# Great Plains Preppers



## shelljo (Feb 1, 2005)

Living on the Great Plains, I realize that our concerns for a SHTF scenario is somewhat different than for those folks east and west of us.

For example...firewood. We all know wood is a scarce commodity for those of us who live on the plains. And water...most rivers and creeks are seasonal and we rely on groundwater almost exclusively.

What plans are you making for fuel and water? Burn cow chips? Burn hay sticks? Move south? Water, do you have a solor pump, or windmill? 

I feel some comfort seeing all the grain elevators, and know that we'd have some type of grain availible, but also know that growing more grain will be a challange--definately the large fields and irrigated fields, so grain would become more scarce over time.

What will happen to dwellers in cities in the Great Plains? 

So, those of you on the Plains, how are you prepping?


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## RockyGlen (Jan 19, 2007)

I'm not on the plains, but I would not feel so sure about the comforting site of all those grain elevators. Don't you think if people were hungry, those things would be robbed pretty quick? Better to handle your own grain storage and be quiet about it.


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## brosil (Dec 15, 2003)

How many of those hungry people would even associate the grain with food? I doubt if even 10% could process it to an edible form. They probably wouldn't even chew wheat.


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## shelljo (Feb 1, 2005)

They comfort me because I live in a town of less than 100 people. The elevator is a huge elevator with 16 bins in it. We're 75 miles away from the largest metropolitian area, with a population of 20,000. So, that elevator, full, would feed many in my community for a long time. And, every town around here has an elevator. So, even that town with the 20.000 people, they have even bigger elevators than ours, so they won't come foraging for a while. 

We are, in a word...isolated. Yes, there would have to be security and guards, but it's there.


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## Morning Owl (Oct 13, 2005)

Shelljo I found this article about a year ago and thought it was very interesting. Fuel for heat and fertiler for garden with the ashes. Some thing you could use in the plains if you had horses or cows. :shrug: 

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/hooker87.html

Morning Owl


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

For those of us on the plains where large quantities of grain are grown and land is plentiful I think burning cereal grains makes a lot of sense. There are now heating stoves of the market that burn cereal grains, but they require a blower to aid combustion. Now if one would put in photovoltaics to provide for the blower energy then it should be a piece of cake to get by for heat, and for cooking on top of the stove.


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## avandris (Jun 8, 2007)

In the Little house series books the one called The Long Winter talks about how they had to twist straw/hay to make fuel for the winter. So you could grow the grain to eat and use the straw to twist/braid for fuel.


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## hoggie (Feb 11, 2007)

Morning Owl - you beat me to it. I believe that here on the island, they used to spread the cow manure on the walls to sun-dry for burning (there are very few trees on the island)

hoggie


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## cheapskate (May 9, 2006)

For water we put in a pond. It won't dry up even if it didn't rain a drop for 3 years. We have a big Berkey to filter it for consumption. We also have a pump jack for our regular well.

We have a nice woodshed that will hold 3 years supply of firewood when full. There are many old abandoned structures within a 3 mile radius of home and those are now identified as targets for wood replenishment if needed. In the meantime, we restock firewood every chance we can. We get free scrap from a pallet mill a few miles away. It is great stuff being mostly 2x4 and 2x6 scrap, the perfect length for our woodstove too.

We're about a nice 2 day walk from Wichita, so we plan to use that 2 day lead time to fortify our place, prepare for hungry refugees to feed and send on their way, and to receive pre-invited guests and family into our home to weather whatever storm comes along.

It's good to have a plan. It's good to think of these things before thry may be needed. 

Prepping.....it's what's for dinner!

cheapskate


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## Carolyn (Jan 5, 2008)

I am in the upper Plains area, North Dakota. I have heard about burning cow chips to keep warm. Right now with the wind chill it is -41 and is supposed to get colder tonight. We heat with propane right now, but we are getting a new mobile home, and I think we may add a coal stove in an addition. We heated an old house with coal and it is warm. We have coal readily here. My son is playing with wind generators. But I think that we will add the coal stove. or the corn/pellet stove. We can grow our own corn. I bought the big garbage dumpsters from the city for a couple of bucks, so we will have good storage for coal. We have 2 wells and do have hand pumps just in case. Up here, the straw things in this wind would not keep anything warm. I would look to see if you have coal or wood available in your area. You can burn wood in a coal stove, but you can't burn coal in a wood stove, it burns to hot. I know there are mixed emotions about burning coal, but it is warm and like I said available in my area. Carolyn


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## shelljo (Feb 1, 2005)

We live in an area that has more pasture land than crop land. So, straw to burn would be limited. Not many trees--other than cedar trees. Yes, lots of abandoned farmsteads, but how long would those last if everyone had to use them for fuel? We dont have a horse. Lots of folks around us do, but we dont. We might in the future, but for now, we dont. I've got food covered. No windmill on the well right now, but there's a windmill in walking distance, so we could get water...and I'd get a windmill. (I'm working on that now, or actually, a solor pump.) But, on these cold days...I keep thinking about the lack of wood. Yes, we could go out and get cow chips, but they do break down pretty quickly.

I just keep reading (and get jealous) of those who have a readily available wood supply, and readily available water--streams and creeks and ponds and such. KNowing we don't have those...and that life is more challenging for those of us on the plains...I was just curious what thoughts everyone else had.


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## mark.cheryl (Jan 6, 2008)

The article in Back Woods on making compressed cow chip logs for fire seems to say that they burn as long as their equivalent in hardwood. Might be a idea to start planting trees? In a decade you could have a good amount of wood.


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## shelljo (Feb 1, 2005)

mark.cheryl said:


> Might be a idea to start planting trees? In a decade you could have a good amount of wood.


Yeah. That's what they thought in the late 1800's too...plant trees. But, many old trees are dying out here. Why? because the underground water table is dropping and their roots aren't finding water. Old, old cottonwood trees are dying left and right. Creeks that ran year round in the 50's don't run at all. Again, dropping ground water levels, or water being dammed up out west and not making it here.

Yes, we can plant trees, but if we don't have the water to keep them growing, then they'll die, and once they are burnt, no more trees. So, planting trees isn't really a good solution.

Really guys, I wa just curious what those of us, who live on the plains were *doing*...cause our environment is different than the majority of members on this board!


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## john-galt (Feb 5, 2016)

I live in Western Kansas, in a berm house with three sides and the roof covered in soil. It never gets below mid 40s inside in the winter and about 70 in the summer, so no heat is required. I think this makes much more sense than trying to heat with wood.


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## Explorer (Dec 2, 2003)

Another old thread, 8 years in fact.


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## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

This just occurred to me. I have been fretting about the lack of firewood type trees in the desert that I could burn in my wood stove should propane and elect be goners. I suddenly flashed on the fact that we have many many nut orchards in our area. Pecan and Pistachio. Right now we burn pecan and I expect without power most of the orchards would die leaving us a huge forest of hardwood to burn!


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

sisterpine said:


> This just occurred to me. I have been fretting about the lack of firewood type trees in the desert that I could burn in my wood stove should propane and elect be goners. I suddenly flashed on the fact that we have many many nut orchards in our area. Pecan and Pistachio. Right now we burn pecan and I expect without power most of the orchards would die leaving us a huge forest of hardwood to burn!


We have the same here. Lots of Pecan orchards. There is a mature orchard here that survived about 6 years on its own after the couple that owned it died. I guess the water table was high enough to keep them alive. You may be able to get a crop and fire wood from trimmings if your lucky.


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## Canyonero (Jan 20, 2016)

Old thread, but important topic.

My house runs mainly on propane - hot water baseboard heat, hot water, oven/range, dryer, blue flame heater. I have a 1000 gallon tank that I keep filled at least at 50% at all times. Even without electricity, I can still run the range, hot water heater, and blue flame heater, for whatever time until the propane runs out.

My primary backup in the house is two woodstoves, upper and lower level. I burn a type of stove fuel made from compressed hardwood sawdust; byproduct from a local flooring mill. It burns hot and clean, and it's easy to store a lot of it. I buy it in pallets, about 1500 lbs. The pallets are covered with weatherproof plastic, so I can store them inside or out. Depending on how much money I want to spend, I could literally store several years worth.

My backup for my backup is wood. I have an unlimited supply on my property. My limitation is having room to store it where I can get at it during the winter, especially when the snow is deep and I can't get around the place without plowing paths. Plus, in a long-term disaster, fuel for the chain saws and haulers (ATV, diesel) would become a problem.

I'm getting set up for water storage in my utility room. I have plenty of room for tanks; I can easily store 1000 gallons or more. I also have about 5000 sq/ft. of metal roof that already drains into gutters, so I'm going to work on getting set up a collection system.

Our preps will carry us at least through the initial phase of forseeable disasters. I can't plan or equip for every conceivable situation, and figure in any case, there'll be some improvisation.


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## 1sttimemom (Mar 1, 2005)

I live in Eastern Colorado, basically where Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska come together. The wind is the major issue. Wind chill really makes temperature extremes change super fast and causes blizzard condition white outs and huge snow drifts. It is actually also very dry here, esp last few yrs of drought. Growing enough grain to use a corn stove for heat would be very difficult if you don't have irrigation. In our former home (Sterling, CO) we had a corn stove and it did keep our house super toasty warm. The home was only about 1000 sq ft 100 yr old poorly insulated farm house with really crappy old windows. When it was very cold and windy we would burn nearly 40-50 lb of corn daily as total heat for the home, obviously MUCH less was used in less severe weather. We bought corn in bulk at a local mill and it was cheaper than propane at that time. Personally, here in our new home we plan to eventually put in a wood stove. Wood can be had free for the cutting on some of the open land here and there is lots of it very close to us along the riverbed.


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## Canyonero (Jan 20, 2016)

1sttimemom said:


> I live in Eastern Colorado, basically where Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska come together. The wind is the major issue. Wind chill really makes temperature extremes change super fast and causes blizzard condition white outs and huge snow drifts. It is actually also very dry here, esp last few yrs of drought. Growing enough grain to use a corn stove for heat would be very difficult if you don't have irrigation. In our former home (Sterling, CO) we had a corn stove and it did keep our house super toasty warm. The home was only about 1000 sq ft 100 yr old poorly insulated farm house with really crappy old windows. When it was very cold and windy we would burn nearly 40-50 lb of corn daily as total heat for the home, obviously MUCH less was used in less severe weather. We bought corn in bulk at a local mill and it was cheaper than propane at that time. Personally, here in our new home we plan to eventually put in a wood stove. Wood can be had free for the cutting on some of the open land here and there is lots of it very close to us along the riverbed.


Interesting note, that you burn 40-50 lbs of corn a day. That's about the amount of stove fuel I'd burn, maybe a bit more. My place is about 1600 sq/ft on each level, one stove up and one down. About a half 40 lb. bag into each stove.


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## 1sttimemom (Mar 1, 2005)

Yes, we would burn 40-50 lbs when it was super cold and windy. I'm talking single digit temps and wind chill making it worse. The coldest we ever saw in that area (in my life really being originally from southern CA) was in neg 30s and that was without wind chill. We didn't use nearly that much on more normal wintery days. The other thing about corn stoves is that the corn must be pretty clean, as in no chaff or other junk. Those pieces will clog up little thingy that rotates and causes the corn kernels to drop into fire box. So you have to basically sift the corn. We had a little sifter rigged up that we got from the people who sold the stoves. It was quite simple really, made out of 1x2, small size wire mesh, and some heavy card board. We would buy bulk bags of whole corn by the ton at the mill and sift it ourselves as it was much cheaper than bagged clean corn as the farm stores and such. We sifted into a "clean barrel" and a "dirty barrel". We didn't waste the "dirty" stuff. It was mostly bits of chaff, broken kernels, and lots of the outer skin "germ" layer of the corn. We fed that to the hogs and chickens! The corn burns very hot and has very little waste after burning. It would produce a "clinker" which was a black brick like chunk which we had to throw out. It's supposed to be good fertilizer so we just threw those out in the garden area after cooling.


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

Start making newspaper/paper logs with all the paper products you throw away. (not magazines) Shred or tear your paper in strips and then soak in water when you have quite a bit of it and then roll it into pretty good size logs and let it dry. It will make good burn logs. Pack it tight when you pack it so it burns longer. After a year of doing this through the spring, summer and fall you will have a pretty good number of logs. I bet if you asked at church, school or any number of places that use paper you could get a lot of paper given to you. (maybe even the newspaper office would give you old and unsold papers.)


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