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Episode-723- Listener Calls for 8-12-11 — 21 Comments

  1. Squash bugs:
    Those things killed me this year. I had squash vine borers and got through those ok. All my pumpkins got SVB and I targeted and killed the larvae and the pumpkins were taking root further up the vine and doing good. All my other squash was about the same, doing well despite the SVB. Butternuts, acorns, yellows and zuchs all doing well.

    I knew I had squash bugs but they didnt seem to be hurting anything so I left them alone all summer. In a few days all of a sudden they killed 5 beds full of a variety of squash and a bed of cukes. I thought it was the heat or a problem with not watering enough. By the time I figured it all out everything was dead. A bed would go from perfectly healthy to dead in a day, it was crazy and sudden. Like the bugs took all summer to hit a critical mass and then suddenly just nuked everything…. Very sad. Now I got no pumpkins, butternuts, acorns, yellow squash, zuchinnis or cukes. All gone.

    Next year I plan to try guineas. Also Jason Akers says they will congregate under a board. So next year I will try that and then periodically raise up the board and spray with soapy water.

    On the upside, now I have plenty room to plant my greens, turnips, beets and other fall crops. 🙂

  2. Rawlesian theory…John Wesley, Rawles view of the Golden Horde…lol. the caller was a little garbled… Jeez…Jack. You oughta know your competition…:P…

    • @lweson, I don’t see Rawles as a “competitor” even if I did I never bother to pay attention to competitors. When you focus on your competitors you become reactionary and foolish vs doing what needs to be done and what your market asks for.

      Rawles and I do differ on this though to a degree but understand his blogging is much closer to reality (in my view) than his fan fiction novel. I think Rawles and I are 90-95% in agreement with actual practical applications.

  3. I did CERT here in the Tampa Florida area. Overall it is a good beginner program for a local government focused citizen response system. Coupled with Skywarn and ARES as well as CAP.

    The triage is for a mass casuality event. For instance since we have McDill here we did do some response to a huge event. If there are only 5 to 8 people dealing with 300+ casualities some people with a pulse will have to be left until the resources can be moved accordingly. If the situation is allowable you can work that person. It is good training (Nice refresher from some of the stuff from the Army back in the 90’s), just have to know when and how to apply.

    • I am currently going thru CERT here in OKC. We covered this last night and the above poster addresses the issue quite well.

      CERT training says to use Situational Awareness. Does the situation dictate you being able to perform CPR? Are there others nearby that need help? Can you save their life easily first before proceeding with CPR?

      Also, how long can you perform CPR? With two people rotating CPR duties, you’ll both end up tired pretty quick. What then? Do you just stop CPR?

      • Have been through CERT here in Texas. Is a good beginner program. My primary complaints are after the training they don’t ever call you for an emergency. When hurricane evacuees were dispatched to our area I was told that I couldn’t assist with shelters since I didn’t have a background check (which I had to pay for). Shelters were managed by the Red Cross (which isn’t my favorite charity). The overall goals of the program are also fuzzy, and seems to depend more on what the local CERT leadership makes it out to be. Still, an overall good entry level program, and they give you manuals and a big backpack of stuff to keep after the training. Ours is managed by the local town’s fire dept. and does a good job with bringing in good speakers during the CERT training. Would recommend to get familiar with local emergency personnel and what to do in different scenarios.

    • Thanks for the info on CERT. I just looked it up and sent off an email to a coordinator about 20 miles away. Hope to attend training in the near future.

  4. Did you know in Minnesota they don’t even know what squash bugs are?

    It seems to be a southern (USA) problem. I had a revelation a couple weeks ago. I don’t really like summer squash all that much (neither do DH or DS). We’re not crazy about winter squash, though I like butternut squash once in a while, esp. for pies.

    So guess what I decided? I’m not growing any summer squash any more, and the only winter squash will be butternut. Squash vine borer problem solved, and I will spray the butternut once or twice a week with insecticidal soap. Don’t care how non “self-sufficient” that is.

    And yes, I do companion planting. The squash bugs find the squash regardless. THEY ARE A PROBLEM HERE (in the South).

  5. Wow! Best show yet. Right on target. Really apprecate your comments about the roving bands of gangs.Well put wish everyone could hear this show.Keep up the great work.

  6. Having to do triage at a large scale MCI (mass casualty incident) is tough. Like the posters above stated, it all depends on the number of casualties compared to the number of trained responders. Unfortunately, if you have 300 casualties & only a few responders you cannot stop triage/ABC care to work a non-breathing PT with a pulse. While you are working that individual, another dozen die from quickly treatable injuries (blood loss, airway obstruction, pneumo, etc). Doing triage at true large scale MCI’s such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, plane crashes is one of the worst parts of EMS. No one wants to have to “play God” and in triage you are forced to make difficult choices. Trust me, you will never forget those choices and you will play the “what if” game forever. Also, the situation described is adult triage, in peds triage that same PT would get 2 rescue breaths and then reassesment before being tagged black. The START method of triage is changed to a differant system (JumpSTART) when children are invloved in an MCI.

  7. If you have squash bugs, plant Nasturium. It’s a beautiful flower that will add color to your garden. Every part of the plant above the ground is edible so add the leaves and flowers to your salad. I put a nasturtium about every 8 feet in between my squash. No problems with squash bugs since I started planting them. the year before I harvested ZERO squash because of squash bugs.

  8. Really enjoyed the show~ and wasn’t going to comment until you talked about the ‘turd’ in every community.. every time you would say it, my son and I would laugh and point to the house of our area ‘b.m.’ I used to let him get to me, but now consider him a blessing since he is teaching me patience and grace~ but my dental insurance may go up from gritting my teeth.. Enjoy your show so much, Jack. You never fail to make me laugh.

  9. Sweeet, thanks for answering my question Jack. I’ll definitely listen to the other podcasts you mentioned.

  10. A more recent box of truth review, using self defense loads for the judge.

    http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot53.htm

    ——————
    Lessons learned (from the end of the article):
    1. The 3 inch .410 shells did slightly better than the 2 ½ inch shells did. But most of them still failed to make the 12 inch minimum penetration standard. However, a few loads made the minimum penetration standard.

    2. Some of the pellets deviated sharply from their path and left the water jugs.

    3. The longer barrel of the 28 inch shotgun made quite a difference in penetration. It seems that the short 3 inch barrel of the Judge is its main limitation.

    4. Even at 7 yards, the pattern of the Judge is too wide, and will cause some of the load to miss a bad guy. Not only are you responsible for every pellet you send down range, but if they miss him, they do not Stop him.

    5. The sun was shining, it was a blue bird day, and it was better than any day I ever spent at work.

    6. It’s fun to shoot stuff.

    —————–

    It’s a sub-standard defensive weapon. Better than a sharp stick, sure, but definitely a lot of hype and little data (in fact when I’ve looked in the past, there was NO ballistic gel data anywhere for it, even on the manufacturers’ websites. Wonder why that is?). People just hear “shotgun pistol” and assume it’s like the shotgun they see in the movies, or see that it makes an impressive set of holes in a paper target, and want one. It has low velocity, poor penetration, too wide a spread, and it’s too big to be easily concealed. And not even a heavy enough load unless you’re using the .45LC rounds, in which case you’re better off just buying a normal revolver. Nobody hunts deer with .410 buckshot (especially out of a sawed-off shotgun), why would you use it on people out of a 3″ barrel?

  11. I have experimented with a 308 case cut and sized using a 45 ACP die. It’s loaded with about 5 grains and works great. A 45 ACP shot shell. It’s a blast to shoot. Nice pattern at 15 yards.

  12. A couple of things:
    For some relatively recent historical perspectives on the golden horde or even the smaller organized gang vs. community, we need only look back to the “wild west” during the late 1800’s. Hollywood portrays the outlaws coming into town, robbing the bank, shooting the place up, and except for the hero gun slinger (aka Clint Eastwood, etc.) causing untold mayhem. The historical facts however are quite different. Generally a gang would sneak into town, attempt to rob the bank as quietly as possible, and slip out of town unnoticed. If someone noticed the back being robbed, the outlaws would end up running a lethal gauntlet of small arms fire from every building on both sides of the street. History shows us a much different picture than Hollywood. As for the golden horde, I wholeheartedly agree that it is simply a myth, because without the logistics trail it will soon wither and starve.

    On the subject of shotgun shells in handgun calibers, I’ve carried both .22RF and .357 on some outings in areas with venomous snakes. We always referred to those shells as snake shot or rat shot, and I personally wouldn’t recommend them for much more than that. I teach an NRA Personal Defense course and our recommendation is either a medium or larger caliber handgun (e.g., 38 Special or larger) or a shotgun, keeping in mind in either situation the backstop or penetration issues, especially in an urban environment. The one downside of shotgun is that too many people, who get training and practice with a handgun, don’t do the equivalent training with a shotgun, thinking of it as a simple point and shoot device. Also, unless you keep ear protection by your bedside, if you have never fired a gun (especially a shotgun) indoors, you may be more than a little surprised when taking that first shot. I absolutely concur with Jack that in you Beans, Bullets, and Bandaids preparations, the bullets part should include a budget in both time and money for training.

  13. We became preppers late last year when we woke up and shortly afterwards found out our local town was doing a CERT class. I was quite happy with the experience. It was, I think, 10 nights total and they covered general disaster discussions including things that might be local to your community, search and rescue, first aid (multiple nights), fire safety including hands on putting out a fire, 72 hour kit, paperwork/procedures/record keeping, disaster psychology and more. Our “final exam” was a hands on search and rescue in a simulated disaster while the other team did triage and then we switched roles for the second half.

    Our instructors were quite competent and kept stressing that they wanted us to take care of ourselves, our family and perhaps those neighbors around us. If, and only if, we wanted to join up with the emergency group in town we could be called up to help out and even then it would be up to us to say if we were available or not. Their main focus was always on help yourself and then those around you.

    At no point did they tell us to tag someone as dead if they still had a pulse. They did emphasize the fast initial triage… a few seconds or so… to sort everyone into what amounted to no problem, small problem, big problem and obviously dead and group and to group accordingly. Then as time permits go back through and do what you can. This is not EMT training but more along the lines of treat for shock (feet up, cover to keep warm) try to stop bleeding (elevate, compress) and do a basic examination making notes for when the professionals arrive.

    CPR was not included but offered as an extra weekend morning if you wanted to attend. Out of the dozen in our class, 9 came back for the CPR one.

    Like most things, take what you want out of it. I’d say 90% + was useful information for me. I’m sure that each town and group does it slightly differently but for a free class, there is a lot there that almost anyone can benefit from.

  14. One thing to look for if you are looking to move into a rural community is what I call “foreigner distrust”. Some tight knit communities are leery of outsiders and can even attempt to block your moving to that community, or chase you out. This usually happens if everyone in the community grew up there. One thing you might consider before moving in or buying in a community is hang out at the bar and /or church and see if you are welcomed or not. If nothing else, they will know you when you move there and will be more comfortable with your presence.

  15. CERT is a great program. I’ve been a member in Hayes County Texas for a couple years. The intro class is taught to people that have no medical training. Anything beyond head tilt is above what can be done. The idea is do the most good for the most people. If Brian walked into a room after a disaster and finds two people injured. One with a pulse that isn’t breathing and one with a severed arm and is bleeding out, the idea is to stop the bleeding first because you have a better chance of saving that person with minimal training. CERT instructors don’t want their personnel using all their time trying to get someone to breath again instead of stopping the bleeding on the other guy. I think Brian was being a little unfair to the instructor because Brian probably has more medical training then he does.