Spending a Saturday Prepping, Sort of

Toolman, Tonto, and I escaped responsibilities Saturday and we loaded up and went to a pair of gunshows, a Fiber show and did some shopping. It was the first time we have all been together in a while. It was too bad E couldn’t join us.

We hit the first gun show and what we discovered was prices where up again. One example I can give is this. My Dad’s deer rifle was a Winchester ’94 in .32 Winchester Special. It is now the gun my son uses for deer hunting. It is not that common a caliber and when ever I see some at a cheap price I buy it. I picked up a couple of boxes for $15 three years ago and Two years ago I found it for $18 a box. This gun show I saw it from $22 to $28 and a couple older boxes were marked higher for their “collector value”.

Tonto wanted to pick up some extra magazines for one of his sidearm’s and the only one he found the guy wasn’t $30 for it and could not guarantee that it would work in Tonto’s model. Toolman could not find the items on his list at any price. I saw some very rough, rusted, ammo cans fro $5 each, the kind we used to pay a buck for. I did find a half box of .30-30 rounds for $3 which I thought was ok.

One booth had a lot of books that would be of interest to anyone building a survival library. Three different Country Wisdom volumes, several books on raising livestock and some on butchering said livestock. Another booth had a nice array of medical supplies that might be good to have for TEOTWAWKI. Gunshows still are great places for finding gear; just realize that prices are going up all the time.

We stopped at Dunham’s to look for a couple items. I found a box of .22s on sale for $17. That is the cheapest I have seen on a brick of .22s in a long while so I bought one. I noticed one lone box of M-1 carbine ammo and I picked it up. I about fell over looking at the price. I showed Tonto and his jaw dropped. Toolman came over and had the same jaw dropping reaction. Forty-five dollars a box!

Next door to the second gun show was a “Fiber Show”. We had no idea what a fiber show was and decided to walk over and check it our. Toolman opted to stay in the van and eat a polish dog so Tonto and I walked over. There was no charge to walk through so we did. There were a lot of animals there, each which produced a nice fur for yarn. Tonto explained that his girlfriend has a sweater and pair of socks made from alpaca yarn and she just loves it. He was half looking for another pair of socks for her. The highlight of the show for us was the camel they had on display. Tonto and I got to pet the camel. I asked the guy that was controlling the thing if he ever rode the camel. He said he rode it a lot. I asked him if that made him a camel jockey. Some woman standing there whirled around and gave me a dirty look, not appreciating my joke. Oh well, Tonto laughed.

We did find that there are a lot of different models of spinning wheels and saw the possibilities of spinning yarn and making clothes as a barter item especially after TEOTWAWKI. We didn’t spend enough time there to really get a clear picture of what the fiber show was about and probably need to look into it more

After the gun shows and fiber show we returned to the farm and Toolman brought out his new Ruger LRC in .357. He had an accident at work and with his hand in a cast he could not cock the slide on his semi-auto so he got the little Ruger to carry. We all managed to punch some holes in the target with it and Tonto said that the stainless model had much better control than the aluminum model he shoot a couple weeks ago at the range.

It was nice for all of us to get together again even if it was only for a short time spending a Saturday prepping, sort of.

Wolverine