Death To Zombies

Well, I never knew it until this year, but June 12th is National Pecan Pie Day.  Since I generally don’t like pies or cakes I thought I should celebrate this holiday with a slice of pie and some vanilla ice cream.  I didn’t bake my own, basically because I don’t want to eat 6 slices of pie.  Maybe next year I’ll try making a mini pecan pie.

Also, I’ve been watching my tomato plants very carefully as I noticed that some of my tomatoes were ripening up.  When I went out to water this morning I was delighted to find 2 full size tomatoes ready for eating and one cherry tomato.  Homegrown tomatoes are one of my favorite vegetables so I promptly brought them in, sliced them up, dashed some salt on them and wolfed them down.  You have to love a day when you’re rewarded for going out and watering and weeding!

The weeds in some areas of the garden are starting to get a little out of control.  It may be time for me to destroy most of the square garden, mark out the boundaries with spray paint and then rent a tiller to get my row garden growing.  I’ve been avoiding it because it’s a serious commitment to expand the garden as much as I’m proposing.  But by not deciding I’ve allowed the weeds to set me back in planting.  What really hurts is that by procrastinating I’ve now allowed the serious summer heat to arrive and make the proposed job a very miserable proposition.

I’ll make the decision by tomorrow.  Right now I just want a shower and nap to recover from an early mornings work in the garden.  Maybe I’ll put up my new closet rod this afternoon as that’s something that needs to be completed and I can work on in the pleasure of air conditioning.

We’ve got a 30% chance of rain today and tomorrow, so here’s hoping we get a little rain to back up my hand watering from today.

My CSA isn’t selling half shares of food next year and they’re requiring 12 hours of volunteer work.  He’s a nice guy, but if I’m going to put 12 hours in a garden, I might as well just plant my own.

So I’ve been digging through some old gardening books to decide on what sort of a garden I’m going to do.  So many options anymore, Raised Beds, Square Foot Gardening, Lasagna Gardening, No Till Gardening, who’s to know what to do.

One thing was sure and that was that I needed a bunch of organic material to add to the clayey soil I have in my Kansas back yard.  So I hopped onto craigslist and searched for “free leaves” and ran into Benjamin Landscaping who needed a place to dump some leaves.

I ordered up a load and this morning they dropped by.  The leaves were dry, chopped up a bit and looked like a pleasure to work with.  Justin, the guy who stopped by was polite, on time and helpful.  Couldn’t ask for more, I showed him the route in and he backed up the truck, tilted the bed and swept it all out.

I’m going to buy some vermiculite, sand, peat moss and manure that I’ll till in later on.  I’ll also run a soil test and figure out what to add in order to get pH to 6.5.  I’m not sure if I’m going to till, but buying all this stuff and running the test is going to take some time.  I’ll use that time to keep researching the different options.

So, I gauged this for myself, atwo hundred pound man, and what I could eat and stay healthy for 9 weeks.  Now, under stress I would probably burn more calories but lets say that I might catch fish and shoot wildlife to make up for that.  My daily food list would look something like this:

1. 1c beans, dry
2. 2c cooked white rice
3. 1/4 loaf of whole wheat bread
4. 1c canned veggies
5. 2T peanut butter
6. 2T Fruit preserves(combine it with some bread and have a PB-N-J)
7. 3c UHT(Ultra High Temperature Milk)
8. 1 6.5 oz can of meat(tuna, spam, chicken, turkey, whatever)

These 8 simple staples are easy to store, inexpensive and tasty enough that you can stock up on then in one shopping spree or you can just pick up one item each paycheck and be stocked up in 2 months.  I stock up all sorts of other stuff to add variety, difference in vitamins and minerals, etc but this is the foundation for my food pantry. This list usually gives me 2100 calories and 115g of protein.

The expensive part of this is the canned meat.  And the UHT Milk can be a little hard to find.  But I think it’s well worth your time to set some food aside.

So the shopping list for one person would look like:

1. 25# beans, dry
2. 25# dry white rice
3. (yeast, 10# bag of whole wheat flour, 10# bag of white flour, 10# sugar)
4. 32 cans of veggies
5. 4 18oz jars of peanut butter
6. 8 9oz jars of  Fruit preserves(combine it with some bread and have a PB-N-J)
7. 47Quarts(16 gallons or 4 milk crates) UHT(Ultra High Temperature Milk)
8. 63 6.5 oz can of meat(tuna, spam, chicken, turkey, whatever)

If you’re doing planning like this, you know multiplication and I won’t waste time doing it for you.

You could go with dry milk or some ratio of dry milk:UHT if you’re tight on cash or don’t like the taste of UHT Milk.  Because with this amount of milk, you’re basically going to need to drink it all the time or it will spoil.  Alternatives could be something like a dairy goat, I guess.  I planned on stocking up some nesquick in order to help with the flavor.

Image courtesty of hfb

So, let’s say you’re a really fit person.  You go hiking all the time and would never pass up a chance to go mountain biking with the buddys.  Unfortunately you have a peanut butter allergy and your buddy only packed in food w/ peanuts and doesn’t tell you.   Or honey bees can kill you and you just got stung!  What to do?!?  Well, if you spent $25 on this handy epipen carry case that straps to your calf then you may just need a jab in the thigh and a visit to the emergency room.

In fact, the company that produces these epipen holders(OmaxCare) has all sorts of handy carrying cases.  Need a carry case for your asthma inhaler and want it on your bicep…DONE.  Need nitro pills and want to carry them on your ankle…DONE.  You can buy them online at their website.  That said, this is not an advertisement.  I’m not getting money from OmaxCare and don’t have personal experience with their customer service.  If you have opinions on that sort of thing please comment!

Source of idea: Cool Tools at kk.org (I DO NOT RECOMMEND GOING TO THIS WEBSITE.  AT THE MOMENT GOOGLE CHROME REPORTS IT AS AN ATTACK WEBSITE)

So, I was reading over the PDF, that ToddMW was kind enough to link to, that explains how to prepare for tornadoes and hurricanes.  I primarily want to work on building a shelter from storms but on page 10 I did stumble upon a checklist of items that should be in each home during emergencies.  These are items that should be stored INSIDE your shelter because there’s a fair chance that storm debris may trap you inside your shelter.

An adequate supply of water for each person in your home or small business  (1 gallon per person per day)
Non-perishable foods that do not have to be prepared or cooked (if these include canned goods, remember to bring a manual can opener)
Disposable eating utensils, plates, cups, paper towels, etc.
A first-aid kit, including necessary prescription medicines, bandages, and antibiotic ointment
Tools and supplies:
flashlight (one per person; do not bring candles or anything that lights with a flame)
battery-operated radio or television and NOAA weather radio
cellular phone or Citizen’s Band (CB) radio
extra batteries for the above tool
wrench (to turn off gas and water)
insect repellent and sunscreen
personal hygiene items such as hand wipes and toilet paper
Extra change of clothing per person (store in plastic trash bags to keep clean and dry)
Appropriate outer wear (e.g., sunglasses, ponchos, jackets, gloves, headwear, boots, etc.)
Bedding materials such as pillows and blankets or sleeping bags
Special items for:
babies – formula, diapers, bottles, powdered milk
children – entertainment items such as books, games, or toys
adults – contact lenses and supplies, extra glasses, and a sufficient supply of  prescription medications
pets – appropriate supplies such as water (1/2 gallon per day), food, leash, ID tag, carrying container, etc.
Additional items:
important documents such as insurance documents, a list of all your important contacts (e.g., family, doctors, insurance agents), banking information, leases/mortgage, proof of
occupancy (such as a utility bill), and a waterproof container in which to keep these documents
ABC2  rated fire extinguisher
roofing tarps or plastic sheeting
roll of large heavy-duty trash bags and duct tape
money (cash)

So, I pass this list in most categories but I don’t have some of this documentation in a watertight case and my fire extinguisher is not an ABC grade extinguisher.  Finally, I also don’t keep much cash at home.  These are all relatively easy things to fix, so I’ll ad them to my shopping list and get them fixed this week.

The most serious question still remains, “What do I do about a tornado shelter?”  I spoke with my grandpa about it and we have an idea but it’s probably not going to be fit for FEMA.  Still it’s better than nothing for this year at least.

When I moved into my house almost two years ago I realized it had a crawlspace instead of  a basement.  That really didn’t concern me very much until the next time we had tornadoes hit the region.  I came up with a pretty basic idea on how I would build an extremely cheap shelter but honestly by the time I had the money and time the season had already passed.  Not to mention my furnace was busted so I had to work to get a wood burning stove installed and get ready for winter.

Now, winter is coming to a close and the tornados in Oklahoma today are a great reminder that I am still unprotected.  So I downloaded some free graph paper from incompetech.com, printed it out and got to sketching.  First I measured the house again and found that it was 26×27, or at least the properly constructed part of the house is.  Someone converted a garage a while back and I need to fix the foundation there, so I’m just going to work with the known good area of the foundation.

Also, last season I found out that basically cinder block foundations gain their strength from soil that is at a 45 degree angle from the edge of the cinder blocks.  So with a little drawing I was able to determine if I had enough space to build a tornado shelter under the house.  Indeed, it appears that I could make a 6′ tall by 3′ wide tornado shelter that would have 2′ of the shelter exposed above the soil.  I’m not sure how long it could be as I’m uncertain where some of the plumbing would get in the way of this design.  I suspect I would be able to make one 19′ long but for one thing I don’t plan on having the whole neighborhood in my shelter and for another that’s a bit cost prohibitive to construct.

Now, there are a ton of other considerations I need to make for this.

• How would I get the materials to construct a concrete pour into the crawlspace?
• Does it make more sense to just install an add-on with a full basement on it?
• Code issues…
• Time until the tornado season is in full swing.

I’m going to leave those thoughts for another day.  For now I just wanted to get my first post up on the website.  I have however scanned in my sketch as a PDF.  All of my content is CC-licensed for attributions so please don’t erase my URL if you re-use it.

I hope everyone in Oklahoma is safe!

Diggity Dog

tornado-shelter-plans-v01