Great Friends, Perfect Weather...and Fully Automatic Weapons!

I almost declined when my friend from the local police department invited me out for a day of shooting. The "Range Practice" fell smack dab in the middle of church hours. After mulling it over for a bit I realized that no one would (or should) fault me for spending a few hours honing my gun skills which could ultimately protect or provide for my family.

I loaded up my shiny new shotgun which I had purchased for home protection several months earlier and headed out in the O.J. (orange jeep). I haven't fired a gun in several years and this was the virgin outting for my shotgun.

By the time the afternoon was over, I had fired an HK and AR rifle, 9mm handgun and my shiny new Remington 12 guage. I had a pinpoint blood blister on the tip of my trigger finger and my shoulders were a bit sore. I could feel the heat radiating from my head thanks to a mild sunburn across my forehead.

I helped pick up all the spent casings and thanked my friends for inviting me. My shooting knowledge and skills had increased (that's easy to do when you start at zero) and I couldn't stop smiling the whole drive home.

RANGE DAY GEAR
Keep your gear in good shape after a day at the range:

• Gun Cleaning Kit — keeps your firearms in top shape.
• Shooting Ear & Eye Protection Set — essential safety gear for the range.

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Raised Box Gardens from Used Wooden Pallets.

I've seen pallets around for years and heard of raised-box gardening but I never would have thought it would be happening in my own back yard.

As my wife and I get more deeply active in self sustainability, we are trying more and more new things. This weekend some friends from church came over and showed me how to tear down old wooden pallets and reassemble them into raised box garden frames.

My picture shows the end product of all three frames that were built. About three hours of time, hard work and wood screws were the only necessary ingredients (oh, and the power drill and circular saw!)

I'm sure there are several videos scattered about the internet explaining how to build these little beauties much better than I could explain. Suffice it to say it was time well spent and we now have an additional 9 cubic feet of garden per box to grow additional food for our family.

DIY RAISED BED SUPPLIES
Building your own raised beds from pallets or scrap wood? These help:

• Exterior Wood Screws — sturdy fasteners for outdoor garden builds.
• Garden Bed Liner — helps protect wood and retain soil.

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A Day at the Office - Renal Infarct CT Scan

I couldn't resist posting this unusual scan I performed recently. It happens to be a friend of mine but identity isn't important. What started out as right flank pain became so severe that "Bob" came to my Emergency Room.

A routine CT Abdomen&Pelvis and Renal Ultrasound showed nothing other than a right renal cyst on the inferior pole. The patient was discharged home only to return later that night (on my shift) with increased pain. Evaluation of a second set of bloodwork showed a marked increase in white blood cells so the ER Physician decided to order a second CT Abdomen&Pelvis but with IV and PO contrast dye this time.

The image attached to this blog post shows a fully enhanced left kidney (its on the right side of the screen) and a poorly enhanced right kidney. The right kidney appears to only be receiving contrast dye in the upper and lower poles. The middle pole is almost non-existent.

With these images, the medical team was able to discern a renal infart or possible discection was in play and "Bob" was taken to the Cath Lab for stenting. He is doing much better now, one week later, and is schedule for more follow up testing to check perfusion rates.

Two is One, One is None...Be Redundant.

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Two is One, One is None...Be Redundant.

Redundancy is key to serenity. Its when you have only one important item and it gets damaged, lost, etc that you find out how important redundancy is. Here's a short list of important items and how I've built in redundancy.

Income- (1) My main job (Sonography, Radiography). (2) My part-time job (See #1, different hospital). (3) My wife is nationally certified in Radiology and can work if necessary.

Income skills- (1) Trained in Sonography. (2) Trained in Computed Tomography. (3) Trained in Radiography.

Transportation- (1) The family Suburban. (2) The family Jeep. (3) My auto insurance includes rental car coverage should one of my cars becomes disabled.

Food- (1) Our biweekly grocery run. (2) Our garden and short term food storage. (3) Our long term (25+ years) food storage.

Water- (1) House/city water. (2) 55-gallon drums x 12 in the backyard. (3) Bottled water in the garage.

Shelter- (1) Our house. (2) Our family retreat 2+ hours north of town (3) a retreat property with no shelter but we have tents, sleeping bags, etc for now.

Entertainment- (1) Electronic games. (2) A ton of movies/cartoons stored on a hard drive. (3)MacBook with solar panel recharger.

Water filtration- (1) Berkey water filter with 2 black Berkey ceramic filters + pf2 x 2 filters. Filters 3 gallons per hour. (2) Sand filter. (3) Boiling/plastic bottle in the sun sterilizing.

Cooking- (1) Indoor stove & microwave. (2) Outdoor propane bbq grill x 2. (3) Dutch ovens to cook on charcoal/wood fires.

Areas I need to work on:

Communication- (1) Five cell phones in our immediate family. (2) I want to purchase a mobile ham radio for the Jeep and a home ham radio for the house. (3) Garmin Nuvi handheld sets.

Food caches- I only have food stores at our main house. A majority of our meat is stored in a standup freezer ($10 freezer alarm on Amazon). If we lose power, there goes the meat! (searching for propane freezer). Can also store food in a locker at work for secondary cache or at our retreat property up north. (Update: filled work locker with cans of Campbell's soup. Headed up North this weekend to begin stocking BugOut location.)

Firearms- One lonely shotgun :-(

Excretion- Two bathrooms in the house. Need porta-potty ($22 on Amazon) just in case there are plumbing issues. Last resort would be to dig a latrine. (Update: have added the bucket porta-potty above)

Power- Totally dependent on the grid with the exception of my little solar charger (made for cell phones and laptops). Would like a gas generator (several on Amazon) and maybe, just maybe, a solar-powered portable system.

Washing Clothes- Aside from our indoor washer/dryer, that's it. I'd like to add a WonderWash. Last option would be a washtub. (Update: have added WonderWash x 2)

What did I forget?

Using Chicken Tractors to Raise Chickens.

I'm interested in raising chickens in my backyard. I'm sure it is harder than I think it is but I just found another way to, perhaps, make it a bit easier.

I shuddered at the thought of letting the chickens "free range" or roam freely about my lavishly green grassed back yard. Then I read about the chicken tractor and felt a little more at ease.

Why? Because with a chicken tractor, the chickens can free range while still being confined to a mobile chicken coop.

Wikipedia says: "Chicken tractors allow a kind of free ranging along with shelter, allowing chickens fresh forage such as grass, weeds and bugs (although these will quickly be stripped away if the tractor stays put for too long), which widens their diet and lowers their feed needs. Unlike fixed coops, chicken tractors do not have floors so there is no need to clean them out. They echo a natural, symbiotic cycle of foraging through which the birds eat down vegetation, deposit fertilizing manure, then go on to a new area."

CHICKEN RAISING SUPPLIES
Getting into backyard chickens? These help:

• Portable Chicken Tractor Coop — lets chickens graze fresh ground safely.
• Chicken Feeder & Waterer Set — keeps your flock fed and watered.

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Storing Cooked, Dehydrated Hamburger

I found an interesting thread on how to cook, then dehydrate meats like hamburger, turkey, pork etc. The original thread is here.

From the thread:

"Recipe:

Fry 5lbs of ground meat. When cooked transfer to colander and rinse meat under hot water to remove fat. Place washed meat back into cleaned skillet. fry again over med/low heat stirring often until you see no more steam. Keep flame low once the rocks are browing up nicely.

Place twice cooked rocks into an oven roasting pan. Turn the oven to 200 degrees F, stirring and turning occaisionally as meat continues to dry. One to two hours should do the job. Remove from oven and check for dryness. Store in Jar or ziplock bag.

If you want to "can" the hamburger rocks for long term storage, preheat canning jars in the oven at 250, simmer lids as usual. Put the rocks into the jars while hot, then seal jars. After 15 minutes or so the jars will cool and you will hear the jar lids "pop" as they seal in place.

I love this method because there is no expensive pressure canner involved. The credit for this recipe goes to Mrs Miles from the End Times Report site. She also has a great recipe for canned butter you might like on her site."

With a dehydrator:

"I just fry line til the fat runs off, then rinse them and stick them into the dehydrator...it seesm to make them more tender that way. I also make pebbles and gravel this way...just cut the meat a bit larger.

Turkey and pork are also good like this."

FOOD DEHYDRATING SUPPLIES
Want to dehydrate your own meat for storage? These help:

• Food Dehydrator — great for making shelf-stable meat and produce.
• Mylar Bags with Oxygen Absorbers — ideal for long-term dehydrated food storage.

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HOW TO DEAL WITH SOMALI MUSLIM PIRATES

The Russians have the right idea: Seize and Destroy (watch the video).