In this special release episode, we wanted to provide some resources to our community during this time of uncertainty. Here you will find information on financial aid, emergency food services, free entertainment/educational sources and basic skills like distilling water. We are not doctors and none of this is medical advice. We are simply a hippie (that happens to be a grant writer by day) and a nerd (that happens to be a scientist by day) throwing out ideas and resources you can tap into that we felt a duty to provide to the public. There are more show notes than usual with this one so please check our website for a full list of links and services or find us on Facebook; where the entire list will be provided as well as a thread that will be updated as we find additional links. Stay save, keep those vibrations up and take advantage of any down time you may find yourself with these days to recharge yourself and expand your mind. All resources, websites and steps for distilling water, making activated charcoal and more will all be located in our show notes. We will also publish them on our Facebook Page and website, links will be provided on Twitter and Instagram due to the character limits. Stay safe, stay informed and keep researching!
In this special release episode, we wanted to provide some resources to our community during this time of uncertainty. Here you will find information on financial aid, emergency food services, free entertainment/educational sources and basic skills like distilling water. We are not doctors and none of this is medical advice. We are simply a hippie (that happens to be a grant writer by day) and a nerd (that happens to be a scientist by day) throwing out ideas and resources you can tap into that we felt a duty to provide to the public. There are more show notes than usual with this one so please check our website for a full list of links and services or find us on Facebook; where the entire list will be provided as well as a thread that will be updated as we find additional links. Stay save, keep those vibrations up and take advantage of any down time you may find yourself with these days to recharge yourself and expand your mind.
https://www.idsociety.org/public-health/COVID-19-Resource-Center/
H.R. 6201 - Families First Coronavirus Response Act
https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/animal-health-and-welfare/covid-19/HR-6201
United Way Community Relief Fund
1-866-211-9966
Provide your zip code and you will be given a list of local agencies that will provide assistance
Emergency Food Assistance
https://www.fns.usda.gov/tefap/emergency-food-assistance-program
Immediate Food Assistance
If you're hungry now: Call the USDA National Hunger Hotline at 1-866-3-HUNGRY (1-866-348-6479) or 1-877-8-HAMBRE (1-877-842-6273). Information is available in English and Spanish. The hotline operates Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM Eastern Time
If you get referred to a foodbank you'll normally receive vouchers or a letter to exchange for food.
...
How to find your local foodbank
Coping with Covid: Resources for Restaurant Workers
http://www.211.org/services/covid19
Feed your soul and calm your spirit by doing any of these fun and totally FREE options
12 Museums and Galleries you can visit online
https://www.travelandleisure.com/attractions/museums-galleries/museums-with-virtual-tours
Tour a National Park
NASA Media Library
Here are 450 Ivy League courses you can take online right now for free
Ann Arbor Film Festival Live Stream
15 Broadway Plays and Musicals You Can Watch on Stage From Home
3 Months of Free Kindle book downloads
https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=18194271011
WorkOuts:
Down Dog, Yoga for Beginners, HIIT, Barre, and 7 Minute Workout - completely free until April 1st.
Hashtags to check out:
#sunshinesong Urging children and teens to perform their songs and plays online since they are closed.
In My Room: Rolling Stones is presenting live stream concerts from inside Artists homes
Netflix Party allows you to watch movies live with friends
1. How to get clean water
a. Collect rainwater: This is the easiest option to get water that is not likely to be contaminated. Make sure to collect it in a clean vessel that is sterilized regularly. While boiling rainwater is not as necessary as when water is collected from other sources, it is still recommended to make sure your water is free of dangerous bacteria and parasites that could have made it into the rain water collection basin.
b. Freshwater from the ground includes puddles, lakes, ponds, streams, ditches, and nearly all naturally occurring sources of water that are found inland and away from the ocean. This water can be collected, but MUST be disinfected before drinking. It is also best practice to filter this water before boiling it to disinfect (a guide to making a filter is further ahead in this document). Instead of simply boiling the water, it could be distilled to not only remove the infectious agents from it, but most of the unknown solutes in that have been dissolved in the water would be removed by the distillation process. Distilled water should not be consumed on a continual basis without replacing some of the naturally occurring electrolytes that are found in all natural water sources. These electrolytes can be replaced using a pinch of salt. This can be regular table salt, sea salt, or better yet Epsom salt. These salts should only be added in very small quantities. If Epsom salt is consumed in quantities of more than one teaspoon per 8oz of water, you risk developing diarrhea and further dehydrating yourself.
c. Saltwater can be collected from the ocean and distilled to remove salt from the water. Once the salt is removed from the water, the water can be consumed and there will be sea salt left over to use in any of the myriad of uses there are for salt in survival situations.
d. Additional notes on obtaining drinkable water: If your water source is coming from a body of water that may be exposed to pollution from transportation on the waterway, runoff of chemicals (including agricultural fertilizers), or any other source of pollution that may put things in the water that is not recommended to consume; an activated charcoal filter is highly recommended for use before drinking. Ideally, this filter should be used and the water should be distilled for maximum purification.
2. How to distill water a. When and why to distill water: Water should be distilled when there is a contaminant in it that makes the water less safe to drink. Salt water is an example of this, the high concentration of salt in the water prevents water from hydrating a body that is attempting to drink it. Water from unknown sources that could have a wide variety of unidentifiable contaminants should be distilled. b. Before drinking distilled water make every attempt to replace some of the electrolytes that have been removed from the water in the distillation process. Drinking distilled water on a continual basis without electrolytes being replenished causes electrolyte depletion, which prevents the body from functioning properly.
c. Tea pot distillation method: Water to be distilled can be added to a tea pot. A copper tube can be attached to the spout of the tea pot and connected to a separate container that can collect the distilled water. Boil the water in the tea pot. As the water becomes steam, it will move into the copper tube where it will cool and condense back into distilled water. It will the drip out of the tube and into the collection container.
d. Cooking pot distillation method: Water is placed into a cooking pot that has a lid. If the lid of the pot has a plastic handle, it is better to remove this handle before performing this distillation. Water to be distilled is placed into the bottom of the cooking pot. A rack is placed on the bottom of that pot, and a glass bowl is placed on that rack. The rack is to prevent the bowl from touching the bottom of the pot, and ideally keep it above the water level within the pot. The lid of the pot is placed upside down on top of the pot. Ice, if available, should be placed on the upside down lid. If ice is not available, cool water will work. The water should be heated enough to become steam. As the ice melts or the water on top becomes warm, it will need to be replaced until all of the water from the bottom of the pot has become steam and dripped into the glass bowl. The water in the bowl is distilled water.
3. Making a water filter
a. Most water that can be collected from naturally occurring water sources will not be clean. There may be mud, dirt, plant matter, or other solid particles that is generally not desired in drinking water.
b. Sand/gravel filter: Sand is an excellent filter material to remove solids from water. To make a sand filter, all that is needed is some type of tube, the sand and/or gravel to fill the tube, and something to secure to the bottom of the tube to keep the contents in place. The tube ideally should not be made of metal, as this could contaminate the water with heavy metals, although copper tubing is acceptable. Water bottles are commonly used for filter tubes if the closed end is cut away. The sand and gravel can be added to the tube with the finest material at the bottom, and the coarsest material at the top. To hold this all in, some material from a shirt, bed sheets, pillow cases, cheese cloth, or unused cloth diapers can hold in the sand/gravel while allowing water to filter through it after moving through the sand filter. Water is poured in through the top, over the coarsest material first, and gravity will allow it to flow through the rest of the filter into a collecting basin.
c. Activated charcoal filter: Incorporating activated charcoal into a sand/gravel filter is highly beneficial to further removing contaminants within water collected from natural sources. Activated charcoal will be useful in binding many solutes in the water that can be harmful to the health of a potential drinker. This includes metal ions that may be dissolved in the water and a variety of other chemical compounds that can accumulate in water sources that may have been polluted in some way. Activated charcoal is relatively easy to make, and the process of making it will be described later in this document. To make an activated charcoal filter, simply repeat the steps described in making a sand/gravel filter, but add in a layer of activated charcoal between the coarse and fine layers of the filter. In this configuration, the filter should be divided into roughly evenly sized thirds.
4. Making activated charcoal
a. Charcoal: The charcoal base of activated charcoal is hardwood charcoal. This comes from hardwood that has been burned. Commercial charcoal briquettes that is popularly used in grilling cannot be used for activated charcoal, as it is toxic if consumed. Wood from hardwood trees must be burned to make this charcoal. Hardwood is a classification of tree that spans many different species of tree. Common and easily identifiable hardwood trees are oak trees. If a tree is growing acorns, its wood is probably good to use in activated charcoal. A book of different tree species and their characteristics would be good to have on hand if looking for a hardwood tree.
b. Powdering the charcoal: Once the hardwood has been burned and the coals have cooled, the charcoal can be placed in a bag which will allow for the charcoal to be smashed to a powder with a hammer or any blunt object that will make the process of powdering the charcoal easiest.
c. “Activating the charcoal” with calcium chloride: What differentiates activated charcoal different from regular charred wood is treating it with calcium chloride. Calcium chloride is a widely available chemical used in canning vegetables, commonly known as pickle crisp. Pickle crisp is likely to be stocked in near the canning jars in most grocery stores. To treat the charcoal with calcium chloride, a 25% solution of calcium chloride in distilled water must be prepared. This solution is hazardous to the touch, so protective equipment is recommended. The solution is also likely to become hot during mixing. The powdered charcoal should be added to a bowl, and the calcium chloride solution should be added to the powder until it takes on the consistency of a paste. Allow the paste to dry for 24 hours. After drying, spread over cheese cloth or some other white cloth that has no detergent residue on it. Rinse the treated charcoal by pouring distilled water over the charcoal, allowing it to filter through the cloth that the charcoal was spread on. Dry the charcoal in an oven for 30 minutes at 250 Fahrenheit. After removing from the oven, allow to cool, and break the charcoal away from the cloth. Store in a dry, airtight container to use as necessary.
5. Making soap
a. Soap is an item that is highly useful in cleaning and disinfecting, even when it is not specifically an antibacterial soap. Most everyone knows that oil and water do not mix. Soap has the miraculous ability to make it so that they will. From cleaning eating utensils to washing bodies, it is closely related to the health increased health of the modern world. In a survival situation, soap can be an important tool for personal use and a useful bartering supply.
b. Making soap: There are only three ingredients required to make basic soap. Some form of oil, which can come from animal fat or plant sources; soft water, and lye.
c. Oil: The oils that are commonly used to cook with are perfectly suitable for making soap with. Olive oil is a common oil to use in soap, as are animal fats such as tallow. During a survival situation, animal fat will probably be easiest to acquire, but plant based oils can be acquired through the great effort of squeezing the oils out of plants, most commonly seeds and nuts. Animal fats are most easily acquired because the fats of animals that are hunted for food can also be used to make oil used in soap. When an animal is being butchered, fat and muscle can be easily distinguished. Muscle looks like the meat seen in everyday life. Fat is yellow or white, and will be found deposited in areas around superficial muscle. To make use of this animal fat for soap, the fat should be melted on at the lowest heat possible. The fat will liquefy when heated, and undesirable impurities will remain solid in the liquefied fat. This liquefied fat can be used as oil for making soap.
d. Obtaining lye: Lye can be purchased in hardware stores, and is a harsh chemical that should be handled with protective equipment. In a survival situation, lye can be made using the ash of burned hardwood. Hardwood ash can be soaked in water for 12 to 24 hours in to produce a solution of lye in water. The water the ashes are soaked in will contain the lye. Drain the water off of the ashes and the lye water solution can be used to make soap. Not all hardwood will contain the same amount of lye, so allowing the water to evaporate out of the lye solution will allow for a more concentrated lye solution. To know the concentration of lye in the water, the pH of the solution can be tested (pH testing methods will be described later in this document).
e. Making soap from combining oil and lye: Oil should be heated to the minimum temperature to liquefy all fats present. Lye can be added to the oil to make transform the oil into soap. Lye solutions are recommended in a range of 30%40% of lye in distilled water. Some trial and error may be necessary to gain the hardness of soap desired. Lye should be stirred into the oil until the oil/lye solution begins to thicken. It is often recommended that a “line test” be performed to know when enough lye has been added. A line test is performed when the solution begins to thicken, and is characterized by the solution being thick enough to draw a line with a stirring instrument in the solution without the line disappearing into the solution immediately after being drawn. The mixture can be poured into a mold, a simple rectangular mold made of wood will suffice. After the soap has been left in the mold to dry for 30 days, it is ready to use.
6. Making a pH indicator
a. In chemistry, it is often necessary to determine the concentration of a solution. This is usually easy due to the readily available pH test strips in any store that stocks pool supplies. pH test strips are extremely useful, and can be utilized to standardize natural pH measurement tests.
b. Red cabbage is a nutritious vegetable, but the act of cooking it as surprisingly beneficial by products in survival situations. In boiling this cabbage, the water used in boiling it, can be saved and used as a pH indicator for solutions of unknown concentration. The water of a left over from boiling red cabbage can be dropped into a solution of unknown concentration to reveal the pH of the solution. The water a cabbage is boiled in will typically be purple. A few drops of this water into an acidic solution will turn the solution the solution a reddish color. A neutral solution, such as the water the cabbage was boiled in will be purple, like the color of the cabbage water. A basic solution will be green or yellow. The various points in the pH scale; with acids being <7, neutral being 7, and bases being >7 (such as lye) can be standardized using a combination of pH strips and cabbage water. Each pH value should yield a different shade of color in the cabbage water solution, and these shades can be distinguished using pH strips. Each time cabbage water is made, the pH values would change. If a great deal of cabbage water is made at once and saved though, this should be a useful tool for the quite a while.
7. Preserving meat with salt
a. Salt is a natural preservative agent. Before refrigeration was widely available, salt was used to preserve meat.
b. Method to preserve meat in salt: A salt brine can be prepared by adding salt to a distilled water. Salt should be added to the point that it becomes impossible to add more salt to the water without the salt dissolving into the water. In a container that can be sealed away from the any air, add a layer of salt to the bottom. Meat can be put on top of the bottom salt layer. The meat should be covered in salt. Another layer of meat can be added on top of the salted meat, then covered in salt. This process can be repeated until the container is full to the point that no more meat can be added. Add a layer of salt on top of the most superficial layer. A stirring instrument should be used to press down on the meat to ensure no air pockets are present. Salt should be added to the container to ensure that all sides of each layer of meat are covered in salt. Push the meat down with a stirring implement again. Pour the salt brine over the mixture. Push down on the meat again, using the stirring tool. If no air bubbles arise, top off the container with the salt brine and close. The meat will be preserved in the salt. Place lid on the container, and the meat should be ready to utilize at the time it is needed. The meat will taste salty when cooked. To remove the salty taste, soak the meat in sterilized, distilled water for 12 hours before cooking.
Useful Links (Not references, but kind of)
How to make activated charcoal (video included) https://www.primalsurvivor.net/diy-activated-charcoal/
Making soap https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/lye-solution-in-soapmaking/
Making Lye https://www.thoughtco.com/make-homemade-lye-using-two-ingredients-608276
Making a pH indicator https://www.thoughtco.com/making-red-cabbage-ph-indicator-603650
How to preserve meat with salt (video) https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved =2ahUKEwiJvffIlbDoAhULLK0KHQJZCxoQFjABegQIDhAJ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.co m%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DozG06MFsGb4&usg=AOvVaw1heWsvtJRzW651Y3xrUM2V