WATER

I hate New Years Resolutions. For most people it’s a form of dishonesty. They either promise themselves they are going to do something and then lie by not following through or they pick something easy so they can accomplish it and so tell themselves a little white lie. Little white lies have a place in life, usually involving the spouse. No honey, you’re not fat-just a whole lot of woman. Of course that dress doesn’t make your thighs look fat. Yes, your first attempt at writing a children’s book is good enough to sell. These lies are needed to reduce tensions and sooth over egos. Little white lies are good socially. Oh, no, my fault- I should have been looking where I was going. What you really meant was, pull your head out of your butt and pay attention moron but I can’t say that since you put Arnold to shame you are so buff and I don’t have insurance so I can’t afford for you to kick my ass.
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But lying to yourself is just plain stupid. One, if you can’t be honest with yourself you are in denial and headed for some sort of a train wreak. And two, you are worthless and weak. Good morals are what you do when no one else is looking. So, you make a New Years Resolution and break it a week later and feel bad about it and so you dive right in to more self destructive behavior. Peggy the Pig decides to loose some weight. She is breathing hard from getting off the sofa and the last time she got lucky it was 2 a.m. and her date was so drunk he thought he was seeing double instead of just double-wide. So she makes a New Years Resolution to begin a diet. Within three days of drinking diet Coke and cutting down from three to one Big Macs for her mid morning snack, she can’t resist temptation and eats a triple layer wedding cake in the freezer from back when she married an illegal immigrant so he could get in the country and he paid her in Doritos and HoHo’s and she still didn’t get lucky. She feels so bad from being a big fat sloppy nasty pig she goes on a binger and gains back twice the weight she lost.
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So instead of doing some lame New Years Resolution two days ago I just went ahead and did what I have been putting off for awhile on the last day of the year. That way I could look smugly down on all you failures and think good thoughts about myself. Ha! I finally ordered a Berky water filter. Not the whole unit that cost around $300 but a replacement filter for $43. The one filter can be placed in a poly bucket over another bucket and used to filter the water with just the one filter unit. So, $51 after shipping from www.lehmans.com was all it cost for up to about fifty thousand gallons of pure water. The poly buckets I will use from wheat storage. Just drill the appropriate size hole in the top bucket. Make sure it seals. I believe silicon caulking will work. But I’m not positive. If anyone has tried this let me know. Otherwise I will get back to you after I experiment. The only drawback is the reduced volume of clean water daily. But the low cost makes up for it.
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The filter supposedly filters not only biological nasties but some chemicals also. And it is cheaper than Katadyn brand drip filters. It claims to filter from 13,000 to 60,000 gallons per filter, so its minimum is the Katadyns maximum. Too good of a deal not to get. I will not miss the $50, but I would sure miss clean water as I was projecting fluid from every orifice after drinking contaminated water. I will not be bothered by the volume of the filter as it can be my “base camp” filter and my pre-Y2K filter is a hiker unit and good for about 5,000 gallons. I will also buy one or two portable solar water units to stretch out my clean water supplies. Plus, I now have a paper book with solar distillation plans in it where as before it was all electronic books.
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I always have a dozen gallons of water around since my pipes freeze almost every day in the winter. And a half dozen 6 gallon water plastic jugs in storage ( from when I tried to move to Elko and needed to haul water ). All in all I think I can now safely relax about a clean water supply. I don’t have the ability to store a large amount but at least I can clean whatever I come across. I live a few miles from a good size river so I am less concerned about supply than I am about the supply being polluted by every idiot in creation using the water as a latrine and hazardous waste dump. We would all love to own an underground cistern under a huge roof with solar panels and a back up manual pump, but for under $125 you can have enough redundant filters to assure your water is safe to drink.
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$50 for at least 13,000 gallons of filtered water. A twenty dollar solar still will last for hundreds of gallons until it springs a leak from the flexible plastic from China ( well, it could last from dozens to thousands ). A sheet of safety glass can help build a permanent solar still and can be gotten cheaply at a car junk yard. A few sheets of plastic can make a temporary still and a few cheap books can provide the plans. A few bucks will supply iodine tablets for mobile use ( as can the plastic solar unit ). Have more than one means of purifying the water, but none of it needs to be expensive.
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Original: http://bisonsurvivalblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/water.html