Back in the saddle! Oct. 13, 2010

Wow, I haven't posted anything in about a month and a half.  That sucks!  What have I been up to you might be asking...  I've accomplished several prepping-related objectives, and have some new projects getting started.

A couple weeks ago, we went to Carter Mt. Orchards, across the street from Jefferson's Monticello, and picked about 30 lbs. of apples.  Finally got off my duff and ordered the gold standard in food dehydrators, the Excalibur 3500 Deluxe Series 5 Tray Food Dehydrator - Black.  I got the 5 tray with a timer.  I don't think I need the 9 tray one, and the timer was worth the extra money because of our long work days.  Haven't done anything yet, but plan to get it operating this weekend.  I'll give you a full report.  I'll also experiment with different foods to see how they all do.  If you've been hesitant to step into the world of dehydrating, check out Tammy at http://www.dehydrate2store.com/.  She has tons of recipes, tips, etc... for the novice or expert.

I've been asked to teach Introduction to Incident Command to 60 of the security and administrative staff at a neighboring school district next month.  I know from experience that most school personnel are woefully ill prepared for responding to a disaster or crisis.  Think what you will of FEMA and their leadership, but I will say that they have some great training resources and the Incident Command System works for everything from a small brush fire up to major disasters.  The fire services use it great.  Generally speaking, law enforcement is not up to speed on it.  Other public and private agencies and organizations are coming around.

I've made some new friends in the preparedness industry.  If you are in the market for the best water filter out there, please check out my new pal, Jeff Gleason (aka The Berkey Guy) at http://www.directive21.com/ for the entire line of Berkey water filters.  If you need gear of most any sort, please check out www.campingsurvival.com.  I won one of their t-shirts in a Facebook drawing.  The back says "It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark."  Kind of sums up our mindset pretty good.  Of course, there are always our old friends at www.survivalgearbags.com for your BOB and 72-hour kit needs.  If you buy from any of these fine folks, please mention that you read about them on If It Hits The Fan.

That's it for today.  I'm going to work on doing much more frequent, but briefer postings, with the occasional long, detailed and researched post thrown in to the mix for good measure.  If you have any topic you want me to address, or any questions, please post them in the comments.