The Medicine Bag

     Unlike the modern professional medical bag, the Native medicine bag was a thing of beauty.  It was small, often small enough to wear around the neck.  It was personal, made by the wearer or given as a gift by a spiritual person close to the wearer.  It was filled with the magic of faith that all things could be cured with faith and knowledge of the natural world.  

     The first pictures you may come across when Googling images of the contents of medicine bags may be New Age crystals and little satin baggies of herbs (and crystals).  I am not judging.

www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

     A closer look at a more historical (and possibly stolen) medicine bag (as for years 'archaeologists' just robbed grave sites, which is wrong if your descendents are still living) shows a bag with small bags of healing herbs, salves, and tools.  This bag shown here is Tibetan.  It contained 50 items, small bags of herbs and tools.  Note the deer horn.  It was useful for drinking the prepared medicines.  

     This sounds like the perfect bug out bag for the experienced nature walker.   For someone who is at home in their environment hunting and gathering food a medicine bag, a good knife, a hunting weapon and the knowledge of all the ancestors is all that he needs.  I want more.  But, broken down to only what you can carry, special attention to the medicine bag is essential.  

yummyspoonfuls.wordpress.com 

     I do not recommend carrying a lot of rocks.  It's the weight issue not the faith issue.  If you need a crystal, take the finest you have and the fewest.  After that, consider the herbs.  Many teas made from herbs can be at the very least, soothing but many are curative.  You can carry bottles or bags of aspirin, or acetaminophen or ibuprofen, sure but don't overlook the herbs.  The are lightweight and useful.

botanicalposters.com 

www.buyweddingfavorbags.com

http://teampins.com/supplies.html

     Those handy little organza fabric bags used above, for rocks and also, often for wedding favors, make not only a bag for holding the herbs but a good bag to dunk the herbs in hot water to make tea.  Sure, you can use little plastic bags, but you can't make them into a tea bag and it will look like you are carrying dope!   Use plastic bags for aspirin and pine sap.  Pine sap is sticky, aspirin wants to be moisture protected.  But, use fabric bags for herbs.  Also, you can use those sewing skills to make your own little bags.  

     The best material for a medicine bg worn around the neck is elk skin.  It will age to a nice dark tan as your sweat stains the outside.  (just the outside)  The contents will be dry and clean inside.  Also there are bags made to wear around the neck.  Passport pouches for the traveler are potential personal medicine bags.  

     If you are separated from your bug out bag, your med kit or other supplies, you will still be ahead of the pack with a good knife, a hunting weapon and a medicine bag.  
     

       

     

Personal Organizer/Purse Liner

     I have a great handbag.  It's a Sag Harbor brown suede bag I bought at a thrift store shortly after I bought my first tablet.  I needed a bag To carry the tablet with me.  I decided this was the one because it had a center zippered pocket with credit card slots, a place for my driver's license and four interior pockets.  The slotted center allowed me to stop using a wallet, giving me more room for stuff.  I have used it every day for about a year and a half. I don't know what the original owner paid for it, but I feel I have gotten my $4.94 plus tax out of it.  

How to Make Your Handbag Last Longer

budgetstyle.about.com 

     Recently, I have seen several versions of the interior handbag organizer at yard sales.  I am going to buy one next time I see it.  I think it will make for a great bug out bag for an office worker.  You can get more into a bag if it is organized and what say you to a planned handbag?  I say, Great!  This featured, lined bag has room for a flashlight, a first aid kit and some other items, like a multi tool or a stun gun.  

     If you don't want to carry your bug out liner with you at all times, you could prep a liner and keep it in the desk at work.  In a sudden emergency, open a drawer, dump the purse of it's contents of papers, receipts, and other clutter, then pop in the bug out liner, grab your comfortable shoes and go.  

aceleather.net 

There are several popular designs available.  www.studiokatdesigns.com

      I am always looking for a good way to organize the G.O.O.D. bag and this is pretty god.  Two purposes are served here. If your bag is big enough and you have organized all you can, all you concern yourself with is the weight.  You don't need to carry an extra six to eight pounds on your shoulders everyday.  The purse liner solves the weight issue.  Keep it nearby for ease of access when it's time to go.  A purse liner in a desk drawer or in the boot of the car can be your way out.  

     I also have a back of the seat car organizer with a number of items in it specifically to add to my survivability when I am in the driver's seat.  These also come in a number of styles.  some are soft side, some well structured on a frame.  You could also make a back of the seat organizer with patch pockets from old jeans, or scrap fabric.  Be careful if you are using the video organizer that you have enough of the legal tint on your windows so as to make you vehicle less attractive to the passing thief.

organizedartistry.blogspot.com

     Mine is simple, black, slung low and within a slight twist of the wrist, where I keep the stun gun.  It can also be a life saver when traveling anywhere.  I keep my morning vitamins, a pain relief med, first aid kit, a multi-tool, spare sunglasses and other things in there.  It's good to keep maps, mail or other things that you don't want sliding all around the back seat.  

     

     

www.target.com 

Hidden Space Prep Storage.

     I have posted several notes on lifting beds to get storage space in the past, but there is another dilemma in storage, when it comes to hiding your prep goods.  If you are lucky enough to have a room in your home you can fill with supplies, you can maintain security with a lock on the door.  But, doesn't that make the curious guest or rummaging thief that much more curious?  

     False walls inside a room with the same color paint on them and paintings and family photos are easy to overlook.  Access to this space should be only after the Crunch comes, your perimeter security is set and YOU need your supplies.  Before walls go up, a list of supplies you want stored for the longest time must be made.  

note the 'H' of closet on the left

    I have just interviewed a carpenter with a "history".  He has explained to me not only how new homes are constructed but several tricks used by illegal 'growers' to conceal their activity.  His best suggestion for a hidden room is to study your floor plan.  In homes where two bedrooms share a closet wall with a closet for each room on the same wall will appear as an H on the plans.  Remove the closet door from one closet.  Frame and drywall over the opening.  Go to the other room and cut into the connecting wall of the other closet and build a removable frame and drywall and paint the frame.  

http://uhurufurniture.blogspot.com

    He tells me this is ideal for a safe room or a grow room when no electricity is used in either room except for grow lights.  Okay, that was too much information, but that is what he said!  Occasionally his company did build a soundproof room/hide in case of home invasion, complete with security cameras and separate air vents.  The room that loses it's closet, can be decorated with a wardrobe for storage of clothes.

www.motherearthnews.com 

     Secondly, he states the addition of window seats is a popular waste of space in home building.  these devices are constructed and finished before the carpet guy comes in and are usually bare floor dead space.  If you do not have window seats, consider getting rid of some superfluous furniture and create some 'reading nooks' or cat napping platforms!  

chestofbooks.com

     Build a box from the corner of a room under the window and extended the same distance as from the window to the wall.  Hinges for the access door should be located in the area of the window.  They can be easily concealed with cushions and a cat!  Continue making sense of having a big box in the living area by building bookcases in the areas beside the window all the way to the ceiling.  Occasionally, sit there and read a book.    Note: Hanging a mirror on each side of the bookcases to amplify light and add virtual space back into the room also hides the BOX in the room full of supplies! The picture at the right is a window seat sewing box, but you know better what to put in your new storage space!

     Good places to place window boxes:  A window wall at the end of a hall, In front of a bay window
or even an unused entryway space

     If you are a carpenter, you can make those lovely working doors on the cabinets, but I am a box builder.  I have made window seats for my mother (my mother's cats) and I used the lift top piano hinge on top.  She stores picture frames and projects she is going to do in hers.  (It kills me a little:()  The point is, you can dress the front of your window box with false doors.  Glue the doors to the front and paint over them to match.  

hunchmag.com 

     Almost any space at the end of a hall without windows or entryway is a good place for a false wall or hidden room.

homes.yahoo.com

There is more than one way to use the space under stairs.


     If you are using the crawlspace above your head, the famous FLorida 'half attic', secure the opening by making it look like an air conditioner return or filter.

Secret room: Norwegian tenants discover secret 'WWII bolt hole ...www.miaminewsday.com 

If the Norwegians could secret a resistance in this room for more than sixty years, you too can put away a little something for the future.  Look into this article, there was a WWII map of Britain and Northern France on the wall!  

Top Ten Overlooked Prep Items

     A lot of discussion occurred in my family over the issue of toilet paper.  Each person announced their opinion with the certainty of their own name.  Will stock, won over the will use water and a cloth or the leaf theorists.  Once that was settled, the debate flared up over do you store with the roll in or out?  and if it is out, do you vacuum seal or just press it down into a plastic box and bungee cord the lid on?  It was amazing to me the time and steam devoted to toilet paper! 


     Recently, I was going through a list of prep supplies and realized, there are some items even I have overlooked.  Now, don't get all excited, I am not going to talk weapons and ammo. I am not the expert and this isn't about that.  I have NOT overlooked that issue!  I am talking about the day to day prep items that we use in daily life and just for some reason, don't prep them.

      For example, I am a hairbrush snob.  I have long hair that knots up in the back under certain weather conditions.  I found the absolutely perfect brush that works without ripping out my hair.  It was called the Flair brush by AVON.  Note: I used the phrase was called!  After years of happy use and regularly replacing the brush through my local rep, the powers that run Avon, "new and improved" it.  I held on to my last real flair brush until it broke in half and the bristles fell out.  I looked for another brush that worked as well.

     I have since found a product I like and cost less now than those brushes cost back then (the 70s).  I bought six of them.  I have one in my car, one in my bedroom and four are packed away for posterity.  It doesn't seem like a big deal until you have , no brush for your long stringy knotted up hair, then it's important.  Isn't that the motto of preppers everywhere?  It is better to have one and not need it than to need one and not have it.

     This is my list of top overlooked items preppers could reconsider.

Brushes and combs
Shoe inserts
mess kits and/or eating utensils
can openers (stock more than one)
measuring cups and spoons for home use and work uses
nails and screws and the nuts and the nuts and bolts needed to fix things
Mason jar lids and bands-even if you have a gross of jars and a gross of lids and bands, what about next year?   Stock more lids.
Eyewear and protective eyewear.  If you wear contacts get a pair of glasses too.
ear protection-
power tool back up batteries and backup batteries and backup batteries
a spare pair-spare pair of glasses, spare pair of hearing aids, spare pair of binoculars, pants. socks. shoes, boots.....Two is one, one is none.

Waterproofing Documents

     Waterproofing documents is a good idea.  There are several methods of preserving documents.  Start by sorting the most important documents you need.  Deeds to property, tax receipts, birth certificates, and maps are worthy of special preservation steps.  

Watertight containers for documents are:

www.touratech-usa.com

Space Saver Bags
Vacuum Food saver systems 
Gasket seal airtight food containers
Gasket sealed ammunition containers
Zippered food storage bags with a water seal of tape over the zipper
Patented water seal document bags

www.overboardusa.com

www.gandermountain.com

Methods for water sealing individual documents are:

www.walmart.com

Laminating pages 
Rolling documents into PVC pipe and sealing the ends

www.laminatorwarehouse.com 

Aqua Seal Map and document sealer

http://www.aquaseal.com

Waterproofing documents for posterity is a good idea.  Waterproofing a copy of a document is a better idea.  If you should need to take a document to a courthouse or clerk's office for any reason, it may be a little difficult explaining why everything is laminated, page by page, in case of hurricane, grid down disaster, EMP destruction of the net and digital copies, economic downfall or political crisis.  Whichever reason you are prepping for will still sound like you are a disaster prepper, which then opens you up to judgement.  Whether the judgement is you are a nut or you have supplies to be looted, it's best not to draw attention to yourself, so whenever you can, seal a certified copy against disaster and store it as backup.  

gardening.about.com 

Just for fun, a reminder of youth:
When I was a kid, we used to make placemats with preserved flowers and postcards or pictures in them by laying a piece of waxed paper waxy side up on a stack of newsprint.  We decorated our placemat with freshly picked flowers or pictures from magazines, or greeting cards.  Then we layered the second piece of waxed paper, waxy side down on top.  We placed a couple sheets of newsprint over the stack and ironed it till it was flat and smelled like hot wax!  We cut the edges with pinking shears to make it cute and some of those placemats were still in Gram's placemat drawer over twenty years later when we closed her house.  THis might be an option for those who want to preserve everything!  or preserve everything on the cheap