“You would then illegally scrounge whatever material you could from a backup supply cache that I’ve overlooked. The same cache where your team are waiting for further orders.” – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
I have the eye of a tiger, and the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo.
Cache.
It’s from a French word, cache, and it’s pronounced exactly like the word “cash” but you simply have to add the sound of a six-day-old banana being chopped in half with a rusty meat cleaver on the end. I have no idea why people say learning French is difficult.
Cache was originally a French trapper word for a place where they hid stuff like gunpowder and spare Velcro® and the PEZ® extract that they painstakingly hand-squeezed from beaver glands.
Who exactly were the French trappers hiding stuff from? Probably beavers wanting their glands back, or the rare deepwater Apache wanting gunpowder to snort.
Why am I bringing up old French slang terms? I was inspired to write this little post down because both Aesop (LINK) and Eaton Rapids Joe (LINK) wrote about it today. So I decided to jump on the bandwagon.
Why don’t dairy cows wear flip flops? They lactose.
Each of them had a slightly different take than I will, so, please do give them a visit. Here’s my $0.02 worth:
What am I going to want to hide and why? First, how about what not to hide?
Food.
This is one of my pet peeves. Many, many people in America have been hungry, as in “I skipped breakfast” but few people living in 2021 America have really been hungry. I remember reading that T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia” not D.H. Lawrence who was “Lawrence of Chlamydia”) was always showing how tough he was. Why, one day, he went a whole day without having any food.
Most people in the United States could go weeks without any chow. It always amuses me when I read an article about some programmer from San Jose who followed the Apple® Maps™ direction and ended up snowbound for three days is found. Almost always, the news story ends up with some insanely stupid comment, “And Brandon survived for six days on nothing but Taco Bell® Fire Sauce™ packets.”
If you mix Taco Bell® Fire Sauce™ into ramen, it tastes just like poverty.
No. Brandon was fine going to be fine. The 86 calories he got from the hot sauce packets didn’t cover that thin margin between life and death, and he didn’t really need to eat the two people with him.
When it comes to bug-out bags (or get home bags) the last thing I’d want is to add food. And that goes for your cache, too. Food is bulky, and, over time, will spoil. Food is a difficult thing to conceal for long periods. I mean, have you ever left a ham sandwich with mayo on the counter for a week or two? Ugh.
Freeze dried food or MREs will last quite a long time if kept dry, but how many MREs would you have to bury to survive for a reasonable period?
A lot. I could do the math. And I certainly do suggest that you have a ludicrous amount of food on hand – as much as you can afford and store. But to go out and bury it? Unless you have enough land and enough money to build and bury a bunker, creating a food cache would be just as silly as creating a water cache.
Is drinking water from a straw the opposite of snorkeling?
But what should I cache? That’s where it gets interesting. What does it take to keep me alive? What do I want to hide?
As many before me have said, if you think it’s time to bury your rifles, perhaps it’s time to start loading them instead. But rifles are a great thing to have when times get tough. Rifles are a great thing to have when times are great. I just love rifles.
A rifle without a cartridge means I have to do cardio to bash the commies with my rifle butt. That sounds like work. So, why not store some ammo, too? And, by ammo, I mean a LOT of ammo. Since the prices are coming down now, it’s pretty close to the time to smash the “buy” button. So, that’s something that I might want to have.
Tools. What kind? Knives. Hatchets. Fire starting stuff. Rope. A good pair of boots. Bitcoins.
Medical supplies. Some of them have a pretty short shelf life. Bandages, not so much – they can last as long as they’re dry and sealed. And, if it came down to it, some triple-antibiotic salve is worth having. Personally, I’d try that even if it was expired even if it didn’t work any better than rubbing cottage cheese into a cut at that point.
Well, I can’t store a year’s worth of water, but I can store high-quality, high-volume water filters that will do 100,000 or so gallons. That should give me time to figure out how to clean up the local creek water.
The Mrs. got me a bracelet with my initials on it before I went into the hospital, but they had a silly typo – instead of JW it said DNR.
Where should I hide my cache?
Any public lands are just that – public. If someone finds my cache, well, hey, “free stuff” will be what they think. In the western half of the United States where there is an immense volume of public land, it’s certainly easy enough to find places where no one has ever been. I know that in several of my trips, I’ve been places that no other person, ever, has walked. That’s a good place to hide stuff.
Depending on where you are, there might not be any public lands to speak of, especially if you’re east of the Mississippi. That means hiding it on lands that you or someone else owns. I don’t know about you, but I don’t generally think highly of people who dig holes on my land and bury stuff on it. Heck, the other week I dug down and found a wallet that someone had cached here at Wilder Mansion. Anyone know of a “Jimmy Hoffa”? I seem to have his wallet.
If I or my family own it, by definition I’m in much better shape. It’s even better if I have 50 or more acres, because playing tic-tac-toe across 50 acres gets a little tiresome.
Like anything, I’d suggest that you never trust on a single solution. “Two is one, and one is none” is old-school prepper talk. Redundancy is the key. Why have one AR-15 when you could have two? Two means that if one breaks, you have the other one. And if they both break? You just might be able to use the parts from one for the other – that’s the reason The Mrs. and I had two boys, after all.
Buy a communist a plane ticket and he can fly once. Push him out of a helicopter and he can fly the rest of his life.
The same goes with caches. They have one cache, when you can have three? Why have three, when you can have four? Having two water filters is better than having one. And having two of the same water filter is better still.
The last thing is that if I have a cache, i need to be able to find it and access it when I need it. If i hid it so well that even i can’t find it, it’s lost. Perhaps some future archaeologist might find it interesting, but that doesn’t help me. As I’ve recently seen, I can’t even remember all of the 300 or so passwords I have, so trying to remember where I buried my cache in a decade might be difficult if I can’t remember “password123”.
But whatever you do, don’t cache French fish. They’re literally poisson.
John – – A practical posting, but only for those who act upon your prompting of how they might plan and then follow through.
Caching guns and ammo requires that they be well protected from moisture. Slathering a firearm in petroleum jelly and then inserting it into a plastic bag with moisture absorbers is the first layer of protection against moisture. Then the firearm must be vacuum sealed inside a bag made specifically for use with a vacuum sealer machine. The first layer of plastic is important since it protects the vacuum seal bag from small burrs that may be on the firearm and which would eventually puncture the vacuum seal bag. I have experience with this so, trust me, the burrs are there even if you cannot feel them or see them. And it only takes one microscopic hole to destroy the protection that the vacuum seal bag provides against moisture.
Optical sights must be stored separately and remember to take out any battery, but also include the instructions sheet because you will have forgotten all it focuses on……..And put into the vacuum seal bag spare batteries left in their original purchase containers.
Likewise, ammo should be vacuum sealed with a plastic or cardboard between the rounds and the vacuum seal bag. Ammo really has burrs on it ! Again, trust me on this !
Be certain to also vacuum seal your firearms cleaning materials.
Now comes the challenge….burying the cache in a water tight container. I won’t discuss that because there are numerous videos on Censor-YouTube that show how to make such containers. Suggest readers seek out military surplus aerial rocket shipping containers made to ship USAF missiles since these are made to be tightly closed and air tight with well designed seals.
And you might want to cache fishing gear, hand tools like hatchet, camp saw, buck knife, fire starters, bug repellent, aspirins, snares, socks and underwear, hotel freebie coffee packs and hotel shampoo, chocolate bars, peanuts in cans, maps/compass and other items that might make your existence comfortable after the “Schumer Hits The Fan”.
Thoughts:
1. Slather your firearms in Triple Antibiotic Ointment instead.
2. Don’t slather your optics in anything.
3. Choose a military caliber rifle to stash because then you can buy battle packs of already sealed ammo. 5.56×45 (.223), 7.62×51 (.308), and 7.62x54R (Eastern block) are all good choices.
Yeah, this is pretty well documented. Water is your enemy. Tools, tools, tools. And that which can be traded.
A food cache is a pretty tough one to do, the logistics are daunting and the cost is pretty high. Firearms are “easier” but still there are a lot of considerations. You can buy cosmoline and that helps a ton but then you have to clean the gun before you can use it. Would a gun grease work? I am not sure. Lots to think about including what if the Feds show up and have a metal detector, your hidden cache of firearms and ammo won’t stay hidden long.
And they are using earth penetrating radar to search areas to find the non-metallic stuff. A local drug dealer has his cache of drugs and money found that way. Note: the radar can see down 15 ft in dry soil (less if moist but still feet).
It all depends on the size. Typical suburban postage stamp? That’s difficult hiding anything. 400 acres of pasture and woods? You could hide enough stuff for a division.
And, I’m thinking that a cheaper way to handle the gun issue, should you not personally own one, but have taken the time to learn how to use it, is to make an agreement with one of the people you know to take responsibility for buying ammo/cartridges for their guns. You could either store it at your house, or at theirs. Either way, it should entitle you to use of a spare gun in a SHTF situation. Preferably someone geographically close.
So, if you buy, you could add in an equal amount for others as well.
Remember, trust is a scarce commodity in a world where a cache is a thing someone might need. However, (as is commented later on) community is ultimately key.
As a man, the only thing I bury are my feelings.
Doh! Where were you when I was doing my edit!
10/10
The only appropriate thing to cache underground are bodies. I wouldn’t use my own yard for that. It’s why God gives us neighbors. Your neighbor might object if you start digging random holes in their yard so here’s a pro tip: Offer to watch their place when they go on vacation for a week, and then when they get home it’s BAM! Surprise garden! Plant a big, beefy tree in the center. Something endangered, so nobody will ever be able to dig it up for any reason.
Do I need to include a /sarc tag?
If you have a neighbor with a large hog farm, as I do, and hogs are known for their willingness to devour absolutely anything? No shovel needed.
I’ve heard that, but how awkward would it be when your neighbor offers you free bacon and you turn it down? They’d just assume you’re gay. That’d be bad.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. Bacon doesn’t just happen on its own, you know.
Helpful alternative: chest freezer + time (3 days) + wood chipper + deep/moving water or swamp (with bleach for cleanup). I read it in a novel or saw it in a movie once. Definitely didn’t learn it from the regional mafia. (Pymatuning Reservoir)
Henry Bowman and his friend did the same thing.
I gave a friend of my a copy of that hardback for Christmas one year. He’s a reader here. I wonder if he knows that it’s worth $450 or so?
WWHBD?
Remember, no potatoes. Gotta dig ’em up.
Don’t need a /sarc tag. Just say, “in Minecraft” like the pros do.
The main problem with a cache is that it’s gonna run out. Then what?
https://www.growveg.com/guides/growing-enough-food-to-feed-a-family/
Oh yeah, there’s also the water thing…
https://www.lid-stormwater.net/raincist_sizing.htm
As a (sort of) aside, let me mention two recommended TV programs I’ve watched lately and enjoyed that are somewhat relevant and worth the time to watch.
The first is Alone, which basically (to me) shows that the whole “living off of the land solo” thing is a complete and total fantasy.
The second is the (excellent!) new Netflix sardonic documentary How To Become A Tyrant, specifically its coverage of the political aspects of the Holodomor enforced famine in the Ukraine and North Korean starvation.
When the trucks stop rolling into Wal Mart, I suspect there will be a somewhat politically biased distribution of food thereafter. Which will result in some interesting times. Just a hunch.
Good luck to us all once the food side of our cache runs out.
The classic handbook on what to do once the cache runs out, originally from (gasp) 50 years ago. Ah, I remember the good old days in the early 1990s when this was a reference work for writing NASA reports about living on 21st Century Mars, not 21st Century post-apocalyptic America…
http://files.meetup.com/2862372/49406341-How-to-Grow-More-Vegetables.pdf
FEMA put out a lot of books in the 1980’s on that. Also, how to run a tractor on firewood chips.
Yup, alone is not a winning idea. I was surprised how good the How To documentary was, since it plainly showed the horrors of communism.
re — water, unlimited for drinking, worshing, gardening
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On the Inkshard channel of author Eric Muss-Barnes on YouTube, he “…doesn’t generally care much for people…”
( I notice I can fit that category )
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The author built a THOW (TinyHomeOnWheels), then moved to remote acreage in the middle of California’s Mojave Desert.
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For water, he uses a series of panels from Source.
Engineered to extract humidity from the overnight temperature difference, these self-contained panels collect many gallons of purified water as condensation from the evening’s humid air.
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Although the Source panels have a useful life of only a few decades, this sounds like a way to outlast the shambling hordes of the thirsty undead.
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PS:
Any time I hear ‘generally’, I fondly recall those many pleasant hours invested in The Dukes Of Hazard… watching the Duke boys going flying!
“Those Duke boys were in a heap of trouble this time . . . ”
Wow! It works in the desert! I tried a similar thing in the high Rockies and was just disappointed. Altitude, I think.
When pappy had some land in the southern corner of the state a local had a buried school bus with everything that would be needed for the commie cleansing that is coming.
I should head down that way before the tax per mile traveled comes down from comrade kommissar Petey Butt the high potentate of transport.
Too bad so sad that man is not a learning animal and we will have to repeat the Great Leap Forward.
Rivers of gore and mountains of skulls are a feature and not a bug to the CPUSA/CCP fellow travelers.
But the rivers and mountains will be great travel landmarks.
A cache is really just prolonging the inevitable. Without modern convenience, the best skills involve adaptation, the ability to glean food from what’s available, and if necessary: brutality. Without what’s available today, the majority of people would starve, or die from disease; after many are killed to stop them from thievery. A cache will probably not be as necessary as reverting to savagery.
Savagery and community. Probably tribal.
Every hoard of ancient treasure turned up in some European farmer’s field is evidence that the people who bury wealth don’t always live to recover it (nor do their descendants).
Might have died before they told their descendants “where we buried the gold”.
Death happened suddenly without hospitals being within a 10 minute ambulance ride after a 9-1-1 call.
Keep in mind that some of it (money in England, for instance) lost all value for over 100 years. Why dig up copper disks when they’re not worth anything?
“…I don’t generally think highly of people…”
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I love the Dukes Of Hazzard reference… you are on quite the roll today!
Heh, thank you!
The problem with the prepper thing is it assumes after a certain period of time all the bad people will be dead, and the only people left alive to rebuild civilization will be those with similar political and religious views as the prepper. When you crawl out of your bunker after 1 year or 5 years there will be political entities in control. They may only be city, county, or state level, and they likely won’t be adhering to Constitutional or Biblical rule of law…
Prepping to hide out till the end of the apocalypse is liking prepping on a submarine for the time it gets stuck on the bottom… you are only prolonging the inevitable.
Best to have a group of people that can get organized and survive in the open, because survival is not going to get easier with time.
Bingo. Create community of like-minded folks. Meatspace.
“Best to have a group of people that can get organized and survive in the open, because survival is not going to get easier with time.”
–how is that not prepping? And what will all those people eat, wash with, plant, etc if they don’t first prep?
n
With the right people, those things are (nearly) an afterthought. But that’s prepping, too. It’s also a great idea, Nick:
Community Prepping. It’s the best way through . . . . (hmmmm)