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Gardening
Cultivate your green thumb with our gardening insights. From urban balconies to sprawling backyards, we provide practical advice for growing vibrant flowers, hearty vegetables, and creating your own serene outdoor retreat.
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How to Build an Underground Greenhouse: A Complete Guide
According to the CDC, only 9% of American adults eat enough vegetables. So, the odds are that you’re not eating enough. You can help increase …
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How to Grow An Indoor Survival Garden
If at any given moment, an emergency situation unfolds, and you are forced to somehow survive off of your own resources for quite some time, …
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Discover What To Start Planting In March
I get a lot of messages asking what you can plant in March, so here are some great tips to help you along and get …
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What Should Not Be Put in Your Compost
Compost can be defined as the organic matter that is the result of the decomposition of everyday waste. Compost is used as a fertilizer and …
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How To Grow Mushrooms At Home – Fun And Nutritious!
Love mushrooms? Would you like to grow your own? Learning how to grow mushrooms at home could be a fun experience for the whole family. …
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How To Grow Garlic: A Step by Step Guide
One of the most exciting things about the late winter and early spring is when those little tendrils begin to emerge from the soil. If …
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13 Best Herbs to Grow Indoors
Herbs are known to enhance flavors in food and offer natural remedies for ailments. Therefore, trying your hand at growing them indoors is well worth …
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Food Producing Bushes on your Property
For a long time Americans have bought into these strange rituals. They are weird things that we all do so that we fit in. One …
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How To Build A PVC Cucumber Trellis
The PVC Cucumber Trellis is a cool way to grow your cucumbers. PVC is quite cheap and very sturdy. Although there are no instructions on how …
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Nontraditional Gardening Methods
Most of our gardens are shut down for the year. The cold weather is blowing in and it’s time to start padding up ourselves for …
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70 Gardening Hacks That Will Blow You Away
While the gardening days have come and gone, for most, there is no better time for planning next year’s garden. After that first frost there …
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Basics of Soil Enrichment: Things You Need to Know
If you want to produce seriously nutritious food, it all starts with your soil. One of the most important aspects of gardening is revitalizing the …
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How To Build A Potato Box: A Step-By-Step Guide
Growing potatoes in a box may seem weird and a lot of effort but actually can double and even quadruple your potato yield! Potatoes are …
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Failing as a Prepper
If you are thinking about starting to prep or even if you are years into this thing, failures abound. One of the biggest prepper failures …
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Growing Fruit Trees on your Homestead
It only takes a few seasons to realize that you are not going to want to reseed your land every year. Not all of it, …
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Indoor Vegetable Gardening: 37 Edibles You Can Grow Indoors
As a prepper, one of the essential skills is for you to be able to sustain yourself and have food available to you the whole …
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Keyhole Gardens: A Drought Tolerant Composting Garden
The Keyhole Garden concept is brilliantly simple. A circular raised bed has a center compost basket that distributes nutrients to the surrounding lasagna-style garden bed. A …
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How To Grow Banana Trees At Your Home
Nothing says the tropics quite like the sight of a grove of banana trees. The good news is that these versatile and tasty fruit-bearing trees …
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How To Build A Mini Water Garden Oasis: 20 Different Styles
There are a ton of different things that can happen to a garden. Tragedy can befall all of your growing spaces in a hurry. It …
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How To Build Your Own Vertical Garden with a Pallet
The world of preparedness and self-reliance is as full of good information as it is of excuses. People are looking for a reason to make …
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Building with Earthbags: An Adventure in Root Cellar Construction
By Steve Nicolini
We have finally completed our 4 years-and-running earthbags building project. We wanted a natural cold storage for all of the root crops we grow here in the western foothills of Washington’s Cascade Mountain range.
This is a wonderful alternative to conventional construction. They are much less expensive and much more ecologically friendly.
The story of our earthbag root cellar begins with a man who loved to dig. This man could often be found digging the hole for our root cellar. The sound of his shovel and pickaxe would only be drowned out by his grunts and groans as he dug deeper and deeper into the earth, pulling out gigantic rocks (that would one day edge our garden beds).
The man’s perseverance and work ethic was so inspiring I decided to jump in. One day, we were throwing shovels full of dirt from the 8 ft. deep x 11 ft. wide hole in the ground when the man said, “Okay. That is deep enough.” It was time to review our notes on building with earthbags and design our cellar.
The materials needed:
- Earthbags (enough to complete your structure)
- Barbed wire
- Strong wood for door/window forms
- Drainage and foundation material (we used gravel and perforated pipe)
- Some straight pieces of wood or metal or plastic to make a compass.
- Baling twine
- Tampers (full pounders and quarter pounders)
- Levels
- Measuring tapes
- Big Old Coffee cans
The first thing we did was lay out the drainage and foundation, which are essential for any structure. Around the outside of the bottom of the hole we laid a 4 in. perforated pipe on a 4% grade down and out of the structure. We then dumped in a 1 ft. depth of large rounded gravel and tamped it to level. This gravel would be our foundation and our floor.
The next step was to find the exact center of our round structure-to-be and set our compass. We used some old chain link fence parts with an L-bracket lashed onto them to make our compass. It was essential for creating a perfectly round structure. It also aided us in the decrease in radius with each rising course of earthbags.
Laying down courses of earthbags requires quite a bit of moving and shaking. We called up our friends to come help with the dance. (You should have a lot of friends if you want to build an earthbag structure.)
The Process of Building with Earthbags:
It goes something like this:
1) “Filler” fills coffee can with subsoil, being careful to not include living topsoil, vegetation, and sharp stones
2) “Pourer” dumps dirt into the mouth of the earthbag, which is held by the “Layer”
3) “Layer” moves and shakes the dirt down into the earthbags and sets the bag into its resting position (this was my favorite thing to do)
4) Repeat until full course is laid
5) “Tamper” tamps down the course with a full pounder
6) “Barber” nails down two lengths of barbed wire across course (this was my least favorite…)
The first two courses of our structure had somewhere between a 10 and 20% mix of concrete in with the dirt. After those two it was just the dirt that came out of the ground.
Don't leave without knowing these six essential survival skills. Our free survival mini guide reveals the strategies of:
- Shelter & fire to prevent the number one cause of death
- Obtaining clean water to avoid life-threatening dehydration
- Common wild survival foods and other critical skills!
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I am not going to get into the geometry used to indicate the reduction in radius length with each course of earthbags. When you are designing your structure, you should reference Earthbag Building, by Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer. Just know that with each course there is a decrease in the radius of the course that is exponentially larger than the previous decreases.
Our buttress walls are just straight sections of earthbag interlocked in with the main structure at the door form. Each course of the buttress wall decreased in length to parallel the slope of the hillside.
After all the filling and tamping and laying and barbing, we had finally enclosed the structure. We then proceeded to cover it with two layers of really thick polyethylene. Then we backfilled with the rest of the soil and buried the beast.
It wasn’t until the following year that the earthbag layers were plastered. We used a traditional lime plaster for these two reasons: a wall made of earth needs to breathe (cement stucco doesn’t let out water vapor) and lime holds up to moisture very well (the cellar is underground, making it pretty moist). I learned the plastering process from The Natural Plaster Book: Earth, Lime, and Gypsum Plasters for Natural Homes by Cedar Rose Guelberth and Dan Chiras.
The shelves we built were an architect’s dream and a builder’s nightmare. Regardless, they turned out pretty good (thanks for the design, Jamie). Our main considerations in shelf design were airflow and space utilization. In retrospect, it would have been more beneficial to incorporate shelf brackets into the earthbags themselves versus building freestanding shelves.
So far we have about a dozen jars of pickled peas, half dozen jars of pickled radishes, and a crate of potatoes in the cellar. After the harvest this year it should get at least ½-full.
By the way, a big part of why we love homesteading & permaculture skills so much is because they are a natural extension of learning about wilderness survival (both fields are all about self-sufficiency and working with nature to satisfy needs). An understanding of survival not only helps you become a better permaculturist, it empowers you with life-saving outdoor skills to keep you safe when out in nature. Right now you can get a free copy of our mini survival guide here, where you'll discover six key strategies for outdoor emergencies, plus often-overlooked survival tips.
Recommended Earthbag Resources:
Earthbag Building by Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer
What is Superadobe - CalEarth
Related Courses:
Permaculture Courses at Alderleaf
About the Author: Steve Nicolini is an experienced permaculturist and wilderness skills instructor. He taught at Alderleaf for a number of years. Learn more about Steve Nicolini.
Building with Earthbags
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Nature Skills & Wilderness Survival School
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Welcome to Alderleaf Wilderness College, a wilderness survival school and outdoor education center. Alderleaf offers courses on wilderness survival, wild edible & medicinal plants, permaculture, wildlife tracking, and more.
Be More Prepared For Your Next Outdoor Adventure!https://www.wildernesscollege.com/im...vz6OPO6yu.webp
Don't leave home without knowing these six essential survival skills. Our free survival mini guide reveals the strategies of:
- Shelter & fire to prevent the number one cause of death
- Obtaining clean water to avoid life-threatening dehydration
- Common wild survival foods and other critical skills!
https://www.alipac.us/image/webp;bas...7/o7prtxLzGg==
"If you want to learn about wilderness skills from extremely knowledgeable instructors, then Alderleaf is for you. I learned more than I ever thought possible at their classes."
-Casey Kafka
Featured Courses:
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Essential Wilderness Survival Skills
(Online Course)
Learn the core skills of survival in a format that allows you to participate at home and at your own pace. Accepting registrations
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Introduction to Wildlife Tracking
(Online Course)
Discover the skills that reveal the hidden world around you. Animal tracking is vital for safety, survival, and deepening your connection to nature. Accepting registrations
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Introduction to Foraging for Wild Edible Plants
(Online Course)
Discover the keys to getting started with identifying and gathering wild food plants in North America. Accepting registrations
Our Survival Book that became a Bestseller!
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The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival
(paperback and ebook versions available)
This masterfully-organized survival book will empower you to survive emergencies and grow deeper connections to nature, with expert instructor, Jason Knight of Alderleaf. On sale for a limited time
Popular In-Person Classes
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Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants Course
Learn how to utilize a diversity of native wild plants for food and medicine in the wilderness or at home. Accepting registrations
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Weekend Wilderness Survival Course
Learn the most important skills for survival: shelter, water, fire, and food while gaining practical, hands-on experience. Accepting registrations
Wild Mushroom Identification Class
Learn the skills needed to forage for wild edible mushrooms! Spend a day learning about these magnificent fungi. Accepting registrations
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Wildlife Trailing Class
Learn how to locate fresh animal sign, follow the tracks and subtle clues, and find animals without alerting them. Accepting registrations
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Customized wilderness skills education for groups, organizations, individuals, and families. Virtual and in-person options. Inquire today
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Make Your Own Honey Cow (Top Bar Bee Hive)
By velacreations in LivingGardening
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Introduction: Make Your Own Honey Cow (Top Bar Bee Hive)
By velacreationsVelaCreations Follow
About: Off Grid Homesteading Guides, Tutorials, and Books. http://VelaCreations.com/blog - latest updates. More About velacreations »
More information: http://velacreations.com/bees.html
More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/velacre...7622528453587/
Beekeeping is an ancient DIY art, performed by amateurs and makers for centuries. Anyone can produce natural honey at home. People keep bees in many different kinds of hives, but we will focus on a cheap and simple design, called the Honey Cow.
The Honey Cow is designed to mimic nature as much as possible. Unlike commercial hives, it does not have frames, foundation or excluders. Instead, it just has top bars, allowing the bees to do what they would in a fallen log: build beautiful, natural combs. Because it is less intrusive to the bees, it's easier to make and manage, which makes it a perfect beginners backyard hive.
Once you have a hive, you will want to gather a few extra bits of equipment, like a veil, a smoker, and a bee feeder. With your equipment at hand, you can explore ways to get your bees, from capturing a swarm to buying a package or nucleus from a fellow beekeeper. After your bees have had a full summer to build up honey, you can start reaping the rewards of tending bees: wonderful, home-grown honey.
I encourage everyone interested in beekeeping to join a local bee club. These clubs are filled with wonderful people who love to help get beginners started. Don't be discouraged if folks in your bee club don't have the same type of hive as you. There are as many ways to keep bees as there are beekeepers.
Step 1: Materials and Tools
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MATERIALS:
55 gallon plastic barrel, preferably food grade (makes two hives)
22 feet of 1”x2” nominal lumber
46 feet of 1½”x1” lumber
2 X 8 foot of 2”x4” nominal lumber
A 3 feet by 4 feet piece of tin
20 - 1½” wood screws
10 - 2” wood screws
8 - ½ “ screws
Bungee Cord or tie wire
45 feet thin moulding OR natural fiber string and beeswax
TOOLS
circular or jig saw
drill
tin snips
tape measure and marker
Step 2: The Barrel
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Cut the barrel in half lengthwise, making sure that there is a bung hole in each half.
Clean it well. You never know what was in it. Choose a food-grade container to avoid potentially dangerous chemicals.
Lay the barrel down like a canoe, so that it would catch water. This is the position it will be in from now on.
On one end of the barrel (which used to be the top when it was whole) there is a rim of plastic that protrudes. Cut this away.
Rub the interior with beeswax. This will remove any foreign smell that remains and make it more attractive to a hive. A drop or two of lemongrass oil is good as well.
Step 3: The Frame
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Measure the length and width of your barrel and cut the 1”x2” lumber to make a frame. For example, if your barrel is 36” by 24”, cut 2 lengths of 25” and 2 lengths of 37” (the extra inch allows you to screw one piece into the next).
Glue and screw the frame together.
Screw the barrel inside the frame.
Cut the 2"X4" boards into 40" pieces. These boards are now the legs.
Screw the legs into each side of the barrel. Make sure you screw the frame to the leg and put several screws from the barrel into the leg for a good, sturdy fix.
Step 4: Top Bars
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Cut 23 X 24” lengths out of the 1 ½”x1” lumber.
These are the bars to which the bees will attach their honeycomb. However, you need to provide a guide so that they make straight combs. There are several ways to do this, for example:
a) Screw a thin piece of moulding, 20” in length, centered on each top bar, with at least an inch on the ends of the top bar. This moulding will face down, into the barrel, when the bar sits on the frame. Rub some bee's wax on the molding.
or
b) Attach a piece of twine, coated in wax, also centered on the top bar, at least an inch from the ends of the top bar.
or
c) Carve a narrow groove into the top bar and fill it with molten bee's wax. The groove should be about 1/4 of an inch wide, and you need to leave at least an inch on either end of the top bar.
Step 5: The Roof
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Using the 1”x2” lumber, make a frame that fits around the barrel frame, with a ¼” gap on all sides.
If you cut 2 lengths of 25” and 2 lengths of 37” for the barrel frame, cut 2 lengths of 27 ½” and 2 lengths of 39 ½” for the roof frame.
Take the piece of tin and screw it to the frame, leaving equal space on all sides.
Bend the extra bits of tin down and screw to the sides of the frame.
Using the tin snips, cut any extra bits hanging below the frame.
Put the roof on top of the barrel frame.
Wrap the bungee cord around the roof and barrel, attaching it to itself. This will prevent the roof from blowing off. Alternatively, you can use a few bits of tie wire to tie the roof securely to the hive.
Step 6: Ready for Bees
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You are now ready for the bees. You can buy a “package”, a queen and bees, however the most satisfying way to get into bee keeping is to capture a swarm.
Get a package here: http://www.goldstarhoneybees.com
When dealing with bees, you cannot think of them as individuals. It is the hive, as a whole, that is the animal. And in this sense, each year, if conditions are right, the hive will reproduce, sometimes several times over. If they have filled the space they inhabit and food is abundant, they will create another queen and the hive will split, creating a swarm. This swarm, laden with honey, will leave the hive in search of a new home.
The swarm is heavy with food and preoccupied, and consequently very docile. Be sure to wear protection when handling swarms, because bees can always sting, even when they are docile. If you come across a swarm on, for example, a branch, you can put a box beneath them, shake the branch, and the bees will fall into the box. Take that box to your hive and empty it into your barrel. They will do the rest.
Step 7: Resources
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Gold Star Honeybees is an excellent resource for top bar hive beekeepers. They offer kits, information, tools, and accessories for top bar hive beekeeping. They feature three levels of DIY hive kits for both novice and experienced beekeepers. You can find them on the web at http://www.goldstarhoneybees.com/
Gold Star Honeybees
PO Box 1061, Bath, ME 04530
207-449-1121
http://www.goldstarhoneybees.com/
http://www.velacreations.com/bees.html - author's website
http://biobees.com – natural beekeeping forum
http://warre.biobees.com/bfa.htm – the people's hive and natural beekeeping theory
Make Your Own Honey Cow (Top Bar Bee Hive) : 7 Steps (with Pictures) - Instructables
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7 Methods of Primitive Fire Starting
By MissouriVillian in OutsideFire
689,252
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Introduction: 7 Methods of Primitive Fire Starting
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By MissouriVillian Follow
I have used all of the following methods successfully. Each one CAN produce fire, but is not guaranteed to. My personal favorites are the fire piston and the flint and steel. I have noted a few "ibles" about making both. Certainly you could also purchase both. They are small and easy to pack, and have a high success rate. But I suppose you never know when all you'll have is a few sticks and a shoestring so it's good to know how to use 'em.
Please note that I did not have images available for the techniques listed here so I let Google fix that for me. I noted no copyright notices on the sites where the images were located.
Step 1: Hand Drill
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Hand Drill
Using a hand drill is one of the simplest friction methods, but high speed can be difficult to maintain because only the hands are used to rotate the spindle. It works best in dry climates.
Step One Cut a V-shaped notch in the fireboard, then start a small depression adjacent to it with a rock or knife tip. Set a piece of bark underneath the notch to catch the ember.
Step Two Place the spindle, which should be 2 feet long, in the depression and, maintaining pressure, roll it between the palms of your hands, running them quickly down the spindle in a burst of speed. Repeat until the spindle tip glows red and an ember is formed.
Step Three Tap the fireboard to deposit the ember onto the bark, then transfer it to a tinder bundle and blow it to flame.
Step 2: Two-Man Friction Drill
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Two-Man Friction Drill
Two people can do a better job of maintaining the speed and pressure needed to create an ember using this string variation of a friction drill. Step One Have one person apply downward pressure to the drill while the other uses a thong or shoelace to rapidly rotate the spindle.
Step 3: Fire Plough
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Fire Plough
This produces its own tinder by pushing out particles of wood ahead of the friction. Step One Cut a groove in the softwood fireboard, then plough or rub the tip of a slightly harder shaft up and down the groove. The friction will push out dusty particles of the fireboard, which will ignite as the temperature increases.
Step 4: Pump Fire Drill
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Pump Fire Drill
The Iroquois invented this ingenious pump drill, which uses a flywheel to generate friction. The crossbar and flywheel are made of hardwood; the spindle and fireboard are made from softwoods (as in the hand drill).
Step One Bore a hole in the center of a rounded piece of hardwood and force the spindle in so that it fits tightly. Select wood for the crossbar and bore a larger hole that will slide freely on the spindle.
Step Two Attach the crossbar to the top of the spindle with a leather thong or sturdy shoelace.
Step Three Wind up the flywheel so that the thong twists around the spindle, then press down. The momentum will rewind the crossbar in the opposite direction. Repeat until friction creates a glowing ember.
Step 5: Bow Drill
Bow Drill
Of all the friction -fire-starting methods, the bow drill is the most efficient at maintaining the speed and pressure needed to produce a coal, and the easiest to master. The combination of the right fireboard and spindle is the key to success, so experiment with different dry softwoods until you find a set that produces. Remember that the drill must be as hard or slightly harder than the fireboard.
Step One Cut a notch at the edge of a round impression bored into the fireboard, as you would for a hand drill. Loosely affix the string to a stick bow, which can be any stout wood.
Step Two Place the end of a wood drill the diameter of your thumb into the round impression, bear down on it with a socket (a wood block or stone with a hollow ground into it), catch the drill in a loop of the bowstring, then vigorously saw back and forth until the friction of the spinning drill produces a coal.
Step Three Drop the glowing coal into a bird's nest of fine tinder, lift the nest in your cupped hands, and lightly blow until it catches fire.
Step 6: Firepiston
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Firepiston
How does it work?
Air gets very hot when it is compressed under high pressure. A classic example would be the heat that is created when one uses a bicycle pump. But when the air is compressed in a firepiston it is done so quickly and efficiently that it can reach a temperature in excess of 800 degrees Fahrenheit. This is hot enough to ignite the tinder that is placed in the end of the piston which has been hollowed out to accept it.
Ancient examples of the tube itself are of hardwood, bamboo, or even horn. It is closed on one end, very smooth inside and accurately bored. Equal care is taken in the creation of the associated piston. A "gasket" of wound thread, fiber, or sometimes leather insures a proper seal for successfully creating the compression. This gasket is "greased" to help with the seal and to allow free travel of the piston. The walls of the bore must be perfectly straight and polished smooth.
Step 7: Flint and Steel
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Flint and Steel
Striking the softer steel against the harder flint will produce sparks to flame your fire. The curved steel striker provided with flint and steel kits is easiest to use, although with some practice you can produce sparks by using the back of a carbon-steel knife blade. (Stainless-steel knives are usually much too hard to shave sparks from.) An old bastard file or an axe head will also work.
Step One Grasp a shard of hard rock, such as flint or quartzite, between your thumb and forefinger with a sharp edge protruding an inch or two.
Step Two Tightly clamp a piece of your homemade char cloth or a lump of birch tinder fungus under the thumb holding the piece of flint. Grasping the back of the striker, knife blade, or file in your other hand, strike a glancing blow against the edge of flint, using a quick wrist motion. If you're using an axe, hold the head still and sharply strike the flint near the blade, where the steel is harder. Molten sparks from the steel will fly off and eventually be caught by an edge of the char cloth, causing it to glow.
Step Three Carefully fold the cloth into a tinder nest and gently blow on it until it catches flame.
Another option is to use a magnesium-and-steel tool, which is an updated version of an ancient method that creates a strong shower of sparks. The advantage of this method is that the magnesium shavings flame briefly at an extremely high temperature, eliminating the need for char cloth or tinder fungus.
Step One Using a knife blade or striker, shave a pile of magnesium flecks into a nest of tinder.
Step Two Strike the steel edge of the tool with the back of a knife blade or the scraper provided to direct sparks onto the tinder.
Step Three When the tinder starts to smolder, gently blow on it until it bursts into flames.
Rock Striker
An ideal tool for starting a spark-based fire, the striker should be made of flint for best results. If you can't find flint, look for quartzite, which is much more common and is hard enough to strike sparks from steel.
Step One Identify quartzite by the many crescent-shaped fractures on the surface.
Step Two Choose a quartzite boulder that is flat or discus-shaped and drop it against a larger rock to chip off an edge. Round or oval rocks are more difficult to break.
Step Three A flake broken from the quartzite boulder is usually sharp enough to use as a striker or knife. If you can't find one to your liking, break the boulder again.
7 Methods of Primitive Fire Starting : 7 Steps - Instructables
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Prepping 101: Flameless Food Heaters – New Product Review – Mealspec Ration Heater
in Authors, Prepping 101
Published On: August 16, 2014 Updated: August 16, 2014 BY GunsAmerica Actual
https://cdn-kfnoj.nitrocdn.com/ILCCn...0x300-372x.jpgThis is the Mealspec Ration Heater, in green, next to a 4 serving freeze dried rice dish from Wise foods.
Mealspec Ration Heater
Bulk Packs 12 or More: https://www.mealspec.com/buy-mre-heaters/
Individual $1.95 Each: https://www.campingsurvival.com/meflmrehe.htmlDo you have a “bug out bag”? Many of us do, but even if you are not planning on leaving your safe location should the Apocalypse arrive unscheduled, there is going to be a transition period between normal life, and survival life. During that time you have to be able to cook. Think about that, because if you are going to rely on freeze dried foods, as we suggested in an earlier installment, that means you should have some kind of cooking apparatus that doesn’t require setting up a stove. For this article we got to look at a fairly new product that is just now finding its way into consumer retail. It is called a “ration heater” from Milspec. This product was developed for heating military MREs, which for home prepping are way too expensive per meal, and they don’t have a 15 year shelf life like freeze dried. So we tried to use the $1.99 Mealspec Ration Heater to actually cook a 4 serving rice meal from Wise, part of a popular pack carried by many gunshops, and even Walmart.
https://cdn-kfnoj.nitrocdn.com/ILCCn...0x300-372x.jpgIt works very simply. Open the green bag. Take out the chemical heater pack, put it back in the bag, put your food to be heated. We put the Wise dried ingredients with the measured water into a Zip-Lock, then added the water, then stuffed in the food.
The problem with most MRE heaters is that they just don’t get very hot. For a fully cooked meal, warm is fine, but if you want to cook rice, pasta, or reconstitute freeze dried vegetables and other popular survival foods, you really need some heat, and you need that heat over at least 15-20 minutes. Until now I had yet to find a chemical heater that would deliver this kind of performance. Therefore, this is officially a heads up for our early readers to go buy the Mealspecs until they are sold out, which they will be shortly is my guess.The Mealspec Ration heater works very simply. You open the out plastic bag, take out the chemical heater pack, drop that back into the bag, then add a little bit of water and whatever you want to cook. “EW” you say? You don’t want to dump your freeze dried food in with that chemical heater? Don’t worry. We didn’t either, so we used a gallon sized Zip-Lock to hold the contents of the 4 serving Wise package, and added the requisite reconstitution water to that, and stuffed the whole thing into the heater bag.
https://cdn-kfnoj.nitrocdn.com/ILCCn...0x300-372x.jpgIn seconds the water in the bottom of the bag boils, and that heats the food. It boiled for over 20 minutes.
Within seconds of pouring the water into the Mealspec heater, it boils, then it continues to boil, we found, for at least 20 minutes. You wouldn’t think that little packet could provide that much gumption, but it does. The heater easily cooked the rice to done, and the meal was just as good as if it had been cooked on a stove. This is an AMAZING survival product, and for a couple bucks each, you should buy a bunch of them.Please not that there is a “GEN II” version of this heater coming from Mealspec, and it is called a “Cooking Bag.” I have not yet found them for sale, and I don’t have any review product yet. It appears that the bag is much bigger, 13×11, and it stands up, which is definitely an issue with this model. Heat rises, so you want to stand the bag up and have your food on top. The GEN II also runs for upwards of an hour, so it can boil survival water. As we suggested in our first water article, you are much better off to filter than than boil. But it is a nice convenience. I will buy some of the GEN II when they are available, but I bought 96 of this one, because it is good enough, and CHEAP. I didn’t take the rice out to have someone try it for an hour because I got distracted, and the GEN I bag was still piping hot.
https://cdn-kfnoj.nitrocdn.com/ILCCn...0x300-372x.jpgWe measured the heater under the bag on a plastic table and it held at almost 200 degrees.
This is one of the few products in this Prepping 101 series that we actually got for free as review product, but I did then go and buy a 96 pack of them myself. Ultimately, everyone should have some fuel stove and fuel put aside for long term use. You can cook three meals a day on one propane tank and burner for a family of several for a couple months. But before that new lifestyle begins, there are going to be those transitional meals where you will either be traveling or hunkering down and letting everyone else kill each other for scraps that you will not need. These meal heaters will be extremely value, and well worth their paltry purchase price.Oh, and they are great for camping to. 😛
https://cdn-kfnoj.nitrocdn.com/ILCCn...0x300-272x.jpgThe steam escapes through a hole in the top of the bag. You could theoretically get the contents hotter longer by pinching the bag at the top and letting it off when the bag is in danger of exploding, but try this at your own risk as it is not advised by us or the manufacturer.
https://cdn-kfnoj.nitrocdn.com/ILCCn...0x300-372x.jpgIn about 20 minutes the rice was fully cooked and the vegetables fully reconstituted. An hour later it was still piping hot.
Related Posts:
Prepping 101: Flameless Food Heaters - New Product Review - Mealspec Ration Heater
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Building a simple crystal radio.
A crystal radio is the distilled essence of a radio. It has very few parts, it needs no batteries or other power source, and it can be built in a short time out of things you can find around the house.
The reason a crystal radio does not need any batteries is the amazing capabilities of the human ear. The ear is extremely sensitive to very faint sounds. The crystal radio uses only the energy of the radio waves sent by radio transmitters. These radio transmitters send out enormous amounts of energy (tens of thousands of watts). However, because they are usually far away, and we have at most a few hundred feet of wire for an antenna, the amount of energy we receive with the crystal radio is measured in billionths of a watt. The human ear can detect sounds that are less than a millionth of even that.
We are going to launch right into this chapter by building a working radio using parts that we buy at stores like Radio Shack or through mail order. We will try to use common household objects when we can, but our emphasis will be to quickly put together a radio that works.
Later we will learn more about radios by looking at even simpler versions that might not work as well as our first radio, but can show the important radio concepts more easily, because they have fewer parts.
Then we will improve our radio, making it louder, making it receive more stations, and making it look real nice.
Lastly, we will build each part of the radio from scratch, using things we find around the house. This will take a lot longer than our first radio, but it can be done by replacing store-bought parts one at a time, so we always have a working radio.
Our first radio
For our first radio, we will need these parts:
- A sturdy plastic bottle.I have used the plastic bottle that hydrogen peroxide comes in, or the bottles that used to contain contact lens cleaner. They are about three inches in diameter, and 5 to 7 inches long. Shampoo bottles also work, but you will want to get the ones with thick walls, rather than the thin flimsy ones. This will make it easier to wind wire around them.
- About 50 feet of enamel coated magnet wire.Most common gauges (wire diameters) will work, but thicker wire is easier to work with, something like 22 gauge to 18 gauge. This can be bought at Radio Shack (part number 278-1345), or you can take apart an old transformer or electric motor that is no longer needed. You can also use vinyl coated wire such as Radio Shack part number 278-1217, which in some ways is easier to use than enamel coated wire (it is easier to remove the insulation).
- A Germanium diode.Most stores that sell electronic parts have these. They are called 1N34A diodes (Radio Shack part number 276-1123). These are better for our radio than the more common silicon diodes, which can be used but will not produce the volume that Germanium diodes will. We also carry it in our catalog.
- A telephone handset.You listen to this radio just like you listen to the phone. If you have an old telephone sitting around, or can find one at a garage sale, you are set. Or you can buy the handset cord (Radio Shack part number 279-316) and borrow the handset from your home phone (using it for the radio will not harm it).
- A set of alligator jumpers.Radio Shack part number 278-1156, or you can find them anywhere electronics parts are sold.
- About 50 to 100 feet of stranded insulated wire for an antenna.This is actually optional, since you can use a TV antenna or FM radio antenna by connecting our radio to one of the lead-in wires. But it's fun to throw your own wire up over a tree or on top of a house, and it makes the radio a little more portable.
Use a sharp object like a nail or an icepick to poke four holes in the side of the bottle. Two holes will be about a half an inch apart near the top of the bottle, and will be matched at the bottom of the bottle with two more just like them. These holes will hold the wire in place.
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Thread the wire through the two holes at the top of the bottle, and pull about 8 inches of wire through the holes. If the holes are large and the wire is loose, it is OK to loop the wire through the holes again, making a little loop of wire that holds snuggly.
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Now take the long end of the wire and start winding it neatly around the bottle. When you have wound five windings on the bottle, stop and make a little loop of wire that stands out from the bottle. Wrapping the wire around a nail or a pencil makes this easy.
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Continue winding another five turns, and another little loop. Keep doing this until the bottle is completely wrapped in wire, and you have reached the second set of holes at the bottom of the bottle.
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Cut the wire so that at least 8 inches remains, and thread this remaining wire through the two holes like we did at the top of the bottle. The bottle should now look like this:
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Now we remove the insulation from the tips of the wire, and from the small loops we made every 5 turns (these loops are called 'taps'). If you are using enameled wire, you can use sandpaper to remove the insulation. You can also use a strong paint remover on a small cloth, although this can be messy and smelly. Don't remove the insulation from the bulk of the coil, just from the wire ends and the small loops. If you are using vinyl coated wire, the insulation comes off easily with a sharp knife.
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Next we attach the Germanium diode to the wire at the bottom of the bottle. It is best to solder this connection, although you can also just twist the wires together and tape them, or you can use aligator jumpers (Radio Shack part number 278-1156) if you are really in a hurry.
Cut one end off of the handset cord to remove one of the modular telephone connectors. There will be four wires inside. If you are lucky, they will be color coded, and we will use the yellow and black wires. If you are not lucky, the wires will be all one color, or one will be red and the others will be white. To find the right wires, first strip off the insulation from the last half inch of each wire. Then take a battery such as a C, D, or AA cell, and touch the wires to the battery terminals (one wire to plus and another to minus) until you hear a clicking sound in the handset earphone. When you hear the click, the two wires touching the battery are the two that go to the earphone, and these are the ones we want.
The 'wires' in the handset cord are usually fragile copper foil wrapped around some plastic threads. This foil breaks easily, sometimes invisibly, while the plastic threads hold the parts together making it look like there is still a connection. I recommend carefully soldering the handset wires to some sturdier wire, then taping the connection so nothing pulls hard on the copper foil.
Attach one handset wire to the free end of the Germanium diode. Solder it if you can.
Attach the other wire to the wire from the top of the bottle. Soldering this connection is a good idea, but it is not necessary.
Now clip an alligator jumper to the antenna. Clip the other end to one of the taps on the coil.
Clip another alligator lead to the wire coming from the top of the bottle. This is our 'ground' wire, and should be connected to a cold water pipe or some other metal object or wire that has a good connection to the earth.
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At this point, if all went well, you should be able to hear radio stations in the telephone handset. To select different stations, clip the alligator jumper to different taps on the coil. In some places, you will hear two or more stations at once. The longer the antenna is, the louder the signal will be. Also, the higher you can get the antenna the better.
Now that your radio works, you can make it look better and be sturdier by mounting it on a board or in a wooden box. Machine screws can be stuck into holes drilled in the wood to act at places to attach the wires instead of soldering them. A radio finished this way looks like the following photo. Note the nice little touch of using brass drawer pulls on the machine screws to hold the wire.
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What do I do if my radio doesn't work?
Next: Building a radio in 10 minutes
For more information on radio, see the Recommended Reading section.
Order radio parts and kits here.
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Chapter 4: Radio -- Build a simple crystal radio set. Fast, simple, cheap, and it uses no power.
