Mailbag Lessons For Real-World Preppers

0:02SPEAKER_01:You are listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper, sponsored by Duct Tape, the real Duct Tape. It fixes everything except that decision. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America. From border to border, coast to coast, and all ships at sea. Here is your host, Keith.

0:21SPEAKER_00:Hey everybody, this is Keith, and you're listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast for September the 4th, 2026. And tonight's episode is going to be a mailbag episode. I've received tons of emails, so I want to go ahead and get this one out there. I've got so many emails I'm not able to jam them into a single episode. So let's go ahead. I think we have four emails we want to go over tonight. The first email is about something we talked about a few weeks ago, and that was the gray man concept.

0:50SPEAKER_00:And this listener writes, When I drive down any road, I watch for signs of who might live there, and if I was to break down, whose house would I pick to go to? The gray man's house might not be my first choice. I would pick the house with antlers over the garage and over the shed doors and the American flag in the front yard, a four by four hunting truck in the front yard, things like that. I would avoid the average-looking place that looks sterile or looks a little scary.

1:23SPEAKER_00:Just some thoughts. I've listened to all your podcasts. Please add this to your next episode. Thanks for being there. I appreciate the email. So I really like this. So we've talked about the gray man concept from the perspective of what we're showing other people. This listener flips the script and goes from the other side. Basically, he's saying, if I needed assistance, which house would I choose? And that is a very interesting question. If your vehicle breaks down and you need help, you're going to have to make some assumptions based on what you see.

1:57SPEAKER_00:Now, obviously, antlers over the garage door and a four by four in the driveway doesn't guarantee anything, but we all have to make these quick judgments. And I think it's a really good reminder that situational awareness just isn't about watching people, it's also about noticing what people are showing us. So again, thank you so much for the email and keep them coming. So this next email is from a listener who's been buying farm direct meat for several years.

2:30SPEAKER_00:He writes, Hey Keith, been following the podcast for about six to eight months now. Love the show. Just listened to the show about buying farm direct meat. I've been buying half cow and half hog for several years now, and I thought I would share my thoughts. You're probably going to pay a little more when purchasing meat directly from a farmer, especially if you have to purchase a freezer to store it. But it's worth it to me. I know exactly how the cow or hog were raised and what they were fed.

3:02SPEAKER_00:I also know that they have not been pumped full of water or whatever else these plants may have put in them to increase the weight. The meat tastes better. There is no comparison between fresh pork or fresh beef when you compare it to what you purchase in a store. Also, it's the peace of mind for me knowing I have months of meat in my garage that my family can rely on no matter what happens with the food supply chain. Anyway, just wanted to share that.

3:31SPEAKER_00:Really into Lone Men on the Ridge, keep up the good work, and I'll be waiting for your next broadcast. Be safe. Thank you so much. So this listener nailed it right on the head when it comes to buying Farm Direct. You are probably going to pay a little bit more, especially if you're starting from scratch and you need a freezer, but you're getting more than meat. You know where it came from, you know the farmer, and you have several months of food sitting there, and you're not dependent on your local grocery store having a bad day.

4:01SPEAKER_00:And I really like the fact that they brought up the taste. So again, thank you so much. I appreciate the email. And yes, Lone Man on the Ridge is still around. I think I'm on episode 15, I believe, maybe 14. I got to double check. Actually, I got another email on the same subject, but this listener gets really deep in the weeds, gets into the nuts and bolts, and I wanted to share this. Hello, Keith. I'm a recent listener and have enjoyed your podcast greatly.

4:29SPEAKER_00:I wanted to share my experiences from purchasing farm direct beef and pork. In both cases, we purchased the live animal from a farmer and then he delivers it to a local processor. The processor then slaughters and hangs the sides for a set time, 10 to 14 days typically, and will call me during that period to provide a cut list. This processor we currently use actually has cut option forms for each of the stock they are licensed to process. We complete the cut list, and the fee is based on the hanging weight as you reported.

5:05SPEAKER_00:From this last beef, we paid a flat$100 fee for the dispatching, processing, and splitting of the whole sides into hanging. We then paid around$1.25 per pound for the cutting and vacuum seal packaging. The processor holds the wrapped meat in a freezer for several days to ensure it is well frozen before calling for payment and pickup. This process is defined as custom processing and typically falls under state regulations instead of federal. When we purchase packages from local farms, the prices are higher because those fall under USDA for the consumer market, and the farm's costs are higher than selling the live animal.

5:53SPEAKER_00:So with a slightly dated example, a beef we split four ways last winter cost$3,900 all in. Each of the four families received 140 pounds of beet in addition to as much tallow fat and cut soup bones as desired. This worked out to just over$7 per pound. One of the participating families was first unhappy about spending that amount for the ground beef, so I had to point out that they also spent$7 per pound for the fillets and the other prime cuts in their portion.

6:31SPEAKER_00:They had never purchased by the steer and had to adjust their thinking. Afterwards, they were very pleased with their investment. Two other benefits to custom meat purchasing is the specificity of your order and the taste quality of a non-commodity animal compared to a mass-produced meat. We can request and receive ground beef that is so lean we have to use oil in a cast iron pan to grill a burger. And especially with pork, the meat is denser and doesn't smell like live hog when we thaw it out as it does with store-bought pork.

7:09SPEAKER_00:As an FYI, the pig we purchased in the spring cost$900 all in and had a live weight of 230 pounds. This was split with one other family and each received around 55 pounds of pork and 10 plus pounds of fat to render into lard. Again, maintaining a deep freezer is necessary. We lost over half of our pork in the early 2020s because I missed the failure on one of our freezers. It was a new unit, still under warranty, and it failed in a manner that the power indicator light stayed on and the compressor was making the right noises, but not cooling.

7:52SPEAKER_00:As a result of that lesson and loss, I now opened the chest freezer every morning and every evening to verify all is still frozen. We kept the freezers frozen for 10 days during Halene by running a generator for two hours each morning and again for two hours every evening. As a result of building long-term relationships with the farmers, we have benefited in one final way. From time to time, someone else will have spoken for an animal and a processing date many months in advance.

8:24SPEAKER_00:On two occasions, the original buyer has backed out and we were contacted out of the blue from the producer and asked if we were interested or able to take the animal. If the farmer doesn't have the meat for their inventory, or if the processor has the animal booked for custom sale, the farmer is in a bind keeping and feeding a beef, hog, or lamb beyond its most profitable age. By stepping in and taking these animals when we can, we've earned the farmer's trust and it has resulted in a preferential treatment and access to products we already enjoy and plan to buy anyway.

9:03SPEAKER_00:I hope my rambling helps you somehow and it is useful to share. Thank you again for your efforts. Happy Labor Day. And if you ever make your own bulk purchase, then I hope every cut is the best you have ever eaten. That is a heck of an email, and I appreciate all the time and effort and all the details put into that email. Thank you so much. And I especially appreciate the detail because this is the kind of real-world information that can help somebody else who's thinking about doing this for the first time.

9:35SPEAKER_00:I know it's going to help me tremendously. And the freezer failure really caught my attention. The light was on, the compressor sounded like it was running, everything appeared normal, but the freezer was not actually cooling. That's a great reminder that preparedness equipment can fail without announcing that it has failed. And the 10 days during Helene, that is a perfect example of having a plan for your food that you've already invested in. And I really like the last part about the farmers.

10:09SPEAKER_00:Those kinds of relationship matters. If you've been a reliable customer and that farmer knows that you'll take an animal when someone else backs out, you're the one that's going to get that phone call. So thanks again for the email. That's a lot of great useful information in there, and I'll definitely be using it. Next email comes from a longtime listener. He actually starts out with a question about the Augustin Farms discount code. Hey Keith, longtime listener.

10:35SPEAKER_00:I had a question about the Augustin Farms discount code. I used it last week on an order. Thank you very much. Received the product and very impressed. I decided to place a second order and use the code. When I entered it, it said podcast prep discount code has already been used. Am I only allowed to use that a certain amount of times per week, per month, per year, or maybe I missed the memo? Could you let me know if others have experienced this?

11:03SPEAKER_00:Here's a quick bio, he says. 28, married with one little one, another on the way, been seriously prepping for about five years now. They own their own home up in the northeast, 10 acres, 60 laying hens, horses, meat birds, pigs. Man, that sounds like heaven. They also grow a very ambitious garden, and they feel like they're finally dialing in on their homestead and pushing further and further into self-sufficiency. He says that I'm a huge role model and been listening since the cringy days.

11:36SPEAKER_00:He says he apologized. I've been listening since the cringy days. Sorry, man. And boy, am I proud where you've taken it. So please never give up and all the best. And P.S. Lone Man on the Ridge, keep them coming. So, first of all, I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear the cringy days comment, but no, that was funny. Honestly, that was good. I like that. And there were cringy days. As far as the August and Farm Code, I have not put a limit on how many times somebody can use it.

12:04SPEAKER_00:I'm going to check with August and Farms and find out what's going on with that because I don't want someone to try to use a code and get blocked if they haven't done anything wrong. So in looking at August and Farms, it appears that the code can only be used once. And so what I've done, I have reached out and asked them, is this something that they can change? Is this something that I can negotiate? Can we fix this? Or is this something that is set in stone?

12:36SPEAKER_00:Now, in the event it is set in stone and you can only use it one time, I'm going to go ahead and keep it up for a while, but I'm also going to look for other affiliates where they don't have that kind of restriction. I will keep everybody up to date. And in the event or when I do find a new affiliate, I will definitely let everybody know. So back to this email 60 laying hens, meat birds, pigs, horses, 10 acres, and a serious garden. That is an impressive setup.

13:09SPEAKER_00:And what I really like about this is they're not just storing food, they're producing it. That is a whole different level of preparedness. And at 28, young family, they're building something that will serve them whether there is a crisis or not. That's really what I like about preparedness. So thank you again for the emails and keep doing what you're doing. And yes, Lone Man on the Ridge is still coming. Don't worry, I'll have one out very soon. So that is our mailbag episode.

13:39SPEAKER_00:The one thing I really enjoy doing about the show, everyone prepares differently. Some folks are storing food, some are raising it, some are building relationships with farmers, and some are simply paying closer attention to the world around them. There is no single right way to prepare. Never let perfection get in the way of your preps. Prepping does not have to be complicated, does not have to be expensive. Start small, and before you know it, you will be well ahead of the game.

14:13SPEAKER_00:I want to thank everybody who sent me emails. And for the folks that emailed me and I did not get a chance to get them on this episode, I will endeavor to get them on the next one. And if you do email me at Practical Prep Podcast, I will email you back. I will reply personally. I do not sell anybody's information. In the emails I receive, a lot of folks ask me to not give their names, which I certainly understand. And as a matter of course, I go ahead and do that anyway.

14:43SPEAKER_00:Even for folks who do not request it, I go ahead and just remove the name and just read out the email. All right, folks, thank you so much. Everybody enjoy the long Labor Day weekend. I hope everybody has a chance to get out. I hope you have good weather. Enjoy time with your family, enjoy time with your friends. All right, folks, I really do appreciate it. And as always, please be careful out there. Take care of one another, and until next time.

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