OJD's Hero of the Month: Richard (Dick) Proenneke

Dick lived in this handmade cabin in Alaska for 30 years.

Survivalism, preparedness, self sufficiency...it's all over the internet today. There are scores of survival podcasts, youtube channels and blogs available at your fingertips 24 hours a day.

You wanna talk about self sufficiency and survival? Let me introduce you to Dick Proenneke. He was born in 1916 in Lee County Iowa. He served in the United States Navy as a carpenter during World War II and worked as a diesel mechanic most of his first 50 years.

What makes him a hero from my point of view?  Around age 52, he moved to a remote part of Alaska, Twin Lakes, and with only a handful of tools, built everything he needed to survive...for the next 30 years. He built a cabin by hand from local trees. He built his food storage on 20 foot stilts so animals couldn't get to it and used a removeable ladder for access. He either grew or caught everything he ate with  few exceptions. Alaskan winters came and went, but he handled it all by himself.

The unique dutch door on his cabin.

The best part of Dick's adventure is that he captured it all on his little 8mm video camera. He documented the whole experience in his personal journal. He took thousands upon thousands of photographs. You can read his writings from 1974-1980 thanks to a link from the National Park Service. He and a brother ended up donating over 90 pounds of journals to the Park Service for posterity. The cabin he lived in is now a popular tourist attraction and kept up by the National Park Service.

At the age of 82, he returned to California to live with his brother. The cold winter months in Alaska had been getting harder and harder for him to endure. He lived four more years and died of a stroke in 2003 at age 86.

A video documentary of his story can be read at IMDB and a copy shows up on youtube from time to time. I'd post a direct link but I'm sure it wouldn't last long due to copyright. I recommend you search youtube for Dick Proenneke and watch some of his life's work. If you like it, order a copy from Bob Swerer.  I recommend Alone in the Wilderness and Alaska, Silence and Solitude.

If you enjoy the outdoors, being self sufficient and prepared, or want to see how one man survived 30 years in the worst weather conditions with only a small amount of hand tools...do yourself a favor and watch Alone in the Wilderness.

Alert! Mountain House Easy Meal Combo Kit at Costco Cheap!

Easy Meal® Combo Kit $339.00

302 Total Servings
18 - #10 Cans

Item # 528480

RatedOverall Rating: 

4.9 out of 5

Rating Snapshot (16 reviews)

5 stars 16 of 16(100%)customers would recommend this product to a friend.

reviews )

Review this product

Share this Product:

$339.99

Shipping & Handling included *





The Easy Meal package contains 18 #10 (gallon size) cans. See below for package contents:

Breakfast Case:

• 1 can of Scrambled Eggs with Ham & Red & Green Peppers (17 servings)
• 1 can of Breakfast Skillet (10 servings)
• 1 can of Granola with Milk & Blueberries (20 servings)
• 1 can of Scrambled Eggs with Bacon (16 servings)
• 1 can of Raw Egg Mix, Butter Flavor (50 servings) – Requires cooking
• 1 can of Sliced Strawberries (16 servings)

Entrée Case:

• 1 can of Lasagna with Meat Sauce (10 servings)
• 1 can of Pasta Primavera, Vegetarian (11 servings)
• 1 can of Beef Teriyaki with Rice (11 servings)
• 1 can of Beef Stroganoff with Noodles (10 servings)
• 1 can of Chicken Teriyaki with Rice (9 servings)
• 1 can of Chili Mac with Beef (10 servings)

Ingredient Case:

• 1 can of Cooked Diced Beef (15 servings)
• 1 can of Cooked Diced Chicken (14 servings)
• 1 can of Cooked Ground Beef (18 servings)
• 1 can of Garden Green Peas (23 servings)
• 1 can of Golden Sweet Whole Kernel Corn (22 servings)
• 1 can of Cut Green Beans (20 servings)

I utilize instant email alerts (which go straight to my droid) on certain survival items. This Mountain House deal came to my droid about an hour ago. I've already purchased this kit (soon after the alert.)

If you are in the market/need for this type of item, please don't hesitate. #10 can from Mountain House are getting VERY hard to find. Not only is it available right now online via Costco but shipping is included AND you don't have to have a membership. My understanding, by reading the reviews on Costco's website for this item, is that they simply charge you a little extra if you don't have a club membership.

It won't last long. These aren't even being sold on MH's website. See for yourself.

Mountain House Easy Meal Combo Kit from Costco $339 + FS

Update: Recieved my box a few days ago. Well packaged and no problems. Thanks CostCo and Mountain House! 18 #10 cans of premium freeze dried food going into storage.

America: Post Nuclear Blast

Started watching the tv series Jericho this weekend with the whole family. I knew very little of the plot other than it was set in a small town and the plot was dealing with life post nuclear explosion. Jericho is actually the name of the small American town where the story plays out.

We're only on episode five but it has been VERY interesting. I have seen it mentioned numerous times on SurvivalBlog as a post catastrophic survival series. Now that I've become interested in watching, I've gone back to SurvivalBlog and done a dedicated search for the word "Jericho."

This search turned up numerous articles referencing the series. Several people mention how their prepping REALLY got kicked into high gear after watching this show. Many people used it to open the eyes of their spouses as to why they need to prep for emergencies. One person went back and re-watched the series to get ideas on how the citizens of the town communicated after all the electronics stopped working.

I was actually asked many good questions from my daughters as the story unfolded. "How long does a nuclear explosion last," "what would we do if that happened to us," etc. This gave me a backdrop to explain the uses of our Bug Out Bags, besides just going hiking, the purpose of a retreat, etc.

I won't recommend it as a "must see" show on survival until I watch the whole thing myself. I will say that a quick IMDB search indicates the series was stopped before season two ended and I'm pretty bummed about that. I just hope, as Wifey verbalized, that this show isn't a Hollywood preview of our future...like Oil Storm.

Successful Gardening Seeds From SeedsForSecurity.com

Indian Corn (Link to purchase)

Wifey and I are new to gardening. We have two man-made gardening containers: cinder block pictured below with corn and raised box gardens. These have bags of soil and fertilizer from the local gardening center. Our other backyard garden area is simply hard, Arizona dirt. The same goes from our front yard garden. We purposely plant in both improved and unimproved gardens to see what works and what doesn't.

So far, we've had terrific results. In plain dirt, lettuce (pictured) has done VERY well. The butternut squash is starting to really take off. We have several little ones that play in the dirt and it is possible that seeds get dug up from time to time (or seedlings pulled out.) I covered all raised gardens with bird net to discourage critters and rugrats (cats, birds, and kids).

Most of our seeds were bulk purchased from SeedsForSecurity.com. We didn't know where to get our start in gardening seeds and took a chance on an internet ad displayed at InfoWars.com. We bought the Super Survival Pack.

SeedsForSecurity has turned out to be a terrific source for high quality seeds. We highly recommend them and we are NOT sponsored to say that in any way. Here are some of the plants we have grown using SeedsForSecurity:


 

Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage (Link to purchase)



Lettuce

Not pictured yet:

peas (Super Survival Pack)

french beans (Super Survival Pack)

cattle beans (Super Survival Pack)

waltham butternut squash (Link to purchase)

cucumber

sugar pumpkin (Link to purchase)

Prepping One Step At A Time...At Alternative Cache Locations.

I was reading through yet another terrific blog post at Rural Revolution regarding how much cash to keep on hand versus utilizing the current value of cash to purchase tangible assets. It all follows the bigger question of how to prepare for your family when it doesn't seem like there is any disposable income left after bills are paid. The answer: do what you CAN do and find some peace knowing that you are working towards a goal.

Save money by eating simple meals at work: soup & water.

How do you know what you CAN do? Write out a plan. Do the math. Figure out what you need for YOUR situtation and write it down. Then break it up into little steps. One source is the LDS food storage calculator. It says a family of four, for a three month supply of basic food, needs 300 pounds of wheat and 60 pounds of beans/legumes. That's $137.40 in wheat and $89 in beans, according to the LDS Family Home Storage Center pdf file. Total is $226.40 and divide by 12 months gives you $18.87 per month that you need for a (very) basic food supply that feeds four people for three months.

Now of course you'll want more than wheat and beans. This simple meal plan was simply to illustrate how to break down something seemingly daunting into smaller, more achievable goals. There are tons of food lists from all kinds of perspectives listed all over the internet. Find one that suits you and break it down into small, manageable chunks.

Food storage: start with a little and keep adding.

I need more space to store food, for example. I realized I had an empty locker at work which would make a great place to store a little canned food. Since I spend a lot of time at work and therefore eat meals at work, it makes perfect sense for me to store food there. It gives me more storage space AND decreases the chances I'll run out for a burger or tacos knowing that I have food already here. I can't afford to just run to the store and buy 30 cans of Campbells Chunky soup to fill my locker so I'll start with a few cans and add from there. Small steps towards a bigger goal of filling the locker.

Make a plan and get started...TODAY!

Bartering Has Officially Started (For Our Family)

We were officially asked to barter tonight. After a very informative "Date Night" event, we stayed and talked with some neighbors. Turns out they have an abundance of pasta and toothpaste. We mentioned how we were swimming in deoderant and they offered to trade. Great!

I've read for a while how helpful bartering would become in our coming "great recession" but I guess I just wasn't quite thinking about putting it into action yet. We were stocking up on just about ANYTHING we could get for free for a while but recently we've only been going after the things we KNOW we'll use.


I was getting pretty addicted to "wagging" (shopping at Walgreens) a few years ago and attained a large stockpile of stuff for pennies. For example, I have a good amount of Resveratrol and assorted medicines that I'll probably never use. I'm pretty sure, based on CraigsList and eBay sales queries, that someone somewhere will want it and I can trade.

So I think we'll go back to stockpiling things that are near free, even if we don't plan to use them ourselves. You never know who might need it or what other uses you might find for it.

I remember reading Kellen Bishop's blog where she figured out how to use her alcohol-based hand sanitizer for multiple uses, including fire starting and acne fighter.

Date Night Topic: Top 5 Reasons for Divorce

We were blessed tonight with the invitation of a Date Night event at our church. I've never been to one so I had no idea what to expect. With six daughters, a "date night" is somewhat of a unicorn concept: I've heard of it but can't remember the last time I saw one :-)

After our teen/preteen aged children were set up with dinner and chores, we headed to our church. Upon arrival we found about ten tables set up with about four couples per table. We helped ourselves to a generous amount of homemade lasagna and salad. Someone snuck in Papa John's cheese breadsticks and they were wonderful too.

Towards the end of our dinner, our Bishop stood up and announced that he had a topic of discussion he wanted to share with us. As a divorce lawyer, he admitted that he never dreamed as a child that his field of expertise would end up being prenuptual agreements and he wondered how all this divorce experience would ever serve him and those around him.

For the next 45 minutes, he shared with us the top five reasons that he has personally seen destroy marriages. He hoped that by sharing his experience with us regarding what he has seen ruin so many other marriages would enable us to make our marriages more successful and avoid the many pitfalls in our society today.

He estimates he has mediated around 1000 divorces and these five problems are the majority of the causes for marriage failures.

#5 - Unmedicated mental illness. This is regarding people who have known mental issues but choose NOT to medicate properly. Some medicate improperly with alcohol or other drugs which causes problems. Some refuse to follow their presciption medication for whatever reason and it leads to problems. When asked which mental illness he saw most, he stated Depression.

#4 - "Hen-pecking" is what he called it. He also verbalized a disclaimer that he was not solely singling out women as the perpetrators. This is a catch phrase more popularly called "nagging." He said it leads to diminished self esteem and that can certainly lead to an unhappy marriage. He sees it in both men and women, where one spouse constantly "rides" the other about not doing things the "right" way. After years of trying to please the spouse, some people choose to give up and divorce.



#3 - Pornography. This needs no explaination. What I did learn though was that different people classify pornography in different ways. Some people see the front page of tabloids at the grocery market checkout stands displaying partially see-through bathing suits as being pornographic. Others think it has to have the word Playboy or complete nudity to be considered porn. Regardless, he states he is seeing less and less of this as a reason for divorce. It IS common to see it grouped with one or more of the top five listed here, but it is not seen by itself as much as he thought it would. He emphasized that he in NO way is downplaying pornography as an important issue. He simply stated that it can be dealt with, repented for, and fixed. Other issues on this list (especially #1) can't be simply medicated or repented.

#2 - Sex. I did not hear whether he was reporting on problems with sexual relations between marriage partners, per se, or problems of infedelity (sex outside the marriage.) Regardless, he stated that although this definitely ranked in the top two of acts that led to divorce, he clearly verbalized that it was no where near as common as the number one reason for divorce.

#1 - Debt. We talked about how, in our society today, it is consciously acceptible to buy things on credit, take on massive debt, AND brag about it. The phrase "Keeping up with the Joneses" was used to demonstrate how so many people buy the latest gadget, newest car, biggest house on the block just to (attempt to) impress other people. He noted how his grandparents bought their house for $25,000 (a LONG time ago) and never attempted to refinance. During the housing bubble, this $25k house would have sold for $700,000 and yet they stayed. Their generation paid cash for everything and put nothing on credit. His main point was that money isn't everything. His grandparents had very little money, still have very little money and have lived a full and happy life.

So there you have it. A successful divorce attorney sharing his first-hand knowledge on how to avoid divorce. I study many resources but when it comes to first-hand knowledge, theories and hypotheses go to the back of the line.

Water Use Reality Check

I've read we can go weeks without food but not very many days without water. With that being said, water should be the number one priority for preparedness and survival during hard economic times. Adequate preparedness requires studying what is available in YOUR immediate area. If what YOU need isn't available within a reasonable distance, you might want to consider moving. This is something I am currently pondering given that I live in the desert and our water supply can be very limited in the event of a disaster.

A recent news story revealed that a local city wastewater treatment employee, angered that he didn't get a raise among other issues, was attempting to blow up a quarter city block along with the water treatment plant. The explosion wouldn't have reached my neighborhood but it would have surely affected our water supply.



Living in the desert landscape of an Arizona suburb, I immediately see that water resources could become very scarce. In a VERY short term supply interuption, our 55 gallon drums will be fine. Combined with our Berkey water filter, we'll be adequately supplied for a week of consumption and cleaning.

However, in a longer case scenario, I'll need to find a reliable source of continuous supply. Water BOBs, hot tubs and swimming pools will only last so long. Especially if I'm not the only one out of water.

I started by googling "aerial water maps" and found that the University of Arizona has a terrificly vivid map showing watersheds, supply vs demand, annual rainfall, groundwater basins, and water quality.

Geology.com also lists several maps including waterfalls, rivers and lakes, satellite images and more.

This reinforced what I already knew. There are no lakes or rivers near my house. So what about catching my own rainfall? A quick trip to this website shows my average monthly rainfall for the year. Looks like I'll get an average of one inch of rainfall each month with the exception of our incredibly hot June/July months.

One measly inch per month? What good would that do? According to this helpful website, "for every inch of rain that falls on a catchment area of 1,000 square feet, you can expect to collect approximately 600 gallons of rainwater." Since my house is just over 2000 sq ft, I could hope to catch 1,200 gallons per month (notice I said "hope".) Using my 55 gallon drums, I would need 22 drums to store this water. I found a supplier of 1500 gallon tanks online for $579 + shipping.

How much do I need? Let's calculate what I use based on what my utiliy company reports. My utility bill shows my house used an average of 14 CCFs per month for the past year. To determine CCFs in gallons, multiple CCFs by 748 or 14x748 = 10,472 gallons per month is what my house uses. Wow! Doing this blog really helps understand how much we are using. Contrasting our ability to collect 1200 gallons of rainwater against our use of 10,472 gallons is an eye opener. Bare in mind that should our water supply become compromised, our water usage for landscaping, long showers, etc would STOP. Still, I had to take pause here as I realize how much we take for granted.

It adds up for a family of eight; showers, consumption, laundry, landscaping (HOA says we MUST have 12 plants in our front yard), dishwashing and general cleaning. Its easy to take for granted. My recent water bill was under $40 for 9900 gallons. Of course, the wastewater bill is calculated based on 90% of the water consumed and is therefore almost equal in cost.

Take the time to figure out what YOU use and plan accordingly. Obviously, I have more work to do on planning for our water needs.

Survival Mindset Surfaces at Disneyland

It is interesting how perspectives can change as life moves along. It has been less than two years since I started learning about preparedness and survival. I've been somewhat of an empath long before attaining my bachelors degree in psychology but the barrage of people and varying circumstances this past weekend at Disneyland brought out a heightened sense of survivalism in my mind. Things I probably wouldn't have thought about had I not been studying preparedness and survivalism.

It started on the road trip to California. Some 200 miles west of Phoenix, we stopped for gas. I found myself waiting at a gas pump which could not reach my tank due to the limited length of the pump rope, the long length of my suburban, and the fact that the jackass in front of me pumping gas was too self-absorbed to pull-through to the farthest pump allowing someone to successfully follow behind him.

After securing my gas, I entered the gas station. Typical interstate gas station hustling with passersby. One lady, I noticed however, was only looking at the floor as she walked up and down the isles. She caught my puzzled look and asked if I had seen any car keys on the floor. Long story short, her keys were misplaced. Outside the store, frantically searching her car, was the woman's 30-something daughter (I'm guessing) and three toddlers.

Without going into all the details, turns out the keys were in the daughter's purse the entire time. My brain played out the survival lesson: always have spare keys. I thought to myself "What if that'd been me, with lost keys, 200 miles from home, and a suburban full of family?" I rationalized that with my wife's set of keys, we have a backup...if we are traveling together AND we don't lock BOTH of them in the car (six kids, it can happen).

So to be more prepared, I will put a hide-a-key box somewhere under the vehicle. It should be placed somewhere that isn't easily detected or jarred loose and checked frequently. Alternatives include a credit-card key for wallets, AAA membership for lock-outs, and checking with my car insurance company for lock-out coverage.

Next came parking in a stacked parking garage (on the third level) in order to get to our hotel room on the 9th floor. My survival brain quickly conjured up an earthquake scenario (have you seen how many small earthquakes Cali is having daily?) I'm pretty much screwed on this one. If the suburban gets pancaked in the garage, or the hotel for that matter, I have NO backup to that. I tried to focus on other things. Survival lesson: you can't control or prepare for everything.

Lastly, I'll briefly mention being somewhere underground on the Indiana Jones ride when the announcement could barely be heard that the ride was stopped for an indefinite period of time. I stood in that narrow stairwell with my daughters (age 12, 10 and 5) wondering what I would do if the power went out (thanks to the flickering, dimly lit lamps overhead). My darn droid battery was hovering around 5%, as usual. So much for the flashlight app. One daughter had her phone and it was low battery as well. I have no doubts I could have navigated back out of that underground catacomb but not without a light source. My backup source (to my cell phone flash light app) would be my LED lit house key. After that would be my very dimly lit wrist watch light. I have used both to navigate my house in the middle of the night to avoid stepping on Barbie dolls and hair clips (again, six daughters.) Perhaps a mini mag lite on my keychain wouldn't hurt.

Gone are the days of just walking blindly around Disneyland without a care in the world. Survival favors the prepared and this is one dad dedicated to family survival.

What do YOU carry when you go to a publicly crowded place like Disneyland?