Insert Clever 20/20 Vision Reference Here

I continue to marvel at the dual realities that exist in America.

For a long time, I’ve been writing about the alternate reality the children of darkness live in. Covid has made it much more obvious. Leftists and other enemies of God live in terror, locked in their houses, obsessing on masks and other things that don’t really do much to halt the spread of disease. They’re scared to death of a mild respiratory disease that does what other mild respiratory diseases do: it kills a tiny percentage of the people it infects, generally taking those who were in poor health and likely to die soon regardless.

I can understand why an octogenarian would worry, but young people are wearing masks when they mow their yards.

It’s amazing that we killed off old people with bad policies instead of protecting the easily-identified groups who were really vulnerable. Liberal governors sent the sick into old folks homes, pretty much guaranteeing the enormous loss of life we saw in the Northeast. What Cuomo did is pretty similar to the Inuit practice of exposing old people in winter to kill them, except the Inuits knew what they were doing.

Today I read about smallpox. Its fatality rate was about 30%, and people who got it died slowly, in agony, covered with extremely painful sores that made them feel like they were on fire whenever they moved. That’s what real plagues are like, but half of America is sacrificing its liberty and prosperity in the vain hope of avoiding a disease that kills something like one in 1000 victims.

Antichristians have more shortages than God’s children. People in major cities went without meat for months while people like me were buying it on sale. Generally, antichristians have fewer firearms, and they have had not been able to come anywhere near matching the abundance of ammunition Christians had on hand when the crisis started. Christian areas have fewer economic problems, too.

Today I can’t help thinking about the two realities. Toilet paper and antiseptic wipes are disappearing again in blue areas. Here, toilet paper is not hard to get, and antiseptic wipes are on sale. I saw canisters of wipes selling for $2.98 at Walmart this week, and I bought Lysol wipes for $4.98 later. Try buying them on Amazon or Ebay. Expect to pay nearly $30.

Here’s something crazy: local Walmarts are full of wipes, but Walmart’s website will not sell them. You have to go in and get them yourself. This means people in blue areas, where Walmarts have no wipes, can’t get them at all!

I have enough toilet paper and paper towels to get me through the better part of a year. I had ample supplies at the beginning of last week, and I picked up a little more when I heard the insanity was starting again. I never did without paper goods during the last wave of craziness, and I expect to do fine this time, too.

I wouldn’t have stocked up at all, but I know that fear of shortages causes shortages. Once one lemming goes over the cliff, the rest will follow. Even here, things are tightening up somewhat, and I have to get involved simply to insure that my supply won’t end up in someone else’s 1000-roll stockpile.

When my mother talked about old men from the country who were plainspoken and unsophisticated, she would say they were “rough as cobs.” The toilet paper shortage made me think about that. Now I know what the expression means. Hope I never have to experience it.

I’ve got lots of rubbing alcohol, which I use to clean counters. I have more hand sanitizer than I know what to do with; I bought one type and then decided I liked another, so I stocked up on it, too. I have all kinds of wipes. I bought extra in case my cousin who lives in Illinois needs me to ship them.

I don’t think I can get Lysol spray unless I pay through the nose online, but then I never used it anyway. My cousin asked about it. Her mother is in ill health, and they go through a lot of cleaning products. Today at the grocery, I saw another spray which is full of the really nasty chemical in Lysol. I sent my cousin a photo and asked if she wanted me to get it for her.

Here’s a tip: Lysol is ethanol and quaternary ammonium. You can buy both separately under other brand names, and Home Depot sells spray bottles.

I’m making crisis food again. I have a batch of dried apples in the dehydrator, and beef slices for jerky are marinating in the fridge. My paranoia room is starting to overflow. I don’t think I’ll be here for the really hard times, but I may be wrong, and if I’m right, someone else will benefit from my efforts.

I could have done better on the ammunition front. There are some calibers I never expect to have to buy again, but others are different. Example: I didn’t get into 6.5mm Creedmoor until this year. I have what most people would consider a lot of 6.5, but I wouldn’t be comfortable maintaining what I would consider a normal routine of range trips with it.

Decent Creedmore ammunition still pops up from time to time, and I have materials to make 400 more rounds, so things could be worse. I should probably try to get a few dozen shotgun shells for squirrels. They’re not too hard to get.

Here’s a weird lesson. The traditional wisdom is that you should buy guns in common calibers so ammunition is easy to find. Forget that. I’ve taken on tons of ammo in unpopular calibers since the insanity started, at very good prices. You can get popular stuff cheaper during normal times, but when things go nuts, your 9mm and .22 weapons will starve. I think 6.5 cents per round is a good price for .22 ammo. Right now, people are selling the cheap stuff for 28.

Today I learned something disturbing. I am not storing jerky correctly. I found one piece in a bag with what could have been a thin patch of mold on it. I wasn’t sure. It could have been solidified fat. I did a responsible scientific test to find out. I ate it. It seemed okay. I hope it was. I’m not dead yet, and I’m not having visions. I started burrowing through my other bags, and I found one that definitely had serious mold. I couldn’t rationalize eating it, so I threw it out.

It didn’t occur to me that I should not be opening and closing bags randomly as my desire for jerky dictated. I should have left all the bags closed except for the one I was slowly emptying, and I should have put that one in the fridge.

Now all of my jerky is in the freezer while I take steps to save it.

I learned that I should use oxygen absorbers to slow spoilage down, so I ordered a bunch. I’m also going to move the meat to vacuum bags.

I plan to heat it before I move it. I read that mold and most mold spores die at 120°, so I’ll heat it past that point before storing it again.

I think the reason only one bag went funny is that I killed the bacteria and mold when I dehydrated the jerky. My dehydrator works at 155°. When I opened bags to take pieces out, I must have reintroduced mold and microbes.

It may be that I didn’t dry the meat enough. I’m not sure. It seems awfully dry. Dryer than many store brands.

I can move it to vacuum bags, freeze most of them, and leave one out to see what happens to it. I don’t really want my freezer jammed up with jerky, so if I can store it at room temperature, I will.

There are no problems with my dried apples yet, but I plan to add oxygen absorbers anyway. My grandmother just put hers in big jars and forgot about them, and they never spoiled. Her apples were somewhat drier than mine, though. I went by guidelines I found on the web.

Things are going well. It’s frustrating to hear about other people who are trapped in leftist strongholds where it’s like Soylent Green every day. I pray for God to reach people, but I don’t think there is much time left.