This is the second half of the blog about water. You will find videos/podcasts, instructions, and other information about the subject for this week.
Videos/Podcast:
Disaster Preparedness-Water Supply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZJ6TwGjqgA
Water in the Wilderness - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQSF9BhmnQM&feature=related
Discussion on Water Filters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-zqsR2NMyQ
How to Build a Rain Barrel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGFDlkJOdaM
Rain Barrel-Three Minute Gardener
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4zoPm2Eu2Q
Instructions:
Make a Funnel out of a 2-liter Bottle:
Take a sharp knife and cut around the outside. Ta Da! You have a funnel to fill smaller containers from bigger containers.
Boiling Water with a Piece of Plastic:
First, you need to build a fire.
Next, place rocks that you can easily lift with a forked stick or two sticks into the fire. Make sure the rocks were collected from a place that does not hold water or is covered with water. The rocks will exploded if taken from a stream, river, pond or lake.
Let the rocks heat for awhile.
While the rocks are heating, dig a hole then line the hole with a piece of plastic. Next, fill the plastic-lined hole with water that has been allowed to settle.
Once the rocks have been heated; take the rocks out of the fire with the sticks. Be careful, the rocks are very Hot!
Place the rocks in the water, and step back real quick. Once the rumbling has stopped the water should be boiling hot.
Make sure the hot rocks do not touch the plastic sticking out of the water. It will melt the plastic. The reason the hot rock doesn't melt the plastic, below the waterline, is because the boiling water keeps the rock off the plastic until it has cooled.
Other Information:
Another Method of Making a Water Filter
Alpha Rubicon has an article on making a Home-Made Berkey Water Filter by Daire. It is a variation of the gravity filter; I talked about in Week Four-Water. The article can be viewed at http://www.alpharubicon.com/kids/homemadeberkeydaire.htm
Daire's pictures are excellent. Notice the nuts to hold the filters tight while the filters are still laying on the bucket lids. One change I would make, would be to put two blocks of wood between the upper and lower buckets. I would do this because I don't want the nuts to have to hold 40 pounds of water.
Flavorings
Drinking plain water can become boring, especially for younger members of your family. To help them, and you, to drink enough water, you want to store some drink mixes like Kool-Aid, Crystal-Lite, Propel, Gatorade, and hot chocolate.
We are not coffee drinkers, so we don't store coffee even for barter. If you are, you might want to store some for youself and other coffee drinkers in the family.
