Re-Blog: Self Reliance

I came across a very informative article recently, that I thought my be of interest to you my readers.

Dan West is the founder and CEO of Walden Labs, a certified permaculture designer (Geoff Lawton, 2013), and a seeker of truth. In 2014 he bought a 100+ year old, rundown, farm in the north of Sweden that he's transforming into a resilient homestead full of abundant natural production systems.

"When you are new to self-reliance, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I wish I could tell you the "lost" feeling changes over time, but it doesn’t.
The truth is; while you expand your knowledge of taking care of yourself, your interests in new subjects and skills can spiral out of control.
That’s the thing with depending on yourself, it’s hard to just specialize on doing just one thing. Sure you can become a master of growing potatoes, but potatoes won’t keep you warm through the winter or quench your thirst.
And, when you think you have figured something out, you may realize that you have solved only a small piece of the puzzle."

Mr West has developed this infographic to outline and track a wide variety of elements to self reliance, untpder he major headings of food, water, shelter, energy and protection. It's well worth checking out, and you can download a high resolution PDF version of this document from his article.

Review: Shelham - 3099 Clasp knife

Way back in 1995 or so, for Giftmas, my gf's brother-in-law (who worked for the DSTO in some capacity) gifted me, and my gf's other bf a set of these clasp knives. For 20 years this has lived in my pockets, packs and car-glove boxes.

I did some research recently, to try to work out just exactly where they come from, as I've had different people tell me different things over the years. I have a good friend who was an engineer in the Army Reserve, who called it a "sapper knife".

[edit: a different friend, with 2 years as active an ADF Engineer told me on the weekend he's never heard them called "sappers knives" and only ever referred to them as "clasp knives". Primary Source FTW]

My knife is marked SHELHAM 3099 AUSTRALIA and  STAINLESS STEEL MADE IN JAPAN. Other versions I've seen online are marked with the knife's NSN of 5110-66-013-1930. Since the 1980's, Shelham (Sheldon & Hammond) have supplied the Australian Military Forces with this 3 blade stainless steel clasp knife.

The broad blade with its sheepfoot pattern, with a long flat edge that I've always been able to keep very sharp is paired with a hefty and deep biting can-opener / bottle opener. No can of beans, paint or Nuka Cola is safe.
The back plays host to the large marlin spike, perfect for working rope and knots, as well as punching holes in things, and acting as a leaver. Generally excellent as a rope and cable worker, I've abused this spike with other chores, and it has survived admirably.

Some surface pitting and a slight bend to the tip of the spike is the only evidence of its hard life. The shackle at the end has kept it dummy-corded to pants for longer than I care to remember, and the only other significant wear and tear evident is some slight bending to the shackle and some dents to the screw-driver end that sits between the blade and can-opener.

This is an exceptionally simple, hardy and useful tool, especially for anyone who deals with rope and cord on a regular basis.

Review: Weed Forager's Handbook

I was very lucky that for my birthday, a most lovely lady friend of mine gifted me with a most marvelous book.

She knows of my proclivity for self-sufficiency and likewise has an eye for it herself. She had been on a series of Edible Weed walks and workshops, run here in urban Melbourne, and thought to buy me the accompanying book:
The Weed Forager's Handbook:
"A Guide to Edible and Medicinal Weeds in Australia"

Full of full colour photos and classically rendered botanical illustrations, this 166 page manual contains detailed edibility and medicinal notes on 20 common weeds, that can be found in my local area, and in most regards, Western urban environments. the book itself is small enough to fit easily in a cargo-pants pocket, and even a back-pocket. Great for those foraging trips around the neighborhood. 

I've made several meals containing greens I have sourced from on or around my home, in the laneway and up and down the nature strip of my quiet suburban street.

As well as the main 20, there are  another 14 short profiles of useful plants. Each of the listings comes with tales from history and folklore regarding the plants, as well as a good introduction to known poisonous plants hat should NOT be harvested.

I knew nettles were edible, but didn't know how to harvest and prepare them, and they are delightful!
Likewise, dandelions and wild lettuce grow around my house, and they have also made it onto the table, in soups and stews, and even as a boost to salads.

This book by Adam Grubb and Annie Raser-Rowland has added to my spread of knowledge with regards putting good food on the table, and even though I might have had to sneak it past the finicky teenager, I like to think that I am adding to the nutritional bounty of our otherwise distant farm and supermarket sourced food.

It also never hurts to know what will make a needful addition to the pot, should the shops be bare and the roads closed!

Review: Ti2 - SentinelX

This beauty came to me as a Kickstarter (my initial pledge rewards got lost in the mail)just recently, and I've been thriiled to put it to some initial use.

From the makers of the Ti2-PB9 parabiner pulley and the Ti2 Sentinel S4S cache comes the the Sentinel X Cache. You may recall I wrote a wish-lust piece on it, a while ago, and am very pleased to finally have them in my hand.

Unlike the pocket sized Ti2 S4S cache, this is a large format, hard anodized aluminum cache.  It's internal dimensions are 51mm diameter x 153mm length (2" and 6"). Their  external dimensions 63mm x 204mm (2.5" and 8"). So around the size of a can of Coke around, and about the length of one, in the middle section. Empty, it weighs 400 g as it is made from aircraft grade 6061-T6 aluminium which has been strength optimized using "CAD parasolid modeling" giving it its unique ribbed / skeletonized design.

The tube is threaded at either end so you can access contents from either end, change out the end cap options, clean and empty it. The threads have a modified stub acme shape which is to say a trapezoidal cut, with twin Higbee blunt starts, so you don't get any cross-threading and better chances of a first-time screw.

Twin o-rings (white teflon rings shown here, orange food-grade silicone rings seen on the main project page) give redundancy and water-tightness. Both types of o-rings  are food grade  and able to withstand temperatures required to boil water. The teflon doesn't need greasing, which is an advantage in my books.

I really liked that the bottom cap has vent holes giving it a built in trivet  for boiling water or cooking in. I did a rough boil test, using an enamel camping mug, and the SentinelX was just a little quicker to boil. It also retained a lot of residual heat, with its thick walls, but its also worth noting that the entire container heated up. Even only lightly screwed on, the lid conducted enough heat to be barely touchable by the time the water boiled. I needed to use a wooden spoon to carry it off the flames.

The container holds 325 mL (11 fl oz), which is in keeping with its "less than a can f Coke dimensions, but to give you an idea of how much stuff you can store in it, I took this photo, of a fist-full of pens and pencils (23, but some mis-matched sizes).

I got one of each of the Type 3 Class 1 anodized coating. One in "regular" and one in the slicker looking "satin" finish.  This hard anodizing is typically used for military applications, but also on pots and frying pans offering excellent flame resistance. It's food grade finish was what I was most looking for, as  I wanted to be able to store and carry foodstuffs in it safely.

They also offer  Type 3, Class 2 anodized, NON food grade and available in black, olive drab and brown satin finish only.  Both Class 1 and Class 2 exhibit the same durability properties, so I wasn't trading off durability for food safety. Well worth it in my mind.

I haven't yet worked out what I will store in mine, long term, but I have carried it around in my Propper MultiPurpose Bag for some time now, with snacks and edibles.

I wanted to try making a up of tea with the hot water I had boiled, and found that it made a very passable brew, though the conducted heat I talked about earlier made it difficult to enjoy the drink, without wrapping in a towel first.

Those top lanyard holes make an excellent lanyard loop, for securing the cache, perhaps in a out-of-sight location, or perhaps as a hook point for when it is too hot to hold.

I am really pleased to have these in my collection, although as  I mentioned earlier, I still haven't decided what to fill mine with. I have been considering what item's from my Bug-Out-Jars would fit nicely, a line of thought that one of the beta-testers of the SentinelX shared.

As well as in my new bag, it's worth noting that the SentinelX also fits nicely into my Platatac FUP and would most likely fit into most double-mag pouches, like the Platatac 60Rnd or similar pouches.

This is a really cool product, and I certainly appreciate the modular and rugged performance that it offers. I'm looking forwards to keeping these on hand, filled with my needfuls.

Review: EcoFuture - ChillShot

I had a funny delivery in the mail recently, and thought I might share it with you all. 

This is a stress relief supplement that was sent to me by the good folks at OurEcoFuture, who you may recall also produce the Aqua Prove water treatment, an organic hand sanitizer spray and a BioDefence foot protection treatment.

This is the Chill Shot, which is purported to promote a feeling of tranquility, reduced stress, less anxiety and inspires a greater sense of self confidence and lessening social inhibitions". That's quite a sell, in any-ones book. I gave it a shot.

With an ingredient list that reads much like a multivitamin tablet, mixed with the key "secret ingredient" Zembrin®, a Sceletium Tortuosum extract, with the more mundane but standard vitamins A, D, B6, B12, C, E, Biotin, iodine, zinc, Phosphatidylserine (a memory/cognition booster) , calcium, folate, Pantothenic Acid (another vitamin, B5) and copper, its a content rich supplement in a 60mL package.
  
I've been a test subject for a nutritional biochemist before, so am no stranger to the taste these kinds of things can have, but for the unprepared, this might have been a shock. Think about chewing multivitamin tablets, and ashing it down with grapefruit juice. You know its working, but isn't necessarily what you'd want to base a cocktail on. 

At slightly higher volume of consumption, the effects are reported to  become more pronounced and produce feelings of euphoria, increased tactile sensitivity, as well as amplified libidinal desires, not to use if pregnant, nursing or operating machinery. and that hit is not intended for use by persons under the age of 12.


I found it to be a very gentle buzz, not unlike the Musashi energy drinks I used to have, quite different from the Red Bull/V type go-juice drinks. Think of it as a multivitamin shot, with a rounded calming effect, and you'd have the right idea. 

High stress survival situation, on limited nutritional value rations? This might be the ticket to help keep your head (and brains) when you don't have time to look after yourself or get enough rack-time. 

Review: Mad Millie - Italian cheese kit

  

 For Giftmas I was lucky enough to receive this very spiffy DIY cheese kit, good for over 10 batches of cheese (approx 6kg in total), as produced by "Mad Millie". This is the Mad Millie Beginners Italian Kit

With recipes and all the ingredients you need (apart from the milk) to make some of the following:

Fresh Italian Mozzarella and Bocconcini (approx 600g/batch),
Ricotta (approx 400g/batch),
Ricotta Salata (approx 100g/batch),
Burrata Mascarpone (approx 700g/batch).

I recently rediscovered the kit on top of the refrigerator and I had wanted to make mozzarella as my first attempt. We sourced some UN-homoginized milk (as some reading indicated that would work better) I got ready to make some delicious cheeze!

Included in the kit are the  vegetarian rennet tablets (the enzymatic agent that causes the milk to coagulate), cheese salt (which is iodine-free, so as not to inhibit bacterial maturation),  citric acid (to acidify the mixture, allowing the rennet to act more effectively), calcium chloride (to re-introduce calcium often lost in milk-processing)  as well as the cheese cloth  measuring pipette, and thermometer needed.

With my 2L of fancy un-homoginized milk, and the added backup of my fancy new digital Range iPhone thermometer I made my attempt, and ended up with ... ricotta. 

After the process, which may have been less delicate than it should have been, I balled my finished product, and let it hang to drain off the last of the whey.

I ended up with a mass of cheese that yielded 450g, and I let it sit for  a few days to settle, before breaking open my ball, and seeing what I had wrought.

It had been obvious in my preparation that the coagulation step didn't ever really happen. I had curds, but never the solid custard-like phase that needed cutting.

My mozzarella failed, but I ended up with a pretty decent, if crumbly, fetta type of cheese.  

At this stage I am putting it down to poor technique on my part, and not the kit. Whist I am fairly confident that the temperatures and times were right, as I had the digitally controlled and timed Range to fall back on, I have a feeling that the initial combination of ingredients, and stirring may have been heavy handed on my part.

So whilst this first attempt certainly didn't result in the delicious creamy and plain ball of mozzarella that I had anticipate, I did manage to turn a volume of milk into a storable bulk of cheese.

I felt that it had sufficiently dehydrated to retard bacterial spoilage in the short term, and over the space of a few days, I broke it apart and sprinkled the product over a variety of dishes, like these patties.

I have successfully made cheese with this kit. Now to work out how to make the cheese I want to make.

Home Front: ANZAC biscuits

Today being ANZAC day, I wanted to share something that perhaps some of my international readers might not be aware of, but certainly fit with the other offerings I've made around both recipes and cultural observations. A key component of ANZAC Day observance, and Australian culture in general are   ANZAC Biscuits. 

Made for turn of the 20th Centuary shipping times and wartime frugal living, the ANZAC biscuit is a solid, long lasting and nutritious supply that would be just as fitting in a Diggers chow bag as in a Preppers long term supply. 

The main trick is not eating them right away!

I used the http://www.taste.com.au recipe, many variants exist, but this worked out well. Ingredients combined in a bowl, balled and flattened on baking paper, baked for 10-15 minutes at 170oC.  

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup plain flour
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup desiccated coconut
• 125g butter, chopped
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

I hope you have a go at this iconic Australian snack, and see how they might supplement your own long term food cache, care packages to troopers overseas and snack packs for prospective scouts, rangers and foragers.

Lest we forget. 

Home Front: just pop to the supermarket

Here's the thing. We (and I presume most of you, my readers) live in the industrialised world. Hot and cold running water, 24/7 power, high speed(ish) internet. A industrialised food transportation system. We have supermarkets, corner stores, grocers and the like, a stones throw from our homes. Perhaps a short drive in your Urban Assault Vehicle.

We can just assume that the shelves will be stocked, the lights will be on, and we'll be able to pretty much do all our shopping in one spot.

The problem is, even in industrial and affluent society like mine, these services can be disrupted but simple things. Power outages of more than a few hours tends to make supermarkets cull their perishable stock (pay attention, urban scavengers, you might be able to pick up a truckload of just-begin-to-thaw frozen goods).

Imagine what fuel shortages, road closures, quarantines or other long time disruption to supply chains would do.

My local supermarket is a marvel of modern convenience, is only 650m from my house. Easy walking distance for a bottle of juice, or a bag of chips, and we even drive when we do a big shop. How would it fare in the event of a disaster? How long would it take to empty of supplies? How long would it hold up if locked down?

It gives me pause for thought,  perhaps it might for you too.

I certainly have a mental list of "what to grab in the first few days of an event" which I will write up and share shortly.

Home Front: Bug Out Jar

I've been looking at putting together Bug Out Kits, to offer online, and possibly put up on Kickstarter, to get out to a wider market.

I've been thinking about what to include in such a kit, and what to put it in. My thought was to have something that could rattle around in the boot of a car, in the corner of a ruck or by the front door at home. It needed to be small and unobtrusive, rugged, easily identified but not standing out as a prize.

I happened to have a stash of bio-bottle containers, not unlike the Patho-Pack containers (or as we call them at home, "Dead People Jars"). The Bio-Bottles are biohazard rated, air and water tight shipping containers, 850 ml capacity, with a "size in carton" of 12cm x 12cm x 17cm, which meets UN3373 regulations, meeting 95kPa pressure testing. Good solid containers!

The contents of the kit I have been pondering, based in part on my own EDC and adventuring kits in past, and my experiences camping, LARPing and travel around the world. I have also been working on a tight budget, so have kept the items pretty generic where possible.

I've included in this beta version:
A wire saw
A space blanket
A fire starter (which includes a button compass)
A 100' length of paracord
A knife (which includes a rescue hook/strap cutter)
A steel paracord shackle
A WTF multitool
A multifunction spork
A 850mL Bio-Bottle

I may include some other contents as options, including a couple other excellent items, as well as carry-pouches, and even upgraded, expanded kits. Hopefully, there will be some interest in these, and I'd love your feedback as to contents, carry and packing thoughts and I can make this happen.

[EDIT] Check out the jars, now in my online store, for sale!

Wish-Lust : Survive2Thrive - 40 Days and Nights food

I had two different friends point these out to me, and thought it would be well worth sharing.
I've covered the Mainstay ration packs
in the past, and whilst they are great high-density survival food, they really aren't intended to be hold-out food, rather than room-filling stocks of long term supplies. That's where a product like these come in.

This is the Survive2Thrive - 40 Days and Nights
preparedness pail, which is packed full of staples. Full of 15.8kg (35 lbs) worth of staples to be precise. This 33cm x 33cm x 40cm (13" x 13" x 16") tub is designed to stack securely, meaning you can stockpile and store them effectively.
 
The kit is filled with individually vacuum sealed in 6 & 7 mil. food-grade bags, purported to give their contents a 10-15 year shelf life, 

• Rolled Oats: 5 lbs 
• Brown Rice: 4 lbs 
• Millet: 4 lbs 
• Garbanzo Beans: 3 lbs 
• Green Lentils: 3 lbs 
• Black Beans: 2 lbs 
• Pinto Beans: 2 lbs 
• Quinoa: 2 lbs 
• Sprouted Buckwheat: 1 lb 
• Sprout Blend: 1 lb 
• Gluten Free Pancake Mix: 1 lb 
• EnerFood Green Superfood Powder: 7/8 lb 
• Chia Seeds: 1/2 lb 
• Fermented Miso Powder: 1/4 lb
• Cajun Spice Mix: 1/16 lb

Everything in the bucket is purported to be raw, uncooked, certified organic, non-GMO, and even vegan. The supplies are not dehydrated, freeze dried, nor have any added preservatives. There's only the small packet of seasoning, though, and all the contents require extensive cooking, so it's certainly not eat-on-the-run food. But if you were hunkered down in your bunker, it would keep you fed and healthy, that's for sure.

The shopping list of items would be pretty easy to replicate at any whole-foods supplier, and both vacuum sealers and buckets are also available. It wpould be possible to whip up something to this effect, and avoiding the massive shipping costs to Australia, but if you're on the Continental US, well worth adding to your survival cupboard.

Home Front: Cherry Harvest

This past solstice weekend, I took my whole family up to a cherry orchard, and we spent an hour or so, three adults, and late teen and two little ones, running about, foraging and feeding, till we had 10 kg of cherries picked, (and who knows how many eaten in the process).

This particular orchard was selling them at $10/kg so whilst we did spend a lot, it was massively less than the $20-$30/kg that they are, at the shops currently.

This is my partner Anstia helping Triceratops Girl collecting cherries (from every ladder they came across).
We aimed to take only the good fruit, and as few stalks as possible, because that sped up the prepping time later on, but does also speed up the rotting process (its an open wound ...).

Here is a bowl full of this years harvest, served chilled on a 30oC evening. However, 10 kg (22lbs) of any fresh produce is a lot of organic matter for even a tribe like mine to consume, especially a rich a source as these cherries were. So, it was time to can and jam!



My family (mothers side) is Danish, so we celebrate a Danish Giftmas, on the 24th, and one of my favourite deserts is the dark cherry soup, Kirsebærsuppe. We used 4 kg of cherries to make a giant pot of the soup, which left us with 2L (0.5gal) of leftover soup, which we jarred up hot in an old olive jar.

I wanted to try a few other ways of preserving the cherries, without making jam (we have the last two seasons of fruit windfalls as jam still and are just finishing off jars from the first year we did it. Some went into the duck-stuffing for example).

We candied (boiling in 1:1 sugar:water by mass), then dehydrated one set of pitted cherries. This worked out really well and we filled two trays of my dehydrator with them, and two jam-jars as a result.

I also preserved a jar's worth in simple syrup (which has a terrible leaking habit, seemed to bypass the seals on its jars every time I make it). These were unpitted and I expect them to take a while to candy up, and slowly leach flavour into the syrup.

Here's a side-by-side of the cherry soup,  beside the one of the jars of pitted cherries in Glögg. Glögg is a spiced, sweetened red wine (in this case) with an alcohol content of 12% vol which always seems to have more kick that expected. Perfect for preserving fruit and will make for a welcome treat come winter.

We used the similar sized olive jars as for the soup, and filled them with the pitted cherries, followed by a 750mL bottle of Glögg in each. Perfect size!

A welcome side effect from doing the candied cherries was that the syrup that remained was infused with the cherry juices that cooked out, and I was not going to let THAT go to waste. So, we found some swing top bottles that I had been keeping (always prepared), and funneled it in.

This home made cordial was almost black, it was such a dark red, and tastes amazing diluted with water, soda water and poured over ice-cream. I imagine I will make use of it in constructing boozy cocktails in the near future.

All of these preservation methods (candying, pickling, canning in syrup and reducing to cordial) are all super simple, cheep and will result in a long lasting commodity and resource, for trade, and off-season boosts to our table.

Lots of preppers recommend having tradable items, and this is a great example of one we're only too happy to produce and stock.

Here's the one tool that made the whole job SO much easier (and praise be my partner Omega, who used it to such effect). A cherry pitter!

This little tool took so much trouble out of de-stoning the 8kg or so of cherries we needed pitted. If you plan on doing a big load of cherries, you would do well to pick one or two of these up. Here's a cool link for a person who made their own!

Review: American Kami - Super Colubris knife

I really splurged recently, before I realised I needed to replace my old vehicle (woops) when I saw that DJ Urbanovsky of American Kami was offering a series of his knives that had been dinged up in the grinding process, as <B>eater blades. Basically they had slight cosmetic blemishes, but were fully functional, for a significant discount. Perfect!

I had seen the American Kami blades as a Soldier System sneak peak, following on from an amazing piece on some axes he has made I was thrilled to have this piece arrive, and get to using it.

What really keyed me onto this one was the crossover in design between a chefs knife, and a combat knife. I go-to kitchen knife till now has been my Global 14cm Vegetable knife and their 20cm Chef's knife just for reference. Ok, perhaps its a thin line of reasoning, but this is an awesome addition to my collection in any regards. So, here's what I can tell you about it.

The 15cm (6″) blade is crafted from CPM S35VN (the same company produces the CPMD2 steel in the SAR ODDjob knife). The Super Colubris features a tumble over heat treat finish, which gives a lovely finish as well as a great edge. This model offers a modified droptip and is 27cm (10.5”) in overall length.

The Super Colubris comes with a very nice kydex sheath, with eyelets, and is fitted out with an interesting gutted paracord lanyard system, which DJ covers in this clip of the smaller American Kami Colubris "mid-tech" knife in his safety briefing and preferred carry method video.



 From this angle you can see the two sets of three finger gripping crenelations on the spine, these feel great on the thumb, or the webbing of the hand when holding it by the bolster when being all chefy.

The G10 scales I requested are coyote brown, and feature deeply engraved "American Kami" motifs which acts as a grippy texture, without being rough on the hand. The handle itself features three prominent recessed hollow bolts, as well as a lanyard hole at the butt end, give a number of lashing options.

Being a "beater", my Super Colubris has some misgrinds on the omote side of the blade. This was part of the package of getting one of these blades at a much reduced rate, making it an affordable extravagance. You can see the deep gouges on the back where the spine and false edge meet. There is also some surface scarring on the flat of the blade. None of this has had any affect on the performance of the blade, at least not with the kind of use and abuse I expect to put it through.



With a light hacking, slashing action, I produced a number of deep penetrations in this pumpkin. Stabbing thrusts were equally as effective.



Not wanting to leave the more practical aspects out, here's a few passes of me using the Super Colubris to slice up said pumpkin. One handed and at an oblique angle, this set my dinner up nicely.

With its very well made kydex sheath, lanyard retention system, the Super Colubris is not only a very nice knife in the hand, but gives every impression of being a long lasting, heavy hitting, but controllable tool to have to hand. I am going to see about rigging it to my belts and rigs with one of the RTI G-Code wheels or a Tek Lok system.

Either way this is a really nice piece, and I'm very pleased with it in all its less-than-perfect glory. Now to save up for a Type 14 Bearded ManiAxe ....

Review: Mainstay Emergency Food Rations

I've been feeling really remiss as a prepper without a stock of MRE's and other per-packaged survival food. Like a cowboy without a Stetson, or a fisherman without a line. Military style MRE's are not easy to come by in Australia, but I was lucky enough to spot some silvery packets of goodness in the display window whilst visiting Global Gear (who have supplied me with some fun kit in the past).

I did some research online and it seemed that these were the real deal. These are the Mainstay Emergency Food Rations. These high density food bars come in three varieties, in 1200, 2400 or 3600 Calorie packs. Each of the three varieties consist of a vacuum sealed foil sachet, with extensive nutritional information, and contains a block of very solid food.

The 1200 weighs 228g (1/2lbs)and breaks into three measured blocks.

I grabbed a sample in the "Energy Bar/1200" size from Global Gear and opened it up to see what I got.

It's always a good idea to test out something like this, before you commit to perhaps a box full of something awful, but I was pleased to find that the Mainstay bars were quite palatable. A solid, slightly brittle block that for all the world felt and tasted like a coarse, buttery shortbread, with a light lemon flavour and scent. I ate a block of it, and whilst not filling, was certainly a hunger stopper.

Quite palatable, if crumbly, I can see these being a fast and easy way to keep your energy up in a challenging situation, especially if water was available. I was distinctly aware of the gritty texture, much like a very sweet, hard cornbread.

 I found that I left the uneaten portion in its wrapper and came back to it a couple of weeks later, to no noticeable effect. Properly sealed, they are designed to have a 5 year shelf life, but I expect they would still be edible long after this.
 
This ration is marketed as a "complete food" meaning that no other food intake is needed to meet all nutritional requirements in a survival situation.  Having a look at both the ingredients, and the "percent daily values" listing, it is possible to determine that these bars are indeed jam-packed with nutrition, and trace elements. Certainly not something you'd want to LIVE off, but life FROM, for sure.

Based on USCG and SOLAS standards, two blocks suffice to sustain life in "maritime settings" whilst three (a full packet) are recommended for land survival. Given the insights I made in looking at survival nutrition, and the availability of the 2400 calorie Mainstay ration in bulk from SurvivalStorehouse.com, I opted to buy a number of these from , as "get out of trouble" supplies.

I plan to stash some in my car, in my bug-out-bag, for when we go hiking or camping,  and at work, for those times when I just can't get out because of marauding hordes ...

Home Front: survival nutrition

 Its always interesting to see how food and nutrition is handled in disaster situations in film and TV. From The Walking Dead's baby formula and prison storerooms  to The Day After Tomorrow's vending machines, not to mention ZombieLand's Twinkies and Bill the (delicious) Donkey in The Postman.

I did a little reading about the "average adult daily energy intake" which lead to some interesting findings.

It is common to see "8,700kJ" as the average recommended intake, usually quoted on fast food menu's and the like, (as seen here on this poster for some tasty poultry products seasoned with 11 secret herbs and spices, as devised by a well known Kentucky Colonel.)

This figure is based in part by the Food Standard Code as published by the Australia New Zealand Standards Code (FSC). The FSC lists that value for daily intake levels based on an average adult diet. It is interesting to note however, that this doesn't take into account activity levels, and lifestyle.

It is it seems, more of a "minimum level" for and it has been suggested that it is more suited to bed-ridden individuals, rather than active survivalists, running, ducking, dodging and weaving their way through the ruins of civilization.

Interestingly when I looked up the nutritional content of current MRE kits, they suggested that servicemembers (who were classified as highly active men between the ages of 18 and 30) typically use about 4,200 Calories a day. The conversion is  1 kJ = 0.2 Calories (Cals)or 1 Calorie = 4.2 kJ, giving a figure of 17,640 kJ a little over double the "average adult intake diet".

Lets assume that post-disaster, you will not be having a sedentary desk-job life, and will be a rugged, fighting, and self-reliant survivor, chopping wood for fire, hunting and foraging (or farming) for food, and perhaps battling off marauders, zombies, triffids or the elements.

According to the FSC, and "MyDailyIntake.net", a "balanced diet for an average adult" is made up of the following nutrients each day:

Nutrient	Quantity Per Day
Energy	8,700 kilojoules
Protein	50 grams
Fat	70 grams
Carbohydrates	310 grams
Sugars	90 grams
Sodium (salt)	2.3 grams
Dietary Fibre	30 grams
Saturated Fatty Acids	24 grams

To meet up with our projects "serviceman" levels, you basically have to double that. Obviously, people have done with much less, for millennia and still managed to fight, survive and prosper, till you now find humanity all over the world. 

These "USCG/ SOLAS standard exceeding" food-bars state on their wrapper that  A daily maritime diet (being stuck on a life-boat, i presume) equals 3,333kJ, and a similar land based situation (say, stranded on a desert island) equates to 5,000kJ. However this is a base-survival diet, and wouldn't be much fun, or enough on its own to keep you fighting-fit.

Again, looking around at the figures, I found the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council published this table.

The average amount of kilojoules required daily is represented in the following table:

Age	Male	Female
12-15 years	10 900 kj	9 550 kj
16-18 years	12 900 kj	10 200 kj
19-50 years	11 550 kj	9 300 kj
51-70 years	10 450 kj	8 800 kj
Adults over 70 years	9 450 kj	8 300 kj

Source: NHMRC, Canberra. These figures represent average requirements for the Australian population. Actual energy needs for individuals will vary considerably depending on activity levels, body composition, state of health, age, weight and height. 

This follows the same sorts of levels as I might expect of an average, active person, lying as it does between the "sedentary 8700kJ" and the "active serviceman 17,640kJ", and well above the "marooned on a lifeboat 3,333kJ" levels the USCG suggest.

So, how do you get that level of nutrition, and maintain it, with limited resources?

Prison-style nutra-loaf?

Stockpiles of MREs?

Mainstay Survival Rations?

Pemmican?
a truckload of 2280 kJ Quarter Pounders?


There are lots of choices out there, and it comes down to how you aim to prepare, what you are preparing for, and how you want to live, before and after a crisis comes.

Home Front: Atamai Eco-Village

 An old friend of mine dropped me a message, from his side of The Ditch to remind me that his home would make an excellent example of Apocalypse Equipped living. He is one of the members and developers of the Resilient Community at Atamai Village.


I, like my Viking ancestors, have pillaged their website and Facebook page to gather all the content below,  so all credit to the creators and writers.

What I liked most of all about this whole idea was the planning and conscious decisions made in its development. I think these folks have put a lot of time and effort into not only being self-sufficient, not only for food and resources, but also in the maintenance, development and management of their site.

Craig assures me that being a hard worker, in the event of zombies, all i need do is fight my way over the Tasman, baby on my back, and i'll be welcome. If it were not for the entanglements of lovers and children in Melbourne, he'd have already been giving me the hard-sell to move over. I'd be tempted too ....

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A Permaculture Designed New Zealand Eco-Village

Located within biking distance to Motueka, a small town in the northern part of New Zealand’s South Island, the village’s land provides attractive and comfortable housing sites of mixed sizes for 50+ families.
Details on sections for sale now, can be found here. You can contact us via our website form.
A village is a settlement where people move from the privacy and separateness of their individual homes and families to their daily exchanges with others – all within the village and its environs. These are exchanges for basic needs such as food and other goods, social exchanges of support and mutual interest, cultural exchanges for fun and enjoyment, exchanges where projects are planned and carried out with others, a place where goods and services are exchanged to the benefit of both parties.
Village life is filled with opportunities for exchanges with a deeper texture, where the depth and breadth of relationships is enriching at many levels; where the joys and tribulations of a full life are felt and shared. Village life involves a sense of place and connectedness – to the land and the people – where relationships to both are rich and mutually sustaining.


A village operates on a human scale

• where people know the land and each other
• where that knowledge translates into caring and support for both
• where people pay attention to the local because they depend on it for their well-being
• where there is a connection to the broader world, but where that connection is based on fair exchange rather than dependency.

Physical Infrastructure

Common Resources

A key feature of most traditional villages is land owned and managed collectively. This feature has been incorporated into the Atamai design. Most of the land already developed, or that remains to be developed, will be part of the Commons Resource that the developer transfers to Atamai Village Council (the body that owns and governs the commons resources). The Commons Land already consists of approximately 10 ha and approximately 25 ha will come into the Commons with the second stage of development.
This common land is a critical feature of Atamai's food production and more. Such lands under community control can be used to generate income for the village by renting or leasing parcels of land or specific rights (e.g. grazing) over parcels of land to villagers or other parties. Exactly how these commons resources will be used will be determined by villagers rather than the developer.
The common resources are owned collectively by all villagers.

Permaculture Features

Atamai Village is designed on permaculture principles. All freehold titles have been chosen to ensure a favourable solar aspect and enough space for at least a vegetable garden and orchard areas. Some sites are suitable for raising livestock of various sorts. Wind and water features have also been taken into account, and the entire site is adjacent to a forestry block which is being transformed into a sustainable forestry operation.
Permaculture principles are also being used to develop all Commons land to be owned and managed by Atamai Village Council.
These permaculture features are one component of a secure food supply, by optimizing the availability of productive land, and where appropriate, creating microclimates for special purpose growing.

Access and cycle ways

A large portion of Atamai Village will be car free, with access and cycle ways designed to connect various parts of the Village. All access and cycle ways will have a grade of no more than 1 in 10 to ensure ease of access by walking or cycling. When necessary, small electric vehicles can be used to move goods or people. All access ways will also be large enough to accommodate emergency vehicles.
These features will reduce our reliance on fossil fuel transport, and facilitate ease of movement when energy descent becomes more prominent. They will also make Village areas safer and more accommodating to people-scale activities, thus facilitating social interaction and a sense of community.

Building Design Guide

An extensive Building Design Guide has been prepared to describe the standards for all buildings within the village. This document addresses such issues as passive solar house designs, use of non-toxic, sustainably sourced local materials, on-site energy production, waste handling requirements, and related items.

Building Covenant     

We believe these design features are so important that a covenant is placed on each title that ensures the goals of sustainable buildings will forever occur on each dwelling site. So you can be sure that village buildings will follow these guidelines, and enjoy their long term benefits – an important part of a resilient community. 
These standards ensure that buildings will be comfortable and inexpensive to operate on an on-going basis, have a low ecological footprint, and be safe to live in. The first home built according to these guidelines is now in place.                          

Clean Land Covenant

All land within the village will be covenanted to ensure that nothing will be done to the land that would prevent that parcel of land from being BioGro Certified. This same guideline applies to both individual freehold titles and all Commons land. The guideline does not require that each land parcel become BioGro certified, but only that nothing is done to it that would prevent such certification.
Atamai and related parties also have control over almost the entire catchment area for Village lands.
These features ensure that no pesticides or other toxic materials will be used on any of the lands under village control, providing a safe and healthy environment for growing food and enjoying our natural surroundings. These features will also enhance the biodiversity potential for both fauna and flora throughout the village lands.

Water Security

One of the standards in the Building Design Guide specifies two 24,000 l water tanks for each dwelling and a roof-top collection system for domestic and garden use. Separate tanks for fire protection elevated about dwelling height are also part of the plan, and some are already in place. In addition, there are several ponds now constructed, and more to come, as well as several areas where super-wells are options should they be needed. With the local annual rainfall of approximate 1000 mm, these measures should provide adequate water security for villagers.
The rainwater collection, ponds and wells collectively provide a resilient water system to meet village needs for the foreseeable future; these measures take into account the predicted changes based on altered rain patterns induced by climate change. The ponds also provide opportunities for recreation and aesthetic enjoyment.

Food Security

Each title provides areas for a veggie garden and some food bearing trees. Some sites are also suitable for raising livestock. Options are also available to use part of the Commons for livestock or additional food production. A community orchard was established in 2007 which is now coming into production. The orchard area, along with land for community gardens, has already been transferred from the developer to Atamai Village Council. To supplement these village food producing areas an adjacent 24 ha farm operation is being established by one of the first villagers, with the objective of supplying bulk and specialty crops for the village and beyond.

Topsoil from each site has been carefully removed during excavation and then reapplied to the site. None of the land was previously used for industrial type agriculture (e.g. tobacco, etc).
The water features of the village layout are another important resource for food production.
These soil and water features are supplemented by the region’s record high sunshine levels to provide ample opportunity for each villager to produce their own organic and locally sourced food, or purchase it from another villager. Having these vital resources under direct village control (individually or collectively) provide a degree of resilience hard to match elsewhere.

Dealing with Waste

The building design standards also include a provision for each building to deal with its own waste on site. Recommended solutions include various grey water drainage systems and composting toilets. There are various versions of both to match the circumstances of each household.
Handling human waste in this fashion avoids contaminating other areas and also provides a valuable resource for the orchards.

Social Infrastructure

In addition to being responsible for the physical infrastructure of the village, the developer has also provided for some basic social infrastructure components to support village activities.

Atamai Village Council

The developer established Atamai Village Council as an Incorporated Society to own and manage the village common resources. This entity provides a basic legal structure for ownership of common resources and a means of managing them. It has been operating since 2010.

Consensus Decision Making Covenant

Village life is about more than just sharing the physical assets of the Commons - it covers all facets of human interactions and therefore has some predictable features. Owning and managing the Commons Resources will require a decision process that will benefit from both wisdom and broad support. Consequently, a Consensus Decision Making Process is included as one of the key covenants placed on each freehold title. All villagers are expected to participate in training regarding this process and to support its use in making decisions as part of Atamai Village Council.
Atamai Village Council has been functioning using this model since 2010.

Conflict Transformation Covenant

A second social covenant that goes on each freehold title deals with Conflict Transformation. It is inevitable that conflicts will arise in any collective human endeavour so it is best to have agreement on a constructive way of dealing with them when they do. This covenant deals with villagers training in conflict transformation techniques and committing to using these approaches when conflict occurs. Supportive mediation is part of this process if required so the parties in conflict have access to assistance should it be needed.
These two covenants on each title (the Consensus Decision Making and Conflict Transformation) provide two components of a social infrastructure for the village to operate successfully over the long term. These features allow for new villagers to receive training in the use of these processes and participate in village life from their earliest involvement with the village. Naturally, there is a process for modifying these processes as we gain experience with them and find ways of making them better – something all villagers can contribute to.

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So, there you have it.

A real life, functional and active resilient community, working towards self sufficiency, ecologically sound and sustainable practices, and the social engineering required to maintain it.

I applaud them all, and am quietly envious of the opportunities and challenges it presents.  It also reminds me to bone-up on my "the GPS's are gone" navigation and boating skills...