This is the third of a series of articles about caching, the third most important tool a survivalist has. The first being knowledge of how to survive under any circumstance, the second is being in good enough physical condition to survive under any circumstance. Just what do we need in our bug out caches? Well, that is determined by your strategy. IF you are using a motor vehicle you will HAVE to cache fuel. A bicycle or foot evacuation will have to be more frequent and closer together but no fuel will be cached. My personal preference at this time is using 55 gal. drums for fuel caches. The better but more expensive way would be aircraft fuel bladders. The reason they would be better is that their would be little or no air on top of the fuel. Air causes problems with fuel so the less exposure to it the better. I like the method of first painting the outside of the drum with a rust proofing paint and then having a friend of mine spray them with polyurethane foam. This is just a redundancy habit I have and may be considered nonessential IF the drum is coated with rustproofing well enough. One nice thing about the foam spray is that you make the drum look different enough that someone catching a glimpse of you in process will not automatically think you are burying a drum. If you can pack up and leave before they come in for a closer look then they will just be confused as to what you were doing. The foam adds some strength and some waterproofing to the drum. If you are caching gasoline then you need to add some life extender to the fuel. This is available at many automotive stores. If you are caching diesel you will need to acquire a product that is used in jet fuel storage. It is a chemical that, among other things, prevents algae from growing in the fuel. This is a problem with long term diesel fuel storage. Great care is taken while digging a hole for a cache. All of the leaves, twigs, and whatever ground cover (such as grass) is removed and preserved so that it can be replaced without leaving any indication that anyone has been digging there. A piece of visqueen or plywood is laid out so that any dirt that is dug out of the hole is placed on it and not allowed to fall on the surface around the digging area. All dirt needs to be compacted back into the hole around and over the cache so that it won't settle with a little rainfall and leave an indentation over your cache. The leftover dirt needs to be removed from the area. If there is a stream or river nearby you can either drop it in the water or on the bank. If there is no stream nearby then just take it as far away as possible and scatter it as thinly as possible on the ground. A hole is dug that will leave the top of the drum a minimum of 2 ft. underground. The drum is placed in the hole. The drum should be on a slight tilt with the bung on the high side. This is so that when filled it can be filled till there is no more air in the drum. The dirt should be put back in around the sides and tamped in layers of a foot or two with the end of the shovel handle or a sledge hammer to compact the dirt and make it as solid as possible. The drum is then filled with fuel and the bung screwed in tight. A generous coating of axle grease over the bung to keep it from rusting in place is a good idea. Once the fuel is secured in the drum you then need to fill in on top of it with dirt. An optional piece of plywood over the drum to keep the dirt away from the bung is possible or you can just make sure it is cleaned away before you unscrew it when retrieving the fuel. One quick word about retrieving your fuel. Don't forget!!! If you are going to take the fuel out you must provide a way for the air to get in. As difficult as it would be to suck the fuel out without letting air in, the barrel would collapse. I prefer to use air pressure to push the fuel up out of the drum instead of a pump to suck fuel up. Place the line on the bottom of the drum and then put air pressure on top of the fuel. The fuel will freely flow out of the line and into the vehicle tank. Most 55 gal. drums have two bungs, one small and one large. Placing a tube that will reach the bottom of the barrel welded into a threaded plug that fits the bung that is on the lower side of the barrel will give you a supply of fuel when you screw an adapter into the other bung that an air hose can be connected to. Pressure doesn't need to exceed 20 to 30 lb. per square inch to give a healthy flow of fuel. If you are merely rotating your supplies (something that should be done every couple of years even with extenders) the collapsing of the drum would require removing and replacing it. If you are just storing enough fuel for a motorcycle you can bury a plastic drum (readily available mail order) large enough to hold a couple of 5 gal. cans and a fair amount of other supplies. My plans for a motorcycle will have racks on either side of the rear wheel that Gerry cans can be supported on. I also plan on running a fuel line to each tank and a valve set up to switch tanks easily. But this isn't about my personal plans it's about telling you where to get started so you can start your own plan and get busy. Fuel aside, the strategy will determine the cache contents. If you are planning on a minimalist approach and are using a bicycle or motorcycle (or on foot) and you want to travel as light as possible then your caches will need to hold food for a day, a tent, and a sleeping bag. If there is no water available along the trail you will need to store a days supply of water also. This way you can travel from cache to cache with just a small bag (shoulder bag or pack) and rely totally on the caches. If you prefer a "take it all with you" strategy your first caches should contain adequate backpacking gear that you can live on. A good reliable pack, tent, stove, and so on that will be transported with you. If this is your strategy then you will need to cache food and water every day, two days, three days, whatever you can carry to restock for supplies. Many prefer this because it makes you a little less dependent on all of your caches being accessible. If you are using a motor vehicle then fuel is a large caching investment. If minimalist is the way you want to go then ammo boxes or tube caches can be used. The final retreat site cache is definitely much larger. In this local you need to stash enough supplies to live on till the end of the crisis you are avoiding. If it is a long term disaster you are planning to avoid you should cache things like seeds for a garden and anything else you need to become totally self-sufficient. If you think things will return to normal after a couple of months to maybe a year then a years supply should be cached. It is my humble opinion that a years supply should be cached even if you are laying in self- sufficiency supplies. This is so that you are covered if it is too late in the year to start producing your own foods. If you don't use it all you can save it and use it in times that your harvest isn't enough for whatever reason. Any Questions or comments about these articles, email them to me. If I get enough I may put a question and answer section to the home page.