household & prepping link collection

I have been saving various bookmarked pages for future reference. Today I share my handy-around-the-house collection with links and brief introductions. I am not promising there is any sense or unity to this collection beyond what is in my title. I want them for reference and thought you might also.

– Ted –

Easy Camping Meals For Fun and Survival

There are so many great meals that you can make while camping while not using a lot of different pots and pans or complicated ingredients. Before we get into specific meals, let’s go over a few campfire meal basics that will make your life easier when out in the bush.

Top 10 Best Undersink Reverse Osmosis Water Filter Systems in 2019

As always, we like, to begin with an overview of what to look for in an under sink reverse osmosis water filter system. Here are some of the most important elements to consider:

A good reverse osmosis water filter should have certifications from both the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the NSF, a public health and safety organization. The certification means that the filter can be relied upon to clear out at least 98% of impurities and produce water that is safe to drink.
The filtering system is hugely important because it has a direct impact on the taste and purity of the water. Many RO filtering systems have at least five filtering stages, as follows:
Sediment filtration removes dust and other particles
Carbon filtration takes care of harmful chemicals like chlorine and also improves the taste of water (some filters have two carbon filtration steps)
Reverse osmosis filters out additional impurities
Coconut shell filtration removes additional flavors
Additional processing stages in some filters are used to mineralize the water and improve its flavor
System installation and filter replacement are far easier in some models than in others. Ideally, you want a system that is easy to install. You also want the replacement filters to be affordable, easy to find, and easy to replace. The purpose is to have healthy drinking water for you and your family, so the system should not be complicated.

The 21st Century American Survival Guide

What are we surviving?

With all this talk about disasters and emergencies, you might be wondering, “What is so bent on killing or hurting us?”

We live in a very interesting time where things are very soft and cushy and convenient until they aren’t. Then real life comes crashing into the picture like a brutish child crushing his younger brother’s sandcastle.

The world around us is changing in many ways. We are experiencing a very different threat portfolio than that which was presented just 20 years ago. Let’s look at some of the things we might need a survival guide for.

Preppers Beware: Our Supplies Can Be Deemed Illegal—Not by a gang of armed violent looters, but by the color of law, by local or federal law enforcement agents or the National Guard and even regular armed forces

This is the first part of a three-part article about the risk of having everything we’ve stored taken from us.

This is one of the most important articles we’ve published. Please read it carefully, because if you don’t understand these issues now, you’ll surely be sadly surprised when they become relevant in some future emergency.

In the first part, immediately below, we talk about how such ‘un-American’ acts like taking one person’s possessions and ignoring concepts of private ownership (what we used to call, with revulsion, Communism) are becoming the normal accepted situation, and we talk about how such a seemingly flagrant breach of the Constitution could in fact occur. It is important to understand this because too many preppers – while open to the possibility of so many different types of future disasters – are insufficiently open-minded about the type of response from the rest of society when such a disaster occurs.

The second part switches from talking about what might occur and instead focuses on what laws are already on the books. There are already laws that empower the President to command the Armed Forces to take almost everything we have, in an apparently lawful manner. These are laws, in effect today, that have been passed and approved by (of course) both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and which have not been constitutionally challenged.

The third part introduces you to an appallingly un-American concept, civil forfeiture.

The first part is dismaying, but the other parts are terrifying. Please do bravely read on.

Homemade Brass Cleaner Solution

Brass and copper can begin to develop an unattractive patina or tarnish over time. Tarnish on brass starts to grow because of a chemical reaction that happens between the surface of the metal and the air that surrounds it.

Cleaning the tarnish from your brass isn’t difficult and can be done using standard ingredients you can find in your kitchen or the grocery store. The following recipes for how to clean brass are safe, inexpensive, and useful for cleaning the brass around your home.