National Preparedness Month

It's Official

On the FEMA blog today they announced National Preparedness Month, September of 2011.  "This year’s theme 'A Time to Remember. A Time to Prepare' aims at turning awareness into action."

As a part of the month, they invite individuals, groups and businesses to sign up as members of the NPM Coalition to get access to "a toolkit full of resources for promoting emergency preparedness."  I signed up last year, but was only doing the blog once a week or so, and never checked the tool kit.  Now that If It Hits The Fan is a daily project, I'll be checking, and hopefully using the toolkit and any other resources.

I'd encourage other bloggers, YouTubers, and survival-related companies to join the coalition if for no other reason than to get more exposure, but it can also reinforce that our version of modern survivalism is rational and realistic, not the wide-eyed paranoid that the media sometimes portrays.


Bat Houses

I've been researching bat houses recently.  I'm planning to build a few to help attract nature's flying, fuzzy mosquito eaters.  I've found some plans online, but does anyone have a favorite that they've had success attracting bats with?


Garden Update

I have officially picked my first bright red, heirloom, organic tomato.  It will make an appearance on my lunch salad tomorrow.  I'll let you know if it's as tasty as it looks.

Sometime between Monday evening and today, my sweet baby watermelon plant that seemed to be doing so well, spreading and developing buds, has apparently died.  All the leaves are gone and the stalks are a yellowish brown.  It was beautiful two days ago.  No idea what happened.