already be cooked and preserved but you and your family will enjoy eating it much more if you have a way of heating it up.  If you've stored wheat or corn for grinding into flour or cornmeal, you'll need a source of heat to make bread or cornbread out of it.

One option is to cook on or in your wood stove.  If you thought ahead, you would have purchased a wood stove that has a cooktop.  This will mean that your wood burning stove will be able to act as both a heat source and a cooking appliance.  In order to be able to cook inside of your woodstove, you can make use of cast iron Dutch ovens.  These heavy cast iron pots are designed for cooking when they are placed in the coals of a fire.  You can cook everything from stew in a Dutch oven to bread which is one of the reasons they are such versatile and useful items for preppers to have on hand.

If you find yourself without electricity or gas during the hot summer months, you aren't going to want to fire up your wood stove just to cook a can of beans.  Sure, you'd be able to warm your food up but your house would become so hot that you'd be absolutely miserable.

A better solution would be to cook your food in a BBQ grill.  You can pick up used BBQ grills for very little at yard sales during the summer.  You can either use a propane grill or one that is designed to burn charcoal.  A propane grill is fine if you have plenty of propane stored away but propane can be quite expensive and depending on how long you're without power or gas, you may run out of the supply of propane that you have stored.

Perhaps a better solution would be to use a BBQ grill that is designed to burn charcoal.  You don't have to burn commercially manufactured charcoal briquettes in these grills.  Instead, you can burn the same wood that you have stockpiled for your wood stove.  This is an ideal solution for cooking when the utility grid goes down because it's a cheap and easy way to warm your food or even bake bread if you use a Dutch oven.

Another alternative is to use a solar oven.  There are plenty of free plans on the Internet that will show you how to construct a homemade solar oven.  You can also purchase commercially made solar ovens that are lightweight and easily transportable.  These ovens are a bit more limited than cooking in a BBQ grill with charcoal or wood but they are still quite useful.  One advantage that they have over a BBQ grill is that they don't require any fuel.  All you need is the heat from the sun and you're in business.  However, if the sun isn't shining, you won't be able to cook anything in them at all.

Know How to Make Fire Before You Need It

You may be one of those people who are going all in and you might stock up on a pallet full of matches.  Regardless of how many matches you have, if you haven't developed the skills necessary to properly start a fire, you're going to find yourself quite frustrated. 

Starting a fire doesn't have to be difficult but if you don't know some basic things about this, you might as well not have any matches at all.  You should take the time to practice this skill in an approved fire pit
well before
you need to build your first post doomsday fire.

If you keep these simple tips in mind, you'll be fine when it comes to starting a fire.  Regardless of whether you are working with matches or flint and steel, you need three basic elements to start a fire.  These elements are heat, fuel, and oxygen. 

Your heat source can be anything from matches to a fire bow.  Even if you're using a brand new butane lighter, the most important thing you’ll need to get a fire started is called "tinder".  Tinder is very fine dry combustible material.  This can be anything from paper to dry fluffy cat tail duff.  The important thing to remember is that your tinder has to easily catch a flame and it has to be very dry in order to do that.

It's this tinder bundle that is going to catch the initial flame.  You'll then feed the burning tinder bundle to make the flame grow into a self-sustaining fire.  When you have a burning bundle of tinder, you're going to slowly feed it pieces of wood that are progressively larger and larger.  The main thing to know about this stage of the game is that you'll need to carefully feed the fire larger and larger pieces of kindling until enough heat has built up in the fire to sustain the combustion of large pieces of firewood.

Once you have enough heat built up in the fire, you can feed it full sized pieces of firewood and it will continue burning on its own.  This may sound very straight forward and easy but you wouldn't believe how difficult it can be when you're cold and stressed out.  It really does take skill and practice to be able to start a fire quickly and more importantly, keep the fire going. 

This is one of those things that preppers can do now that won't cost very much money at all.  Even if you don't live in a rural part of the country where you can practice making fire virtually anywhere you like, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding a campground or a park that has approved fire pits for you to practice in. 

Storing Fuel for Use after Doomsday

During a doomsday crisis, you probably won't be able to roll on into your favorite gas station and fill your car up.  This means that any fuel you'll need to use will have to be stored ahead of time or it will have to be scavenged for.