Gun Show and Pie

Yesterday, the family went up to the big city to attend a gun show. We were looking for 1 - 30 millimeter ammunition can, and a couple of EMT shears. While there we came across several booths where Survival Groups were displaying and selling some of their products. 

The Blue Collar Tactical booth displayed survival food from Wise Company Quality Prepared Meals.

http://bluecollartactical.com/Wise_Food.html

Blue Collar Tactical also has over 100 different guns in stock from all Major Manufacturers.  They will also buy and trade all kinds of items (guns, ammo, accessories, jewelry, etc….).

Another vendor, Jennifer Lappin with Rocky Mountain Survival Gear, L.L.C., is a distributor of camping and survival gear. The booth was promoting their most advanced state of the art water purification products.  Check out their website:

http://rockymountainsurvivalgear.com/index.html

After spending hours walking around looking at guns, ammo, survival gear and meeting wonderful people, we left the gun show with our 1 - 30 millimeter ammunition can, and two pair of EMT shears.  Oh and 1 – K-Bar!

Pie Pumpkins, YUM!!!!!

I scrubbed the outside of two medium sized pie pumpkins, then cut out the stem, sliced each pumpkin in half and scraped out the membrane along with the seeds.  I then set the seeds aside to clean and save for next year’s planting.  I sliced the pumpkin into pieces and placed the pieces into a large pot to steam (there’s a steaming tray in the bottom of the pot).  After steaming for 25 – 30 minutes, I pulled the pumpkin pieces out of the pot carefully to make sure I didn’t get burned and put all the pieces into a bowl to cool.  I cut the outside of the pumpkin away from the actual pumpkin meat.  I placed the pumpkin meat in a separate bowl.  (Make sure to pull out any brown spots or skin).  Then I used a mixer, (you can use either a food processor or blender as well) and mixed the mash until it’s like batter.  Then add the wet and dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Place batter into 2 (9 inch homemade pie crusts).

                      Homemade Pumpkin Pie Batter Ingredients

2 medium pie pumpkins

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1 can evaporated milk

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Place batter into pie crust, this recipe requires (2) 9inch crusts.

Oven temperature 350 degrees, cook for 40 minutes or tooth pick comes out clean test.

(You can add clove if you would like, I don’t because I’m not a big fan, also, I don’t spice my pies heavily).

Refrigerate after cool.

Note: If you like canned pumpkin, there is a big difference in the taste with fresh pumpkin, it tastes more like squash. 

Welcome - Join - Thank You - Oatmeal - Army Surplus - Give - Away

   

   

I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Terri at Terri Buster.  Thank you for joining my blog.  Hey Blogger friends, check out these blogs, you won’t be disappointed.  Glad to have you following my blog, please sit back and enjoy the ride.                                    

Flower picture above from HawaiiDermatology.com 

                                                                                                                                                                                     

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Our Saturday morning breakfast, Amish Baked Oatmeal, came from a recipe posted by Katie on My Old Kentucky Homestead blog.  I used blueberries as the fruit on the bottom of the pan.  My entire family loved the oatmeal.  This recipe is a keeper!  As Katie did in her post, I cut back the amount of sugar the recipe required.  For your convenience, I have enclosed the link to Katie’s recipe. http://myoldkentuckyhomestead.blogspot.com/2012/08/amish-baked-oatmeal.html

                                                                                                                           

     

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Later in the afternoon, Bulldog Man and I headed into town to visit a local army surplus store.  I had every intention on spending some money to pick up a few things we had on our wish list and we came across a few other items we didn’t have on the list.

We purchased a new military green cloth tool case.  I plan on using it for a smaller first aid kit to replace the one in our truck.  Bulldog man picked up an ammo can we needed.  He also picked up another flash light, this one was small and it will replace the other one that just broke.  It’s a neat little flash light from Redline, with 220 lumens of supreme brightness – 150 yard visibility.  Options of several different modes:   220 lumens, 110 lumens, 22 lumens, S.O.S. mode, and defensive strobe. The body is made from anodized aircraft grade aluminum, has a powerful magnetic base, and a rear, glow in the dark, tactical button.   We also purchased a new Tactical vest, reasonably priced, at under $20.00. 

The yellow square is a sticker with the price,
 it since has been removed.

Tool bag, going to make it a first aid kit for my truck.

  

Our son has been looking for a baseball type cap with the logo “Don’t Tread on Me.” We found a cap there and picked it up for him. We also found this gallon bag full of gun cleaning patches relatively cheap compared to Academy or Bass Pro Shop. The army surplus store used a military backpack cover as an actual store bag to carry out our merchandise.  Bulldog Man and I spent nearly an hour in the surplus store and that was not enough time to see everything. I think we’re going to have to make another stop at the surplus store in the next week or two. Now I’m going to have to bring cash and set a limit because a person can really drop some cash shopping here J 

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Give – Away

I’m sponsoring another great give – away.  Have you registered yet? Click on this link below and follow the instructions to register for a CRKT Pazoda Knife and Eatn’Tool give – away. You have until Friday, September 7^th to get registered.  http://oklahomatransient.blogspot.com/2012/08/give-away-pazoda-knife-eatn-tool.html

Emergency Radio - Carrot Harvest - Dinner

 We’ve been looking for an emergency radio with shortwave reception. Bulldog Man came across the Kaito, KA009R 4 Way Powered Emergency Crank Radio with Shortwave Antenna T1 to add to our preparedness gear (great for camping, during storms, bug out, etc...).  The radio has a 10 band world receiver, long range AM receiver, aviation band, NOAA weather band, TV1/TV2 channels, high sensitivity FM band, 4 shortwave bands, super bright led flashlight, with cell phone charging capabilities.  The radio can be powered by Dynamo crank, solar panel, AC/DC adapter, AA batteries or 110V electric power.  It’s a great deal (we picked up one), and can be purchased at http://www.campingsurvival.com for the sale price of $34.96.

I harvested half of our carrots this afternoon from the above ground garden box to provide additional space for more growth. I took the harvested carrots, cleaned them up and placed them in the steamer as part of tonight’s dinner.  The main course was another vegetable, the potato (not from the garden). The potatoes were scrubbed and then baked in the oven on a cookie sheet with olive oil rubbed on the exterior.  The baking sheet and potatoes were covered with tin foil, this allows the bottoms to become hard and crunchy (we like to eat the skin). Several options were made available to place on the baked potatoes.  They were butter, sour cream, cottage cheese, cheese, broccoli, mushroom, onions and bacon.  The meal was very good, a little healthy and maybe not, LOL……..

  

  

What was for dinner at your house?

Changing The Color Of Your World - Coca Cola - Storms

When it’s time to bug out and lay low, do you really want to find yourself in bright colored clothing?  Wearing bright colored clothing only reveals your location and can potentially make you a target. As part of OPSEC, I would make sure to change into clothing less obvious.  You want to blend in to your surroundings.  Wear natural tones like browns, tans, blacks, greens, rust, or even white depending on your bug out location and the time of year (based on seasons).  To do this, it may require changing the color of clothing.  I’m not saying you need to go out and buy everything camouflaged because this could be extremely expensive.  What I am saying is go buy and keep on hand several bottles or packets of color dye.  These can be picked up at usually any grocery store, drug store, and even a convenience store.  They’re relatively in- expensive.  The dyes come in a multitude of colors.  You can even color your clothes in different combinations of colors.  Have some colored clothing on hand for preparation when you bug out. 

You can use this dye to help color additional items around your home or bug out site, like curtains or items that have faded.  It’s just a thought…..what’s your thoughts on using colored dye?

Coca Cola…….I have not had Coca Cola in years.  The other day, I went into town to a Mexican market to pick up some spices and came across Coca Cola processed in Mexico.  Now the Mexican Coca Cola is processed with real sugar, unlike those processed in the United States.  So of course I had to pick up a few bottles as a treat for the family and poor Beans missed out.  He was just sitting next to the empty bottle looking for his Coca Cola….. J

More storms rolling into our area of Oklahoma.  Check out the wall clouds rolling in above my head and the movement which could have formed into tornadoes.  Luckily for me, the temperatures were a little too cold for a tornado to form over my head (so cool, it gave me goose bumps).    Have a great evening everyone and for those Okies--be careful out there, storms will be with us tonight, through tomorrow.



Birds eating bread and bird seed before the storm hits





Wall cloud moving in at a rapid speed



Storm moving right over us, below are 2 videos showing circular movement and so dropping clouds



Oklahoma Prepping

For over a week our local News Channel 9 advertised a segment on prepping, making it sound as if you were going to learn something. Their commercials ran numerous times daily for approximately 5 days. “Tune in Monday, the 21st of May at 10:00PM for the story.” Okay, so Bulldog Man and I stayed up to tune into the segment. To our despair we were totally disappointed, the segment only last 2 minutes and 42 seconds and we learned absolutely nothing. Am I being petty, was I expecting to much? What are your thoughts?

Water Filtration

Since my dental surgery ate a hole in our budget for buying the Big Berkey water filtration system, we decided to make our own water filtration system.  We started investigating blog posts and anything we could capture off the internet on making your own water filtration system.  When we came across a blog post by Mike Yukon at http://livingprepared.blogspot.com/, he wrote “Gravity Fed, Safe Drinking Water Filter” dated January 28, 2011.  His post provided a brief instruction, a list of all the materials, and the sources needed to create your water filtration system.  From there, we ordered the materials and within 1 ½ weeks we received everything.   Bulldog Man finished this project in less than 20 minutes, including cleaning all the buckets and filters. He also went ahead and placed water in the black bucket (raw water). This will take approximately 12 hours to filter through the ceramic filters into the blue bucket (safe water).  Of course we want to run water through the system several times before using it.  I have provided several pictures below of the process and final product.



Supplies









Drill holes in the bottom of raw water bucket for filter attachment.

   

Attaching Filters



Attached Filters



Safe Water Bucket Lid, Marked Where Filters Will Sit, Bulldog Man Drills Holes



Clean Up Holes

Bulldog Man Drills A Hole In The Safe Water Bucket For Spigot



Bulldog Man Placing Spigot Into Safe Water Bucket With Beans Watching



Spigot In Safe Water Bucket



Final Product, A Water Filtration System!!!!



With completing this project, we saved $200.00.





TGIF - Thank You - Pizza - WATER!!!!

Thank you to Abbe @ Chaos, blog name http://abbeflynn.blogspot.com  and Double B Homestead for joining my site. Please sit back and enjoy the ride!!!

On Wednesday’s post I made Italian bread.  Today, I used the same dough recipe and made pizza crust.  The pizza turned out fantastic and the family loved it.  There’s enough to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

We received our materials today by UPS to start our water filtration system.  Bulldog Man opened up the boxes and took inventory on the small items needed to complete the job. In a couple of minutes, we will be running into town to hit up Home Depot for the parts (drill bits).  I’m so excited that we will have a filtration system that works.  We were initially going to buy a Berkey (which is gorgeous and a bit expensive since we had to pay for my oral surgery), when we came across a post by Mike Yukon at http://livingprepared.blogspot.com/search/label/Water about building your own filtration system.  His post even identified the items needed to build the water system along with the instructions to put it together.  With purchasing the materials and building the system ourself we will be able to save around $220.00.  Sometime over the next week Bulldog Man will be putting our water filtration system together (I will take pictures and post the finished product to my blog).    

Don't forget about the Give Away, refer to Tuesday's, post.

Electric Lights

Electric lights, a feature we’ve been using since the creation of the electric light bulb by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879 (patented January 27, 1880).  So many people take electric lights for granted.  What if your light’s source is not available?  Maybe a storm rolls through, or your electric company decides to participate in the rolling black outs to save on electric in order to service all residents without overloading generators and power stations. 

Do you have a secondary means of light for your home and business?  Are you prepared?  There are so many sources out there to fall back on.  Solar, wind and generator are great for power sources, but what about light?  Do you have stored light sources?  Items purchased or made, such as:  camping lights/lanterns, oil lamps, candles, flash lights, solar lights, book lights, outdoor solar lights, matches, and lighters. 

After living through multiple hurricanes (specifically hurricane Andrew with 200 MPH winds, this was the first time I was really scared), power outages and now tornadoes; I’ve learned to make sure all rooms in my house have some form of lighting other than electric. For emergencies, every bedroom has a flash light next to the bed.

As always, with open flame sources of light, extreme caution MUST be used.