As I mentioned last week, we’re bringing on a new monthly contributor. Leah, who we’ll affectionately refer to as ‘Momma Bear’, will write for us the third Wednesday of each month. Her debut post, Momma Bear Is The Prepper, will be up next Wednesday. I’m excited to have her relatively unique perspective as the woman in the family being the ‘main‘ prepper. Prepping has traditionally been viewed as a male thing; men are the ones who ‘protect the cave’ (yes, I know I’m stereotyping). Since this is such a male-dominated community in general, and I’m a male, I am very happy to be able to present a female prepper’s point of view; not one who is just supporting her husband – but is motivating, guiding, and directing it.
Also new this week – A Contest! We’re giving away a signed copy of The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook! After the great response to my post reviewing The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook, Dr. Bones and Nurse Amy contacted me and asked if I would like a copy of their book to give away to my readers. I immediately responded in the affirmative and requested an autographed one (which they humbly agreed to). So, since I’ve never done a give-away contest before, Sarah and I brainstormed how to do it. Here’s what we came up with: If you’d like to win the book, comment–on this post, or on the TraceMyPreps facebook page–and tell us what your biggest concern MEDICALLY is in a collapse.
You have until 8:00pm PST this Sunday (2/12/12) to respond. From the respondents we’ll randomly choose a name. The winner’s name (first name, or log-in name, only) will be posted on our facebook page at that time; I’ll then coordinate with the winner to get the book mailed. Hopefully this’ll all work… Since this is our first give away, and we have a relatively small audience, if you post something you’ll have a pretty good chance to win.
As Sarah mentioned in her post, I’ve located a source to get donkey manure to fertilize our garden. My boss’ landlord has donkeys and is happy to give away the manure. He bags it up in approximately 4-gallon heavy duty bags, and just asks that the bags be returned. Yesterday, after work, I picked up 11 bags and brought them home. It was interesting, in my little commuter car full of donkey manure, there was no odor – just a faint smell of dirt. I did a little bit of research and it appears that the basic consensus (here’s where WSU Extension discusses it) is that fresh manure is perfectly safe to be added directly to the garden soil. However, it should be added using the following guidelines: 120 days before root crops (food that comes into contacted with the soil) are harvested, or 90 days, if the food does not have direct contact with the soil. I hope to get many more bags and cover the entire garden area front and back.
What did you do this week to prep?
(Monday: Teaching The Kids: Chainsaws For Everyone)
Hey! Great blog Trace.. glad to find you through Jack Spirko’s page and look forward to reading your posts. Are you on Jack’s business forum (theRoadTo100K)? If so, connect with me there. Keep up the great work..
Dene
Thanks! Yea, I’m working through the 5 Minutes With Jack podcasts also. I just got on the TheRoadTo100K yesterday, going to spend sometime this week there (& thanks I hadn’t heard about it until you mentioned it!)
I think the lack of antibiotics would be a big concern for me. It isn’t that often that we need them, but I think we forget how deadly some illnesses or injuries would be without their easy availability.
Thanks for the blog.
I am worried most about being unable to cure a sickness.
Great Blog. I came over here from TSP.
For Dr Bones and Nurse Amy’s book…
My biggest medical concern would be anything that requires emergency surgery – gull bladder, spleen, appendix, heart etc. My sister had to have emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. I don’t see much beside a modern medical facility with trained personnel to get around these.
I think that there are two concerns for me, the lack of or shelf life of anti-biotics and the need for regular medicines, such as blood pressure medicine. While I can buy fish anti biotics, having the blood pressure meds is worrisome. I can make with herbs a lot of things, this isn’t one of them.
My biggest medical concern is the Bi-polar meds for my sister-in-law and what could be replacements as well as a few meds my wife takes. Natural replacements for our current meds is a high priorty for us.
My greatest medical concern: seeing some kind of symptoms or illness going chronic in a family member and not knowing how to identify or treat what is wrong, or not having the resources available to research it.
Dental problems. I know it doesn’t seem like a ‘medical’ problem, but few things are as debilitating as major tooth pain. Also, in a prolonged disaster scenario, with no access to existing sources of support, bad teeth and the loss of ability to chew the food that is available would severely reduce a persons’ survival chances.
Hey just popped in from the link at TSP. My biggest fear is infection from zombies, ha ha – not. Actually I was going to say lack of antibiotics but
LVSchant already said that.