Read a nice article this morning about a village being built in Salt Lake City Utah featuring tiny homes for people who struggle with chronic homelessness. It is a nice place they can live while giving them employment opportunities so they can become financially self-sufficient. I love seeing people help each other out and not just enacting laws to make their lives more difficult or shipping them to other areas to get rid of them.

Is it safe to say that coal is more energy dense and requires less work because you don’t have to split it, but it produces more soot and smoke than wood?  Do you need a special stove to burn coal and would you recommend it to people? Splitting wood in a tire sounds like a smart prepping life hack.

I looked up if there were any other sites that offer text only, and it looks like there are.  Here’s a site sharing a list of some of them.  https://www.cogipas.com/complete-list-of-text-only-news-sites/ Another thing you can do, which is mentioned at the very end of that article is to turn on reader mode on your web browser. It cuts out a lot of the ads, pictures, and other junk and gives you a streamlined version of any site that is easier to read.

I can’t remember what marzipan tastes like but isn’t it like a shortbread cookie? I have some of those emergency lifeboat rations that taste like that.  The lifeboat rations will probably be slightly more nutritious than marzipan that is 1/2 sugar. So I would probably recommend doing something like that. But hey, it doesn’t hurt to have one or two small marzipan cookies in your emergency bag.

There are a few that I frequent that might be helpful. I like how they are all text based, don’t have ads or loud videos that just start playing, it improves my focus, load incredibly fast, and don’t use up all my data on my phone. And in locations where reception is not that great, these sites load much easier than the full thing. For emergency preparedness, these are good ways to access the news when towers are broken or congested as well. Everyone should bookmark these and have them in your arsenal. NPR – https://text.npr.org/ CNN – https://lite.cnn.com/en CBC, a Canadian news page that still covers world topics if you are in the US – https://www.cbc.ca/lite/news Also check out Lite versions of websites/apps like I remember there being a Facebook Lite and Twitter Lite app in the app store that has much smaller downloads and works better on lower powered phones.

Definitely are safer legally than those options that cause bodily harm or death. Electric fences are often used to protect locations and if properly labeled are safe legally I imagine. They have motion sensing lights, air horns, and even sprinklers which probably are even safer than tasers or mace, legally speaking. Pair that with a good security camera and plenty of signage to deter theft and you should be good from a majority of attacks.

 From the article it says that ash contains: AluminumCalciumChlorineFluorineMagnesiumPotassiumSodiumSulfur The fluorine would be the only one I would be concerned about. The rest might be beneficial to swim in because of it might be good for the skin. Think of volcanic hot springs that people pay to go in. The sulfur’s strong odor however might make it unpleasant to swim in. Contact a local pool company and ask what others are doing. Personally though, I wouldn’t want to swim in sludge water and would want to use a pool skimmer to scrape out as much of the sludge as you can, then drain and refill the entire thing. If there is any risk to swimming in volcanic ash water, I’d not risk it and start from scratch.

If some places are already experiencing wildfires now, we are in for a long and widespread fire season this year.

I just can’t fathom what ONE MILLION barrels actually would look like. I’m thinking a large 55 gallon metal drum, I’ve seen those before. Now think of 10 of those, then 100, then 1000, then 10,000, my mind starts to blow at the 100,000 mark and there is still so much more to go to a million. That is SO much oil. How the heck are we using 20+ million of those a day (and that’s only the USA), and not choking down on some severe pollution?

They have sub $200 gasoline engine kits to throw on a bicycle. Those would sip fuel so even if gas was $10 a gallon, it still wouldn’t be that expensive to run it.

That would be a fun, resourceful, and good preparedness project to have a solar powered golf cart.  The first one I looked up on a classifieds page is only $700. I bet I could find one for much cheaper if I waited and haggled, then a few hundred into the panels and other electronics and I’d have an off-grid vehicle for under a thousand.

Wow! That looks even more fun seeing it in action. Definitely looks like it can hold up to whatever I could throw at it too. But at $7000… that’s the price of a small used car. But there is many things this scooter can do that a car cannot. This scooter could be charged off a small solar system and give you an off-grid vehicle solution. And with rising fuel prices, the value for a scooter like this only goes up.

Those electric scooters look pretty fun. I wonder how powerful the motor is and how it does with hills when there is a rider and a full backpack of groceries.

That sure is startling that 35% of microplastic pollution comes from our textiles. That’s 2.2 million tons a year. Thank you for sharing that article from Wirecutter.  I may start moving more towards natural fibers like cotton and research more on these filters.

Are there filters that you can put in between your washing machine and the sewer? I would like to do my part at preventing as much stuff going down the drain and into our water. Just look how much lint comes off of your clothes after each cycle that you collect and throw away. There probably is quite a lot of material that gets into our water during the wash cycle.  Letting the dryer lint build up could lead to a fire, and if there is a filter on the washer then if that clogged it could lead to your house being flooded. So just something I need to be aware of and remember if I do go ahead and install one.

While following the link about the weapons used in the Russia-Ukraine war I saw another article that peaked my interest and is related to being prepared. Dust off your home WiFi router: It needs some upkeep to stay secure In the article, the author says to pick one day a year, like on April fools day, to look for updates to your WiFi router’s software. There have been attacks where hackers steal your router’s computing power to mine cryptocurrency, intercept your data, or injecting spam. To prevent these kind of attacks he says to change the default password to something long and secure, update the router’s software, upgrading an old router, don’t put your info into the network name, and hardening all the connected devices.  It was a good article and there is many more details in it if you want to read further.

A movie that I’m looking forward to seeing is called 13 Minutes. It’s about four families that have 13 minutes to get to a shelter before the largest tornado on record hits. It’s a survival movie that looks pretty good but got rated 4.3/10, so we will have to see how it really is.

Thank you for the suggestion Gideon. The strategy of subtly showing off my efforts when they come and visit is a clever idea.

While visiting some family members I noticed that they were using a standard strike plate, most likely with the 1/2″ screws that came with it. Is that weird that I notice that on people’s houses or does that just make me an observant prepper? I have upgraded my house with an elongated strike plate and 3″ screws.  How can I politely recommend and encourage them to make the upgrade without being seen as a weirdo?

This video shows a man in Alaska turning a 55 gallon drum into a burn barrel. Beginning of video is him making it, I have the link below though to show him burning stuff in there. All he does is cut off the lid and drill some vent holes for cleaner burning. He burns paper and cardboard products because it costs a lot of money for him to haul his trash to the dump.