PREPPER TEN ESSENTIALS, Part 2

OY. From here on out, there is a wide difference between bug out backpacks (BOB) vs. sheltering in place (SIP.) As I said before, as an American Red Cross shelter manager, I am biased toward sheltering in place (SIP) or at least having enough time and space to evacuate. I'll try not to muddy the waters too much by taking about the pros and cons of each essential depending on BOB. Again, not a techie: hyperlinks will take you to pix of what I'm talking about.

ITEM 3: Cooking

I will admit a heavy bias against anything which is man-made fuel dependent. Don't get me wrong. I have a Chef camp stove like this one: 

Pluses? You can cook, broil, BBQ, pressure and BWB can (yes, I've done it!) on it.

Minuses? You'll obviously never carry it in a backpack, and you've got to store a lot of propane. I love mine though. But I'll never be able to store or carry enough propane for an emergency which lasts longer than a week. That's a problem. 

I prefer a cooking system like the Rocket Stove from EcoZoom. 

Small, reasonably light weight (SIP wise, not BOB), burns wood, biomass or charcoal. I've also seen people use sterno cans. I am enamoured by the whole science of rocket stoves. I like that you can "build" a L shaped stove out of rocks in the bush, using bricks from rubble etc. Although for piece of mind, you may just want to buy Ecozoom's commercially built Rocket Stove, which I hear can even bake bread (haven't tried it.)

Backpacking? Options are things like MSR's Pocket Rocket, or Trangia cook stove systems (they come with mess kits). Again, the issue with having to carry man-made fuel.

I'm going to digress here for just a second and talk about boiling water. If you get nothing else for your preps this winter, you absolutely need one of these: an irish Kelly Kettle. 

I cannot sing their praises high enough. They boil up to a half gallon of water using biomass, TWIGS, pinecones, whatever is laying around, in 3 minutes 8 seconds (can you tell I've done it?) What is pictured is the base camp model, which does a half gallon. They also have a medium one called a Scout, (although for $5 more, I'd go base camp), and a backpacker model called a Trekker. A Trekker boils about 2 cups of water, which conveniently happens to be about how much you need to reconstitute a freeze dried meal like Mountain House pouches. Oh yeah. YES, SPEND THE EXTRA $5 PER KELLY KETTLE MODEL AND GET STAINLESS STEEL. The first time you slam your Kelly Kettle on a boulder you're going to wish you had.(Steel versions are way more expensive in Europe, but here in the USA, the price delta is like $5.)

ITEM 4: 

Of all the items in my preps, I have flip flopped on food the most. I have the normal "basics", i.e., white wheat (not red, lol, I'm not THAT into wheat), rice, sugar, salt etc etc. I have a bunch I've canned (chicken, ground beef), some I've dehydrated (including meals, go check out dehydrate2store.com, and have a decent amount of commercially canned vegetables. All of that presumes I am sheltering in place. If you are carrying it in a BOB, I have to say, I am a convert to freeze dried food, either by Mountain House or Food Insurance, and yes, I'm brand loyal. I really really like the idea that I can throw a week's worth of food into each of our BOBs and not have it take up a lot of space or weight. I like that it tastes like real food. I like that, when combined with a Kelly Kettle Trekker and a Light My Fire Army 2.0 firestarter, my kids (and their BOBs) become pretty much independent. 

WHEW! Long post today. That's all for now, gotta skeedaddle !