{"id":39826,"date":"2018-11-27T02:20:57","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T10:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=39826"},"modified":"2018-11-26T18:35:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T02:35:23","slug":"time-to-revisit-the-bug-out-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/27\/time-to-revisit-the-bug-out-bag\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to revisit the bug-out bag"},"content":{"rendered":"

How time flies when you’re having fun<\/del> trying to keep your house from collapsing into the mud.<\/p>\n

Sometime earlier this year, I shoved my bug-out bag onto the screen porch to get it out of the way of construction, and yesterday was the day for lugging it back into the house, checking and updating it.<\/p>\n

I’d have sworn I did a check-and-update sometime last year. But that was also the year of the Great Foundation Project and I now see I let things slide. If the Sharpie-marked packets of snacks in the bug-out bag are telling the truth, my last go-through of the kit was February 2016. Oopsie. <\/p>\n

I think I need to set an annual alarm or something. Bi-annual would be better. Nearly three years is neglect<\/p>\n

Truth is, I also haven’t been terribly worried about a bug-out because my most likely scenarios involve bugging in. But those catastrophic California fires reminded me that bugging out is a possibility for anybody<\/em>. So yesterday was the day for tearing the kit apart and evaluating everything.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Things weren’t too bad. I’d say 90 percent of the kit was fine and could have sat there another five years without a problem. But at some point a tiny bit of moisture had gotten loose in there. Maybe temperature variations on the porch caused condensation or the water jug tipped and dribbled when I moved the kit from the house. In any case, I lucked out and caught the problems just in time.<\/p>\n

The cardboard on a box of ammo was damp, but the cartridges themselves seem okay. (I’ll take them out and test them and also put a fresh box into the kit). Ditto with the box for the emergency stove; stove was fine, box not so much.<\/p>\n

Age had begun to affect a few items; bandaids were okay but their wrappings had turned fragile. A bottle of painkiller was intact but too old to be relied on, especially if I’m going to forget to check the kit again. <\/p>\n

Since various categories of items were in their own waterproof bags, everything else, from fire-making gear to water filtration to flashlight and pocketknives, was in good shape. Even batteries were still full of power, though of course I’m going to be changing them out.<\/p>\n

The ickiest problem was minor and didn’t come from water or age. In a small bag of toiletries, I’d put a travel-sized bottle of shampoo. Reminder to self: Never put a pop-top item of liquid into a kit; always use screw caps and make sure they’re securely fastened.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The shampoo bottle was empty, its flip-top flipped, and it turns out shampoo can be at least as corrosive as water (which, of course, it mostly is).<\/p>\n

But as I say, I lucked out. I was able to replace most outdated or spoiled items from stocks on hand. Five items, mostly medical, I decided to buy new. <\/p>\n

And those snacks have to go. There are lots of foods I’ll eat long past their sell-by dates, but I keep nuts and trail mix in the bag, and they go rancid way too quickly. The bag also has “real” emergency food like Datrex 3600 bars<\/a> (high-calorie coconut flavored compressed sawdust<\/del> cookies with a theoretical five-year life, but packaged to last forever).<\/p>\n

Thank heaven for the dollar store and the new (and apparently thriving) liquidation mart in the next town over.<\/p>\n

BUT. Don’t do as I did, guys! Do as I say, instead. Keep those go-kits and other emergency gear up to date.<\/p>\n

Any of you care to share any notable successes or oopsies from your own bug-out bag experiences?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How time flies when you’re having fun trying to keep your house from collapsing into the mud. Sometime earlier this year, I shoved my bug-out bag onto the screen porch to get it out of the way of construction, and yesterday was the day for lugging it back into the house, checking and updating it. I’d have sworn I did a check-and-update sometime last year. But that was also the year of the Great Foundation Project and I now see I let things slide. If the Sharpie-marked packets of snacks in the bug-out bag are telling the truth, my last…<\/p>\n

Continue readingTime to revisit the bug-out bag<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-preparedness","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39826"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39841,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39826\/revisions\/39841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}