Pine Home: Bug Out Bag Replacement

Guest Post: How to Practice Sustainability and Preparedness When You Live in a Big City

Living in a big city is exciting. There are a wide variety of things to do, a diverse selection of restaurants, and a large group of people of all types of backgrounds to meet. Yet, living in a big city comes with its tradeoffs, as well. The price of real estate can be astronomical, and the place you do end up living is likely to be a small apartment not much bigger than a dorm room.

When you live in a small apartment in a big city like New York or Chicago, there’s not much room for practicing sustainability and preparedness, such as gardening or storing food. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t do these things. Here are a few tips for how you can practice sustainability and preparedness even when you live in a big city and a small apartment:

Grow a Container Garden

You don’t need a huge back yard in order to grow a garden. You can grow just about anything you want to eat on the balcony of your apartment (depending on the climate where you live). You can use pots, an old dresser, or really any other container that you have on hand (and that you can drill holes in for drainage). If space is really limited, you can build a vertical garden so you can grow things up instead of out and get more space.

Set Up Patio Rainwater Collection

Water is one of the most important supplies you can have on hand, but it is limited. Instead of letting valuable water go to waste by seeping into the ground (or running off the concrete) when it rains, you can set up a rainwater collection system on your patio. There are different designs you can incorporate, depending on the layout of your patio and how much space you have. Check out some ideas here. You can use the rainwater for cleaning or for watering your container garden. If you set up a filtering system, you can even use it to drink or to cook.

Store Food

When you don’t have a big basement or pantry in which to store food, you may think that your options are limited for emergency planning. However, you can still store food even in a tiny apartment. You will just need to change your strategy.

If you can, set aside a whole closet for your food storage. If that’s not possible, hang some additional shelves in your pantry or a big closet (take advantage of that vertical space!). Then focus on foods that won’t take up as much space. Instead off bulky boxes or plastic containers, choose bags of dry rice, beans and other staples. Concentrate on foods that give you the most bang for your buck

Create Emergency Evacuation Plans

Perhaps one of the most important tasks for emergency preparedness in a big city is creating an evacuation plan. When you are in a city that is packed with buildings and people, you’ll need to have a plan for a quick and efficient exit in the case of a storm or another serious emergency. Your safety and the safety of your family will depend upon it. Create your plan, practice it, and keep a copy of it in a safe place.

Plan for Home Safety

Violence and crime are even more prevalent in big cities than elsewhere. It’s important to put a plan in place for your home safety, both for everyday crime and for emergency situations. You can start by installing a basic alarm system. Next, you can learn basic home defense, including proper gun use and safety if you are comfortable with it.

Living in a big city does not preclude you from practice basic sustainability and preparedness measures. You can follow these strategies living in even the smallest apartment. Doing so will make you prepared in most emergency situations so that you and your family are safe.

About the Author:

Bridget Sandorford is a freelance food and culinary writer, where recently she’s been researching NYC culinary school. In her spare time, she enjoys biking, painting and working on her first cookbook.

Ron Paul 2nd Amendment 1989

One DA making NY safer

Preppers in New York

A while back I was interviewed for an article about preppers in NY for Times Union.  I didn't get featured in the article, but it is pretty good anyway.  Kristen V. Brown is the author.  She has some other good articles so check her out @ kristenvbrown.com
Anyway, here is her article about preppers in NY: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Preppers-Being-ready-just-in-case-4508567.php

Guest Post: Surviving Disaster with Precious Metals

Some people across the world know all too well just how possible it is that a disaster might happen. Unexpected storms or military invasion can mean the different between your normal everyday life or an upheaval of events where each and every day is a new mission of survival.

It goes without saying that preparing food, water, and shelter are essential parts of surviving disasters, but what if I said that owning gold and silver was another facet of survival? The fact of the matter is that precious metals will most definitely serve countless benefits in the wake of a disaster. The reason for this is that in the wake of disaster, paper currencies will be deemed worthless as they are nothing more than paper. This means that making purchases and bartering with paper money is going to be a fruitless endeavor.

Gold and silver, metals that have been valued and sought after for thousands of years, will undoubtedly take the place of paper money and credit cards we have today and it would be a shame for you to be caught up in a disaster without these items. The purpose of this article is to explain to you the different types of metals that you can buy as well as the possible benefits that they will serve you. Being prepared for disaster is by no means an easy task, but with gold and silver it can make your preparation even more complete.

Coins vs. Bars

The two main types of gold and silver are coins and bars. While these two entities can be found weighing the same and containing the same amount of metal in them (purity level), they are very different. The main difference between gold bars and gold coins is the fact that coins are used as legal tender whereas bars aren’t. Going hand in hand with this is the fact that coins are only produced in certain countries where bars are produced everywhere. For example, a 1 oz American Gold Eagle coin can only be produced by the US Mint, but a 1 oz gold bar can be produced by any privately owned mint across the world.

Since mints are government-run, the coins that come from them are as scarce as the government mint decides it wants them to be. Bars, on the other hand, are produced in countless numbers and when one company stops producing them, another begins. This means that coins are more often than not rarer than similarly sized bars and is the reason why gold and silver coins will often cost more than gold and silver bars. These are a few of the reasons why you should own gold and silver bars in preparation for disaster instead of coins. Coins being more expensive than bars is not always the case, but more often than not you will see that this is true.

Timing Your Buys

Just like it is always a smarter choice to purchase something like a television when it is on sale as opposed to when it is not, it is important to purchase precious metals when their value has taken a momentary dip. Like stocks on the stock market, the value of precious metals is always changing. As a potential investor it is your job to watch the markets and see how precious metals are acting as a way to better gauge when you should make a purchase.

Buying at opportune times means that you are going to be making the most out of your money as well as giving your investment room to grow and become more valuable. Predicting which way values of gold and silver are going to move is not an easy task, but making a reactionary buy to a drop in the price of gold or silver is something that can be done with little to no effort at all.

Where to Buy

When in the market for gold and silver, searching the online catalogues of web-based precious metals dealers is the smartest way to go about making a purchase. The amount of online dealers is growing at a consistent rate and we all know that the more competition there is, the better the price is for the consumer.

Doing side by side comparisons of products offered on different online dealers is a great way to make the most out of your money. In addition to there being a countless number of online dealers, the fact that you don’t even have to leave your house in order to make a purchase attracts a lot of investors. The only precaution you have to take when making a purchase is being sure that the online dealer you are buying from is a reputable one. JMBullion.com is one of the most trusted names on the Internet, and there are countless positive reviews to be found attesting to their reputation and service.

Holy Snake!

We found this guy at the Pitch Pine Bog in Rome, NY.  This is one of the largest snakes I have seen in New York State.  One lesson I learned was to always carry a good camera when I go hiking.  You never know what you'll find. Does anyone know what kind of snake this is?