We took a trip to the Katchner carverns over the weekend. OK, really it started as a trip to Willcox to get some real apple cider - Stouts Cider Mill has the unpasteurized stuff I like to use in making my yearly batch of hard cider. We headed down on at 8:00 aM Saturday morning for our scheduled tour at the carverns for 1:00 PM. That gave us just enough time to stop for lunch in Benson before we got there.
The tour starts with a ride up the hill to the entrance of the cave. The state put in an airlock system to preserve the integrity of the cave. They even have you walk through a light mist to weigh down any lint, hair, etc. so that anything that falls off you goes straight to the floor. The guide on the tour was very knowledgable about the history of the cave and the formation found inside. We walked through for about 50 minutes getting to see various formations and learning about how the cave was found, what steps have been taken to preserve it, and how the state works to preserve the caverns for future generations.
When we got to the throne room there was a nice area where everyone could sit down and enjoy a lightshow time to some music. They lit up the various formations in the room from different angles so that you could fully enjoys the beauty of the formations. The show lasted about 10 minutes then they lit the whole room up so you could get the whole picture at once and ask any questions. The trip back out took about 5 minutes - make sure you take sunglasses with you into the cave - you'll want them when you come back out into the sunlight. I highly recommend this outing for any family - just make sure you get your reservations ahead of time. We will be going back in the spring to take the Big Room tour - they close it during the summer to allow the bats to do their thing.
We then continued our journey over to Willcox, stayed the night at the Holiday inn Express. A word of warning - we had a hard time finding a local (non-chain) restaurant to eat at, so we ended up at the Pizza Hut for dinner.
In the morning we visited the local winery where we sampled some very nice wines and bought a couple bottle to bring back home. We visited Aplle Annies's Orchards to do a little shopping, buy some fudge, and grab a bite to eat. As there didn't have the unpasteurized apple cider, we made a quick stop at Stouts on the way out of town - picked up 10 gallons of the good stuff, put it in the cooler and iced it down for the 4 hour trip back home. That cider is now starting the fermentation process and should be bottled up in about 3 more weeks!
That's all for now...
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
Monday, September 28, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Maxpedition gear
For a while now I have been buying various pieces of the Maxpedition gear to test them out. I have to say that everything I have heard about their quality has been spot on. My first purchase was a small one - a simple cell phone holder. That this will probably go to the grave with me it's built so well!
I have tried several of their products out now and have decided to become an authorized dealer, just got OK'd today and will be adding products to the site in short order. Expect to see some of the more popular stuff on the site this week, but if there is anything you are interested in that is not there, drop me a line and we'll get you taken care of!
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
I have tried several of their products out now and have decided to become an authorized dealer, just got OK'd today and will be adding products to the site in short order. Expect to see some of the more popular stuff on the site this week, but if there is anything you are interested in that is not there, drop me a line and we'll get you taken care of!
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
Monday, September 7, 2009
It's (hard) cider time!
I look forward to this time of year, when I can get my hands on some fresh apple cider to make my yearly batch of hard cider. This year I have not been able to find any real fresh stuff and I don't have the time to drive to Wilcox to visit the cider mills, so I had to improvise. I chose to use the Simply Apple pure pressed juice for a trial batch, here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
3 Gallons Simply Apple Pure Pressed
6 lbs Desert Wildflower honey
6 Cinnamon Sticks
10 Whole Cloves
1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
5 Tbsp Acid Blend
1/2 Oz Irish Moss
Yeast Energizer
Lalvin D47 Yeast
Place all ingredients except the yeast and the yeast energizer in a pot and bring to a boil, continue boil for 15 minutes, skim off the scum. Remove 2 cups of the mix and place in a wine bottle and cool to 80 degrees - this will be used for the yeast starter. Pour remaining mixture into plastic primary fermenter and allow to cool - I do this with a bathtub of cool water.
Once the yeast starter mix is properly cooled, add 1 Tbsp of yeast energizer to mix, disssolve the yeast in 2 oz of water for 15 minutes and add mix in wine bottle. Install airlock and place in dark location for 4 hours. Once the starter in well established, aerate the cider mixture (this is called a "must") and add the yeast starter. Place lid on fermenting bucket and install an airlock.
Allow the cider to ferment for approximately 1 week, rack (siphon transfer) to glass carboy, straining out any remaining cinnamon, cloves, etc. and once again install an airlock. Allow to ferment until there is 1 bubble about every 3 minutes coming from the airlock. At this point you will rack the mixture again and prime with 1/2 cup of corn sugar and water mixture (dissovle the sugar and bring to boil to sterilize). I like to put the sugar water mix in a clean carboy and siphon the cider into that container to get a good mix with the primer. Next fill your bottles and cap. Allow to carbonate / settle for at least 2 weeks before drinking. Best served very cold.
I should point out that it is VERY IMPORTANT that you don't over prime, or bottle before the cider has fully fermented. When I started making hard cider 15 years ago I made that mistake and ended up with glass grenades. I literally had chucks of glass embedded in the drywall where I stored the bottles - very dangerous indeed!
Enjoy!
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
Ingredients:
3 Gallons Simply Apple Pure Pressed
6 lbs Desert Wildflower honey
6 Cinnamon Sticks
10 Whole Cloves
1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
5 Tbsp Acid Blend
1/2 Oz Irish Moss
Yeast Energizer
Lalvin D47 Yeast
Place all ingredients except the yeast and the yeast energizer in a pot and bring to a boil, continue boil for 15 minutes, skim off the scum. Remove 2 cups of the mix and place in a wine bottle and cool to 80 degrees - this will be used for the yeast starter. Pour remaining mixture into plastic primary fermenter and allow to cool - I do this with a bathtub of cool water.
Once the yeast starter mix is properly cooled, add 1 Tbsp of yeast energizer to mix, disssolve the yeast in 2 oz of water for 15 minutes and add mix in wine bottle. Install airlock and place in dark location for 4 hours. Once the starter in well established, aerate the cider mixture (this is called a "must") and add the yeast starter. Place lid on fermenting bucket and install an airlock.
Allow the cider to ferment for approximately 1 week, rack (siphon transfer) to glass carboy, straining out any remaining cinnamon, cloves, etc. and once again install an airlock. Allow to ferment until there is 1 bubble about every 3 minutes coming from the airlock. At this point you will rack the mixture again and prime with 1/2 cup of corn sugar and water mixture (dissovle the sugar and bring to boil to sterilize). I like to put the sugar water mix in a clean carboy and siphon the cider into that container to get a good mix with the primer. Next fill your bottles and cap. Allow to carbonate / settle for at least 2 weeks before drinking. Best served very cold.
I should point out that it is VERY IMPORTANT that you don't over prime, or bottle before the cider has fully fermented. When I started making hard cider 15 years ago I made that mistake and ended up with glass grenades. I literally had chucks of glass embedded in the drywall where I stored the bottles - very dangerous indeed!
Enjoy!
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Making Mead
A couple weeks ago I started a brew of Mead. This is my first attempt at brewing Mead - I generally brew up a couple large batches of hard cider in the fall each year, but that's about it. For those of you unfamilliar, Mead is simply fermented honey water.
For my brew I started with 6.5 lbs (about .6 gallons) of honey mixed with 2.5 gallons of filtered water. I them brought the mixture to boiling and then skimmed the top after about 15 minutes. I made sure to keep the mixture stirred while boiling so as to not burn the honey.
While the mixture was cooling, I sterilized my fermenting containers using a mixture of bleach and hot water then rinsed throughly to ensure no bleach was left behind.
After cooling the mixture to room temp (~75 F) I poured it into my 6 gallon container that had 2 teaspoons each of citric acid and yeast energizer. I then added a vial of While Labe Sweet Mead / Wine Yeast (WLP720), aerated, then covered the pail with the lid and an airlock to ensure no bacterial would enter. For the first 5 days I opened the container each morning and stirred vigorously for about a minute. The first stage of fermentation was very rapid and resulted in a lot of foaming - this is the reason for a 6 gallon container for only 3 gallons of mixture (referred to as "must" during this stage).
Approximately 4 days into the fermentation I juiced enough cherries to make about 1.5 cups of fresh juice using my Mr. Juiceman (that I bought years ago and have hardly used). This was a great way to juice with as I did not have to pit the cherries first - just put them in whole and the machine took care of the rest. Adding this juice to my 3 gallons of must caused a surge in fermentation over the next 3 days.
I have now transferred (racked) the micture to a 3 gallon glass bottle to continue the fermentation process. Siphoning the liquid from one container to another helps to remove sediment from the liquid. This results in throwing out a small amount ot the liquid. Once the must had been transferred to the glass bottle there was about .5 gallons of space left - I topped this off with some more honey water mixture and sealed the bottle with an airlock.
I am now waiting for the mixture to slow down on fermentation, but not stop. I will then transfer it to yet another bottle to remove more sediment. Once the mixture starts to clear I plan to bottle 1 gallon of the misture , priming each bottle with a little corn sugar or honey to cause just a little more fermentation which will produce a sparkling mixture. The remaining mixture will be allowed to complete the fermentation and will be racked a couple more times yiled a clear liquid. Once I reach the desired clarity, I will bottle 1 more gallon and put the remaining mixture into a 5 litre oak barrel to season on the oak. I will check the mix weekly until the desired plavor is attained, then bottle the remaining gallon.
While I am taking this further than most new to making Mead will, I think you can see how easy it is to make, not to mention cost effective. Not including the equipment (buckets, pans, bottles, etc.) it costs about $2 for a good wine bottle of mead. This is a skill no survivalist should be without...
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
For my brew I started with 6.5 lbs (about .6 gallons) of honey mixed with 2.5 gallons of filtered water. I them brought the mixture to boiling and then skimmed the top after about 15 minutes. I made sure to keep the mixture stirred while boiling so as to not burn the honey.
While the mixture was cooling, I sterilized my fermenting containers using a mixture of bleach and hot water then rinsed throughly to ensure no bleach was left behind.
After cooling the mixture to room temp (~75 F) I poured it into my 6 gallon container that had 2 teaspoons each of citric acid and yeast energizer. I then added a vial of While Labe Sweet Mead / Wine Yeast (WLP720), aerated, then covered the pail with the lid and an airlock to ensure no bacterial would enter. For the first 5 days I opened the container each morning and stirred vigorously for about a minute. The first stage of fermentation was very rapid and resulted in a lot of foaming - this is the reason for a 6 gallon container for only 3 gallons of mixture (referred to as "must" during this stage).
Approximately 4 days into the fermentation I juiced enough cherries to make about 1.5 cups of fresh juice using my Mr. Juiceman (that I bought years ago and have hardly used). This was a great way to juice with as I did not have to pit the cherries first - just put them in whole and the machine took care of the rest. Adding this juice to my 3 gallons of must caused a surge in fermentation over the next 3 days.
I have now transferred (racked) the micture to a 3 gallon glass bottle to continue the fermentation process. Siphoning the liquid from one container to another helps to remove sediment from the liquid. This results in throwing out a small amount ot the liquid. Once the must had been transferred to the glass bottle there was about .5 gallons of space left - I topped this off with some more honey water mixture and sealed the bottle with an airlock.
I am now waiting for the mixture to slow down on fermentation, but not stop. I will then transfer it to yet another bottle to remove more sediment. Once the mixture starts to clear I plan to bottle 1 gallon of the misture , priming each bottle with a little corn sugar or honey to cause just a little more fermentation which will produce a sparkling mixture. The remaining mixture will be allowed to complete the fermentation and will be racked a couple more times yiled a clear liquid. Once I reach the desired clarity, I will bottle 1 more gallon and put the remaining mixture into a 5 litre oak barrel to season on the oak. I will check the mix weekly until the desired plavor is attained, then bottle the remaining gallon.
While I am taking this further than most new to making Mead will, I think you can see how easy it is to make, not to mention cost effective. Not including the equipment (buckets, pans, bottles, etc.) it costs about $2 for a good wine bottle of mead. This is a skill no survivalist should be without...
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
History Lesson
Got this from a friend this morning and thought I would share it:
For those that don't know about history. Here is a condensed version:
Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.
The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals, and
2. Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can was invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food is standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.
Here ends today's lesson in world history:
It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it.
A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to tick them off.
And there you have it. Let your next action reveal your position.
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
For those that don't know about history. Here is a condensed version:
Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.
The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals, and
2. Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can was invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food is standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.
Here ends today's lesson in world history:
It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it.
A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to tick them off.
And there you have it. Let your next action reveal your position.
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The home garden project
About 2 months ago I got the urge to start some raised bed gardens. I got the idea from a friend of mine who lives up in the mountains of northern Arizona and got the nudge to move forward from listening to Jack over at thesurvivalpodcast.com.
I started by deciding that the purpose of these raised beds was to:
1. Compost clippings from my yard - tree branches, tiff lawn clippings, etc.
2. Compost household waste: all kinds of organic mass (bananna peals, rotten fruit, etc.)
3. Provide a staging area to develop a rich soil to be then moved to the area where my kid's currently have a giant sand box and swignset from Costco.
4. Provide a modest amount of fruit and vegetables in the process of developing the larger garden.
Once I developed in my mind what the purpose of the beds was, I then decided that I needed to utilize a better class of materials to build the beds as I don't want to build them again, and I need them to last several years at least. With that, I decided to use redwood 2x6 and 3x2 board for the construction. I purchased (7) 8' 3x2's, (3) 6' 2x6's, and (6) 8' 2x6's. Using these boards I built 3' x 8' boxes that have 4' vertical posts at each corner and the middle of the 8' sides. I also built a frame at the top to allow me to install shad cloths, or to put a cloth other the beds when we get our once or twice a year hard freeze to protect the plants. With our climate I will be able to grow food year around with these boxes. I also put a 1" hole every 1' around the entire bottom of the box and used some wire mesh on the inside to ensure my soils would not come out through them, but allow for drainage during our monsoon.
I started filling these boxes with (in order from the bottom up):
Tree limbs in the bottom
A nice layer of straw,
Grass clippings from the yard
Forest mulch
Organic material from the house for composting
Peat moss
More forest mulch
Top soil
I filled the boxes to the top - 18" deep, making sure the whole thing was damp, not wet as I filled the boxes. Once I had done this, I began to plant. In my boxes I have a wide variety of peppers, some tomatoes, various herbs, cucumbers, and pumpkin.
I then added a humdred red wrigglers to each of my 4 boxes and allowed them to get into the soil. I have also added a drip irrigation system with a battery powered timer attached to the spigot out by the garden. This was added because I needed to make sure watering was consistent and also would be done when I took the family out on the camping trips this summer.
So far I have been able to harvest some herbs and have some beautiful peppers just about ready to go into my very first home grown salsa. I have some cantaloups starting to grow, but I have not seen any watermelons as of yet. There are some pumpkins starting, and the cucmbers are in full bloom so I expect to get some of those. The tomatoes are not doing so hot, but I didn't get those planted until late, so that was to be expected.
I should have waited a couple weeks after filling the boxes to allow some settling before planting, but I will just add some more mulch and soil to each box when I get to the fall planting. It would have also been nice to have the worms earlier on, but they are in there now. I am experiencing a little trouble with the pests, but I am getting that under control by using a soap solution and diatomaceoius (sp) earth spread in the beds.
One unexpected benefit for me with these is they give me a nice place to go have my first cup of coffee in the morning and do a little reading. It seems the temperature amongst these is about 5 degrees cooler. I will post more in about this subject when I start to harvest from these gardens.
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
I started by deciding that the purpose of these raised beds was to:
1. Compost clippings from my yard - tree branches, tiff lawn clippings, etc.
2. Compost household waste: all kinds of organic mass (bananna peals, rotten fruit, etc.)
3. Provide a staging area to develop a rich soil to be then moved to the area where my kid's currently have a giant sand box and swignset from Costco.
4. Provide a modest amount of fruit and vegetables in the process of developing the larger garden.
Once I developed in my mind what the purpose of the beds was, I then decided that I needed to utilize a better class of materials to build the beds as I don't want to build them again, and I need them to last several years at least. With that, I decided to use redwood 2x6 and 3x2 board for the construction. I purchased (7) 8' 3x2's, (3) 6' 2x6's, and (6) 8' 2x6's. Using these boards I built 3' x 8' boxes that have 4' vertical posts at each corner and the middle of the 8' sides. I also built a frame at the top to allow me to install shad cloths, or to put a cloth other the beds when we get our once or twice a year hard freeze to protect the plants. With our climate I will be able to grow food year around with these boxes. I also put a 1" hole every 1' around the entire bottom of the box and used some wire mesh on the inside to ensure my soils would not come out through them, but allow for drainage during our monsoon.
I started filling these boxes with (in order from the bottom up):
Tree limbs in the bottom
A nice layer of straw,
Grass clippings from the yard
Forest mulch
Organic material from the house for composting
Peat moss
More forest mulch
Top soil
I filled the boxes to the top - 18" deep, making sure the whole thing was damp, not wet as I filled the boxes. Once I had done this, I began to plant. In my boxes I have a wide variety of peppers, some tomatoes, various herbs, cucumbers, and pumpkin.
I then added a humdred red wrigglers to each of my 4 boxes and allowed them to get into the soil. I have also added a drip irrigation system with a battery powered timer attached to the spigot out by the garden. This was added because I needed to make sure watering was consistent and also would be done when I took the family out on the camping trips this summer.
So far I have been able to harvest some herbs and have some beautiful peppers just about ready to go into my very first home grown salsa. I have some cantaloups starting to grow, but I have not seen any watermelons as of yet. There are some pumpkins starting, and the cucmbers are in full bloom so I expect to get some of those. The tomatoes are not doing so hot, but I didn't get those planted until late, so that was to be expected.
I should have waited a couple weeks after filling the boxes to allow some settling before planting, but I will just add some more mulch and soil to each box when I get to the fall planting. It would have also been nice to have the worms earlier on, but they are in there now. I am experiencing a little trouble with the pests, but I am getting that under control by using a soap solution and diatomaceoius (sp) earth spread in the beds.
One unexpected benefit for me with these is they give me a nice place to go have my first cup of coffee in the morning and do a little reading. It seems the temperature amongst these is about 5 degrees cooler. I will post more in about this subject when I start to harvest from these gardens.
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Test your preps!
As noted in my previous post, it is important to test your equipment on a regular basis. It should be noted that it's important to checkout any new equipment BEFORE taking it to the field. First off, if there is something wrong with it you have a chance to exchange or repair the item before you need it. Most retailers will only exchange items for a limited time, so do yourself a favor and check the item out as soon as you get it home, and deal with any issues as soon as possible.
The second reason to check your equipment regularly is highlighted in my previous post - stuff can go bad just sitting on a shelf. I live in the desert of Arizona where the air is dry as a bone most of the time - this didn't prevent the valves on my stove from rusting up almost causing a real issue with my last camping trip. I should have known better with my 10 years in the military, I can't claim I don't have the proper training. Everybody needs a reminders sometimes....
By checking out your equipment when you buy new stuff, or just performing normal maintenance you will be familliar with the items you use which translates to quick and easy setup when it comes time to utilize your stuff - whether you are on a family camping trip or during an emergency situation. I like to setup my tents at the beginning of the camping season to air them out and make sure nothing has eaten holes in them over the winter while they are stored. At the same time I also set them up and thoroughly clean them out before storing them for the winter. These two steps make sure I have a good place to sleep at night when I get where I'm going.
I cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes to check your stuff. We use a checklist for our outings, I have even taken it to the level of having a list for each container so I know what is (or should be) included in each of our bins / bags. This makes the process much quicker when we take a family camping trip, but more importantly gives us piece of mind that if there were an emergency requiring evacuation we can accomplish this in a minimum of time.
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
The second reason to check your equipment regularly is highlighted in my previous post - stuff can go bad just sitting on a shelf. I live in the desert of Arizona where the air is dry as a bone most of the time - this didn't prevent the valves on my stove from rusting up almost causing a real issue with my last camping trip. I should have known better with my 10 years in the military, I can't claim I don't have the proper training. Everybody needs a reminders sometimes....
By checking out your equipment when you buy new stuff, or just performing normal maintenance you will be familliar with the items you use which translates to quick and easy setup when it comes time to utilize your stuff - whether you are on a family camping trip or during an emergency situation. I like to setup my tents at the beginning of the camping season to air them out and make sure nothing has eaten holes in them over the winter while they are stored. At the same time I also set them up and thoroughly clean them out before storing them for the winter. These two steps make sure I have a good place to sleep at night when I get where I'm going.
I cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes to check your stuff. We use a checklist for our outings, I have even taken it to the level of having a list for each container so I know what is (or should be) included in each of our bins / bags. This makes the process much quicker when we take a family camping trip, but more importantly gives us piece of mind that if there were an emergency requiring evacuation we can accomplish this in a minimum of time.
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
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