Speaking of handheld weapons, in addition to pepper spray and the kubotan, I also carry these little plastic stinger devices that fit in the palm of your hand:

http://dealsonlywebstore.com/stinger-hand-held-self-defense-tool.html

Really cheap. I bought several and I keep them in various places so they’re easy to find.

i’ve put my brown rice in the freezer for at least 3 days before storing it thinking that’ll kill any organisms and would prolong the life of the rice.
thanks for your work

Bomb Shelter Question: Why not dig out the slab and go down another 18 inches? This won’t be fun and you have to be careful not to undermine whatever footing is underneath the foundation wall. But you could do a section toward one end and stock it as a shelter. Then wall off the rest for storage. Maybe the previous owner who built it is still alive.

Bomb shelter uses:

Wine cellar
Cheese storage
Root cellar
Brewing lager (lager likes the cold temp)
Naps in the hot days of summer.
A really big fire safe.

I’m not a personal fan of the kubaton, not because it’s ineffective but because its redundant. It requires constant and proper training to be used effectively. Once you learn how to effectively use it, guess what…you know enough martial arts to not really need one in the first place. If you don’t train, you have a tool but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s not as useful. Just like someone who has a gun, but doesn’t know how to shoot…well, they might not be able to operate it under pressure and in bodily danger.
You might be better off learning how to throw a proper punch, simple kicks, a throw or two and one or two arm/wrist locks.
Keep it under 15 techniques and master them and practice them until they become automatic and ingrained into your muscle memory. It will also not require you to futz around with your pockets and keys, before you’re attacking.

Um, regarding putting pepperspray in your luggage, I would strongly recommend not doing this.
The reasion being that the freight portaon of an aircraft is often depressurised ( usualy unless there is cargo listed as live cargo, namely someone’s pet). Pepperspray bottles are pressurised, and are designed to withstand a pressure diffrence between the charged inside and the usual sealevel ground pressure + a couple of thousand feet.
There is a good chance that the bottle will fail, when placed in an aircraft cargo bay at 32000 ft. When they fail, they will like a small bomb.

Bad idea.

Not sure this would work for pumping pond water, but perhaps it could be modified to work using the solar powered water pump.

Solar Powered Rain Barrel Pump by RainPerfect

The Rain Perfect TM water barrel pump and solar panel install easily into your rain barrel and provide plenty of pressure to run water through a garden hose. The water barrel’s solar pump provides enough pressure to run most low pressure sprinklers, drip irrigation hoses, wash a car, and pump water to just about anything around your home directly from your rain barrel. The 3.5 watt solar panel captures the energy from the sun to charge the water barrel’s solar pump battery. The RainPerfect solar rain barrel pump kit can be used anywhere, anytime. No more worries about the location of an electrical outlet, damaging the electrical cord or getting an electric shock. Now you can plant the garden with less concern for the location of the electrical outlets.

http://www.aquabarrel.com/product_water_pumps_electric_dc_solar_3_5w.php pump

Pond pump…is there a reason why you couldn’t rig up a small windmill? There were originally used (and still are) to fill livestock watering tanks from a groundwater well. I don’t see why you couldn’t put the intake into the pond and run it to the garden, or a cistern located at a higher elevation than the garden so gravity could do the work from there.