Long Term Vitamin Storage for your Preparedness Plans

Long Term Vitamin Storage for your Preparedness Plans

Most of us prepare with food and drinks to be better for an emergency situation. One of the most overlooked item is Vitamins.

I once bought 2 jars of Multivitamins from Costco. I ended up not using it in the last 3 years and it's probably went bad by now.

In an crisis, most of our daily food intake will most likely be compromised. We might not even be able to eat 3-5 meals a day anymore. Or we might be on a Protein Bar diet. To assist our body to receive the essential fuel to stay optimal, I feel that this product will be helpful for myself and my loved ones.

What I like about SurvivaGuard is that they are the only Long Term Vitamin storage in the market. Yes... You can Buy it, and Forget it. They have this one product where the vitamin is contained in a #10 Can. I bought it in 2018 and the label says that it's good until 2028. I have a feeling that it will be valid for 20 years, but I like the fact that they are not overpromising. So, instead of buying my 2 jars or Costco Multivitamins and throwing it away, I should of just bought this once and kept it.
One of these #10 cans have 360 capsules. It says take 2 capsules daily. So that would be a 6 months supply for me! Or if I shared with my wife, it would last us 3 months! I got 2 of these cans so that we have a 6 months supply.

Check out their articles on their websites too! It's pretty helpful.

And if you have any suggestions on long term supplements, please share on the comments!

 Zeniatefida

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Growing Veggies from Seedlings VS from Seeds

There are various ways to grow your own Vegetable Plants.

 The easiest way is to start with Seedlings.

This means baby plants. They have already been sprouted from being a seed and grown for a couple of weeks to a few months. The economical advantage of buying veggies as seedlings is that they are cheaper than buying mature ones from the grocery. The biggest advantage though, is that they are perfect for beginners. Growing veggies from seeds on the other hand, requires more time, trial and error, and there are more possible initial setbacks to deal with.

If you want to take it a step further, wouldn't it be more interesting to learn how to grow plants from a Seed? This is the more powerful way.

There are some advantages of growing from seeds.

1. The cost of buying seeds is cheaper than buying seedlings. You can buy a pack of organic or non-gmo seeds for 99 cents to $3 and that would probably contain an average of a 100 seeds.
2. You are in more control of the optimal growing conditions because you can see what works and what doesn't based on which seeds make it and which ones don't.
3. You can store the seeds for long term while you can't store seedlings.
4. Growing veggies from seeds is the Ultimate Skill for becoming a Resilient Prepper.
5. When you grow your veggies from seed, you create a special bond with the plants. It is not only fulfilling to see them grow like your own pet or babies, you will be more motivated and inspired to care for them consistently.
    

 You can buy seeds and seedlings from Garden Shops, Hardware Shops, and Online. I like shopping at Home Depot, not only are the prices fair, but they seem to rotate a special sale every time I visit.

 Whichever method you choose to start from, I highly encourage you and support you in this process to learn to grow your own food. It's a Cool Homesteading Skill to acquire. In particular, consider starting with Tomatoes, Swiss Chard, Lettuce, or Potatoes as they are easier to work with.

On a future article, I will publish Growing Veggies from Seeds using Soil Cube Makers

Solo Stove

I really like products that are multi-purpose and versatile.

I bough the Solo Stove because it uses bio fuel- like twigs and tree branches to burn. You simply gather some dry materials and you would be able to create fire using your favorite fire starters or matches, or lighter.

Another plus, is that the Solo Stove is light and compact. It can be disassembled to become even more compact to fit about your back pack.

What's extremely cool is that it is compatible with another separate product from another manufacturer called the Trangia. Not only is it compatible, the Trangia will literally fit into the Solo Stove and adds another depth of versatility to your cooking equipment.  It's essentially a tiny stove that burns alcohol of all sorts.

Below is a video I made to demonstrate how to start a fire using the Solo Stove and heat up a pack of MRE (meals ready to eat). You might see me battling to start the fire, but that's because I lacked practice. When you get the hang of it, it will be easy.

And if you are interested in expanding your skills in starting a fire, check out the "top down burn" method.

Enjoy...

How to heat up an MRE pack with a Solo Stove 

Mason Bee House for Solitary Pollinators

Have you ever heard of Solitary Bees?

They are the most awesome pollinators that I've heard of. The Honey Bees we commonly hear of work as one big family and they have a hive that they share. They also produce honey. The Honey Bees have been in the news lately because of the Colony Collapse Disorder. From what I gather, one of the bees would return to the hive carrying a dangerous strain of bacteria which would then affect and destroy the whole colony. So the bottom line is that the bees could use all the help they can get for their survival. As many of you know, it's a symbiotic relationship between bees and us, because we rely on the bees to pollinate our orchards and vegetables.

There's a whole different type of bees called the Solitary Bees. To me, they look smaller than Honey Bees and sometimes get mistaken as flies. The photos below are called Solitary Bees that I came across a field of flowers in beautiful New Mexico.

Note that these photos have been magnified as dandelion flowers are small.
Solitary Bees have the following characteristics:
1) Instead of a hive, they create their own small nests and lay their eggs in it.
2) They don't produce honey.
3) They are more efficient than honey bees in pollinating flowers.
4) They are known to be gentle and don't sting too much.

We have partnered with Crown Bees who gave us a discount to try out their Mason Bee House. I just received the shipments today and look forward to seeing if my neighborhood would attract some of the bees. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, here are some photos of the package I purchased.

This is called the Chalet House. It's a Medium Sized House.

This is the Bee Cocoon Container called Humidibee and the Mud Box.

These are the Bee attractant, mud, and manual.

On the Right is a Pollination Pack, the Top Left is a Tray for Leafcutter Bees, and the Bottom Left is a Tray for Mason Bees.

The sellers actually suggested me to buy the Bee Cocoons. They encouraged me to do so because it would be a way of introducing the bees to the neighborhood. I declined because I wanted to see first if there are such bees in our vicinity. They also encouraged me to have a lot of flowers first. I don't have a lot of flowers yet in my backyard but my neighbors do. Because of these 2 suggestions that I am passing up on, if the bees don't use the nest, it would be entirely of my own choice and lack of preparation. But I still insisted on this setup because I truly want to see what my neighborhood has and which bees are already here. Plus I didn't want to buy a lot of bee cocoons not being sure if we had enough sources of food for them. When the bees do arrive, it would totally be worth it for me and for my neighborhood!

Stay tuned for more follow up!

Anker Compact Car Jump Starter and Portable Charger Power Bank with 400A Peak Current, Advanced Safety Protection and Built-In LED Flashlight

When I received the product, I was surprised to see how small and light it was. It's hard to believe that such a small piece of device can help me to prevent calling Roadside Assistance from AAA or such, make calls to request service, wait for them to arrive, watch them use their heavy looking batteries and finally get my car started.

The closest analogy for the size of the beautifully designed, chic looking, bag is that of 3 softballs lined up next to each other. The closest analogy for the weight is also close to that of 3 softballs. However, once you open the container, the actual battery is quite small, slim, and light, almost like a square shaped flashlight. You can say almost half of the weight is from the accessories.

IMPRESSION- The material, although plastic seems to be a good quality. Again, a surprise when comparing with a car battery. What I like most is that the instruction card is simple enough to get started quickly. If I was stressed and stuck out in the cold, the last thing I need is lengthy documentation. This illustrated quick start card was great but my favorite part of all was how simple and fail safe the whole process was to jump start a car. The jump starter will even flash red and green to show you that it's ready to do it's work. In a nutshell, you connect the 2 clamps to their proper places on the car battery, you start your car within 30 seconds, then remove the clamps.

I've never jump started a car and am not an expert, but with this simplicity, I would be comfortable to do so.

I also tested its ability to charge USB devices. I tried to charge 2 devices at once, since it has 2 ports and it seemed to work just fine. My cel phone was charging at a fast enough rate- about 1% for every minute or 2.

I'm so happy to be an owner of one this device. It even has an LED looking flashlight so whether I get stranded in the wilderness, in a rainy day, or in the darkness of an evening, I would feel safe using it.

I will not post a photo of how it looks like when charging 2 items.

I also want to add that I was at 1st skeptical that it would be compatible with my mid size car that's a V6 engine. I have a 2002 Camry V-6 with a 3L gas capacity. The Jump Starter works on 3L gas or 2.5L diesel vehicle engines so it should work just fine when the occasion arises.

I was supplied a sample for test and evaluation, and I promised that my review is fair and honest.

Portable Charger External Battery Pack Power Bank

RAVPower 10400mAh 3.5A Portable Charger External Battery Pack Power Bank with iSmart Technology (Wireless Phone Accessory)

I bought the black colored charger. My initial impression is that the build is strong and solid metal with some smooth plastic finish. I feel confident that it would last a long time. I like the fact that there are 2 ports to charge with. I also like that there is an indicator of the remaining power level. When I charge it, I am able to tell when the device is still charging and when the charging is over- which was helpful.

I have tried charging various devices ranging from my Samsung Galaxy S4, my iPod Touch 4th gen, my family's iPhone, and in all cases, it performed very well. It would almost charge 1% per minute.

I am very please with the product. My only caveat, which is no big deal is that the left port has a different amp power from the right side. I emailed CS and although they answered me, the answer wasn't the easiest to understand. Perhaps labeling the ports would solve the problem.

I highly recommend it.

In terms of Resiliency, this would not only help your cel phones to be charged but if you also have LED lights that are USB powered, such as the S2 or the S20, you will see the value of the product.

ps. this product was sold to me with a discount for an honest review.

The XYZlicone Infinity Band | 8mm Black Silicone Wedding Ring for Men

XYZlicone Infinity Band | 8mm Black Silicone Wedding Ring for Men

My work requires a lot of physical activities. A lot of times, it is not an ideal environment for me to have my wedding ring on as it damage it. This ring is a perfect solution because it is actually made of Silicone. For those of you who can't picture it, silicone is like soft rubber material but durable.

Here's my experience with ring size:
At first, I found it difficult to find my ring size using the links they provided on the ring sizing guide. I would like to mention that both have not been the best guides. 

silicone material

The first one, where you cut out a ruler and wrap it around your finger was very promising. However, the dimensions of the ruler must be wrong because when I wrap it around my fingers, the sizes are too small that I'm past the guide already. I did not use any zoom on my printer.
So I had to use the 2nd one which was better, but also flawed. You see, you only ring sizes available were in whole numbers. But the size I got was 8.25 -8.75. That keeps me wondering if I should go for 8 or 9 and the size doesn't account for a .25 or .75
If I knew beforehand that it's a soft, stretchable ring, then I can assume to go for the smaller size. 
 To make the long story short, I bought the wrong size, going for size 9. But customer service was understanding and helpful and Sent me the correct size. That meant a lot to me and I felt that they back up their products.

Quality:

elegant packaging

The quality is great. The packaging is elegant. The extra BONUS ring was lovely. It is comfortable on my fingers. Initially I was weary of wearing a black color ring. But now, seeing it under different lighting conditions, I feel it is unique and gives off an air of mystery. Sometimes, it even looks purple. I also like the matte sheen on it because it reflects of as various colors depending on the environment.  In any case, I am happy about the color and am on practical note, it helps me to carry on my daily physical activities without worrying if the ring would get damaged or scratched. It is also easy to wash and dry.

Negatives: My only concern is due to its material, the ring is very light and is somewhat slippery. I lost my 1st ring the first night. Part of the solution is to get the ring with the right size so it be more snugly fit on your finger.

Disclaimer: I paid for this product with a discounted price from the maker in exchange for an honest review. 

colors being reflected

outer box

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