Odds ‘n Sods:

Avoid Social Breakdown. Become Resilient. (Thanks to Kevin S. for the link.)

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Over at Global Guerillas: Big Twitter is Here

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Reader S. R. mentioned that there are some school teacher positions open in a retreat-worthy region: Navajo Public Schools. S.R. describes Jackson County, Oklahoma: “…a nice rural area with
good well water at about 10-to-30 foot depth, a long growing season, and that produces wheat, Cotton, Peanuts, and Beef.” They are looking to hire a Computer teacher, Secondary Special Ed teacher and likely a Foreign Language teacher.

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Ed. M. recommended an essay on ballistic home defense over at Oleg Volk’s site: Riots vs. pogroms. “Modern homes are not built as fortresses. They are only as strong as the people defending them.” OBTW, the photo of the man holding the antique riotgun is none other than SurvivalBlog’s own Editor at Large, Michael Z. Williamson.

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Some Canadian provinces attempt to create “back door” gun registries.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“The CDS [credit default swap] is probably the most important instrument in finance. What [the advent of the] CDS did is lay-off all the risk of highly leveraged institutions – and that’s what banks are, highly leveraged – on stable American and international institutions.” – Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, May 2006

Note From JWR:

Today we present two more entries for Round 40 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol. It is a $439 value courtesy of Next Level Training. B.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and E.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 40 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Bugging Out About Bugs, by A.D.

After a few camping trips where I learned the hard way about preparing for local wildlife I started thinking about the bugs in my bug out plan and I’m not talking about technical flaws.  Previously I had focused much of my attention on what kind of gear to pack, how to provide food and water, and various routes to travel.  A trip to the Rockies, part of the AT and a few southeastern US adventures later I realized that people weren’t the only hostile forces I might encounter and I didn’t have much prepared to deal with the critters I might encounter.
 
Preparing for wildlife became a new priority for me when I reached an epiphany after visiting my sister in the southwest this summer.  While we have all seen the massive fires sweeping across the southwest, most of us have been fortunate enough to avoid their destruction.  Animals, however have had much of their habitat destroyed by the fires and as a result these animals have been forced out of the burning forests and into more populated (and better protected by fire suppression efforts) areas.  When the fires approached her town, so did many of the animals trying to escape the flames.  While my sister at most sees a coyote every now and then, the occasional scorpion and rarely a snake, all of these animals were prevalent throughout her neighborhood.  I admittedly have an irrational fear of snakes, but seeing so many in an area where I never saw one before made me a bit paranoid and hesitant to walk quickly without deliberately looking where I was stepping.  As we hurried to get things ready and get out of town I came to the realization that this may be just what we face in a TEOTWAWKI situation and I would need to be prepared to deal with it  In a disaster situation animals will be just as confused as humans and with widespread destruction animals may be out of their “normal” habitats.  With this soft awakening to the additional challenges I might face in a disaster, I began to take some of my camping experiences (and failures) and applying them to my bug out plan. 
 
My primary method of avoiding unnecessary wildlife is to properly select a campsite.  While this may seem easy for those of us used to hiking in state parks where there are designated camping areas mostly clear of brush with pre-dug fire pits, in the wild this can prove to be significantly more difficult.  If possible, I try to elevate myself off of the bare ground, if only by a few inches.  This not only provides some insulation in the winter from the cold but also helps to keep some of the bugs away.  I also try to clear the ground around where I will be camping.  Most snakes (so I’m told by my friends who actually like snakes) will avoid crossing clear ground if there is brush or concealment through which they can travel.  I will try to find a good branch and rake away the leaves and other cover, pick up the sticks and rocks and have several feet around where I will be camping.  Before clearing the site, I try to find a site that is not in a dry creek bed, is level and doesn’t appear to be close to a game trail.  I realize that in a survival situation the campsite selection will be a compromise between concealment and comfort.  In the case of concealment at night, those wondering around will typically look at the ground (think about stumbling around in the dark or walking at night with a flashlight)  you will focus where you are going and rarely look up.  If you can safely get up high in a tree and sleep there, this offers great protection from the ground critters and helps you avoid discovery.  I have laid logs between a forked branch and tied the logs down with paracord to keep everything secure.  This took a while, so when making camp be sure to start early to avoid working at night where your flashlight may give you away.  I further took a spare carabiner and clipped my belt to the lashed log assembly while I slept to avoid rolling off in the middle of the night.  A few tricks I learned to quickly cut the cross member logs to size was to find longer logs of the appropriate thickness, stick the long log between two trees growing close together, or a tree with a fork near the base, and then use the leverage of the fork holding one end and me pushing the other end of the log to break it to size.  This avoids needing to have an axe or saw and works great to manage the size of firewood.  The sound of a branch snapping is also less indicative of human activity when compared to the distinctive sound of chopping or sawing.
 
Another ritual I always follow while camping is to avoid the triangle of death.  While this isn’t always necessary, I still do it to ensure my safety and peace of mind.  The triangle of death is something I learned in the Rockies while working to keep bears away from my supplies.  The triangle is formed between where you suspend your food in the trees, the fire pit where you cook and where you store your dishes.  If you make camp inside (or very close to) this triangle, you have the highest chance of encountering any bear, critter or person investigating the smells of this area.  I always take note of what can be smelled and ensure that those items are not on me or near me when I am sleeping.  This includes things like film (has animal-based adhesive), deodorant, snacks I may carry in my pockets, Chapstik, medicines, stove fuel, duct tape, water bottles you drink out of while eating and even your survival knife if you used it to butcher game.  If you have a change of clothes available, I always cook and eat in one set and sleep in another set to fully minimize the smell.  I also don’t apply any deodorant, powder, Chapstik or other smelly substance after 3 p.m.  While this is not a hard rule, if you do this, the substance will likely absorb or lose its scent by the time you are sleeping.
 
If it smells I string it in a tree (old feed sacks and paracord work great for this).  If I ate out of it, I always wash it before going to sleep and leave it either in a tree or by the fire pit (this goes for stoves and fuel too).  While I thankfully have only had raccoons invade the triangle, I am hyper vigilant to avoid being woken up by something much more menacing.  Additionally I only eat right by where I cook and I never take food into my tent if I have one.  I try to stay 20 feet or more away from the triangle, and often build a secondary fire for where I sleep for warmth.  While this may separate you from you gear, you can consider camouflaging it with branches, a camo poncho to shroud items you place in the tree and by avoiding unnatural colors such as stark white, orange  and other bright colors.
 
If I am trying to conceal my fire, I will dig a Dakota fire pit.  I learned this configuration in Scouts and it is essentially two pits, one large to hold the fire, and a second smaller one to draw out the smoke.  A small tunnel connects the two to provide airflow.  Dig the pit deep enough to keep the fuel and the flames below the top edge of the larger pit.  This keeps the flames shrouded while allowing you to cook and heat yourself under cover.  If you need to sit a pot over the fire, the recessed flames allow you to easily place logs over the pit to support the pot.  I try to soak the logs so they don’t burn through and spill my food into the fire.  If i need to reflect more heat, I will stack logs to make a lean to which will reflect the heat and keep me warm while I sleep.  If you can’t dig a pit due to rock or hard soil, I usually try to find a fallen tree or large log and build the fire in the hole where the tree fell or against the large log with more logs stacked up around it to conceal some of the flame.  These areas near the fallen trees may be wet, so i will place bark, branches and other dry (even green) items in the pit as a base on which to build the fire.  While smoke is visible during the day, it is much more difficult to see at night so the primary concealment should be focused on the flames.  If visibility is not a concern, animals, including snakes, don’t like fire.  If I am trying to keep them away then I try to gather four times as much wood as I think I need and will usually end up going through most of it.  In my experience you can never have too much firewood.
 
After you have a good camp set up and a good night’s rest, you will likely need to move on the next morning.  If you took your boots off (I usually do to make sure my feet dry out) be sure to shake them out.  A trick I learned is to stretch your sock over the top of your boot and this will keep critters out while still allowing everything to dry.  I’ve found everything from millipedes to frogs in my boots so be sure not to ruin your escape by being in a hurry.  When going on foot, your feet are your wheels and you won’t get very far with a flat.  To allow my boots to further dry I typically try to have a pair of “camp shoes” with me.  While this does add some weight, I have found my Teva type sandals or croc type shoes to work best depending on terrain.  The crocs are a bit more difficult to walk in but weigh very little while the sandals allow me to hike in them if my boots should be destroyed.  I generally prefer the sandals but have had success with both.  As a general rule though, I never go barefoot or sock footed anywhere (even in creeks) and I try to keep my feet as dry as possible.  I generally safety pin my extra pair of socks on my bag and let them air out and dry in the sun while I continue to hike.  If my feet become too sweaty, I take off my boots, change socks, and let them air out a few minutes.  Wet feet are unhappy feet and if you don’t dry them out they literally rot away. 
 
Apart from that bit of foot maintenance be sure to watch out for the smaller bugs when getting up every day.  I had the unfortunate experience of waking up one morning covered in ticks.  I picked 58 off of me and itched like crazy for a week.  Hiking in the south I also encountered every southerner’s favorite itch to scratch, chiggers.  Without any anti itch medicine I had to do a bit of improvisation to stop the itching.  I have found that petroleum jelly will work, as will fingernail polish if you have it (I didn’t).  In a pinch, if you can find some clay soil and make a paste out of it, smearing the clay over the chiggers will smother them almost as well as the nail polish but you will have to reapply the paste as it dries out and cracks off.  Nothing beats a good pair of tweezers to get those tiny seed ticks off, just be sure to get them off as soon as possible to avoid the spread of any disease.  As a critter first aid kit, I carry a venom extractor (great for wasps and snakes) a pair of tweezers, a small container of petroleum jelly, some antihistamine, and alcohol wipes.  The petroleum jelly doubles as a great fire starter, blister bandage and lubricant.
 
Wherever you go, take some time to study the local wildlife before you go out.  This goes for preparation with your BOB as well.  A small guide can come in handy and help you understand which creepie crawlies are edible and which ones are better left alone.  Further, if you study, you can avoid certain areas in your routes known to house certain animals (mountain lions come to mind) and you can determine how to appropriately hike.  By this I mean whether you should be concerned with proceeding too quietly and surprising a bear or whether you should be using your hiking stick to probe in front of you for snakes or other painful surprises.  Knowing the wildlife in your area will come down to more than looking at territorial range maps found in the field guide.  While those various shades of red flowing down in a sweeping arc can give you a general idea of what you might find in your travels, you will have to be more specific if you want to really understand the animals in your area.  This will not only help avoid wasting your time hunting for an animal which isn’t there but also help you stay out of trouble should you encounter an animal on your hunt much larger than what you were anticipating.  You will have to make critical decisions while out hiking involving the local wildlife.  While that fat and juicy timber rattler would make a great meal, if you don’t have any experience with snakes trying to kill it might not be the best idea while you are bugging out.  If you aren’t sure if a particular frog is safe to eat, it may be better to look for another source of food.  An Apache foot snare can hold an animal very well if properly constructed but once the animal is held, you will still have to dispatch it.  If you can’t do it safely from a distance, it would be unwise to get close to an angry and injured deer trying to stick it with your knife or bash it with a log.  You should know what you are hunting for and how that animal can potentially hurt you.  After you successfully kill an animal, be mindful of where you kill it and clean it.  Be sure to clean it far away from camp and bury the waste if possible to minimize attracting animals.  If you accidentally spill something in camp when you are cooking or preparing the animal, urine will help to mask the smell of the animal (or any other spilled food) and avoid attracting additional predators. 
 
Be sure to keep the bugs out of your bug out bag by shaking out all of your equipment and being aware of what is around you and which bugs can ruin your day, especially if you have any allergies.  I realized the hard way that preparation involves being prepared for the animals, insects and other wildlife you may encounter on your journey.  As the Scouts say, be prepared.  Victory loves preparation.

Orientation and Situational Awareness For Your Kids, by B.P.G.

I am a victim. I am a spectator. I am luck incarnate. You would think based on my chosen career for over twenty years as a US Navy SEAL that I would be the poster boy of preparedness. You would think that now retired from the military and currently a security professional that I would have stockpiled food, weapons and supplies in preparation for the next Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 or other mass casualty causing disaster. Instead, like so many others I have assumed luck is on my side. I have assumed that because I have lived a life on the edge, constantly under the stress of death as the alternative to mission success that I am impervious to harm. I have stood by so many times like a spectator and watched as others suffered through earthquakes, tsunamis or terrorist attacks with little concern that it could be me next.

Sad and Disgusted
I have tragically lost well over twenty friends, teammates and compatriots [in combat and in training accidents] and still I didn’t feel the overwhelming need to prepare. I have become self reliant and so used to working with a team that has my back that little phases me now. I believed my self to be Mr. Lucky, to be luck incarnate.

That was until I had a family. I don’t mean the twentieth century kind of family, a wife, two dogs and a condo. I mean a real family, a lovely wife and two precious young sons and all that comes with it. A family that whether they know it or not relies on me to protect them. That regardless how liberal we have become the man of the house is still supposed to check on every bump in the night. I am now that guy, that husband, that dad the one who must be able to tell between a spider that will kill you and one that catches flies or stink bugs for us during summer. I have to be able to do more than recite my favorite sports team’s season stats or what new “app” we can get for our phones. My wife is a foodie and intent on buying some land and doing some small scale farming, perfect, I have the best kind of supportive and understanding wife. I have a 6 year old son who has to convince the neighborhood kids to play outside for more than 10 minutes, during spring and fall let alone winter. He knows how to shoot a traditional recurve bow and skies better than most adults. My youngest son is only 9 months old but he’s stout, strong and totally engaged with his environment and radiates confidence that belies his months. I have been blessed with the perfect supportive family. Several years ago it became apparent to me I can no longer afford to be a spectator, a victim and luck is not a preparedness plan.

No matter how perfect my family appears to be and is it is no SEAL Team assault element, nor do I want them to be. But, it has become clear that my family needs guidance, training and nurturing in reference to disaster preparedness. Any parent knows that a well thought out plan can easily go awry when you infuse young children into the mix. It is one thing for me to be self reliant, for my wife and me to discuss our future on a farm, it’s another thing to get small children to find the “fun” in preparedness planning, to become self-reliant themselves. It’s even more difficult to have them become willing team players in what seems to them an arbitrary endeavor. Ironically it was my 6 year old who has given me the greatest inspiration. At 3 years old he would yell out, as he sat snuggly in his car seat what we would later call “waypoints”. My son had, through a game we would play developed the, sometimes eerie ability to identify landmarks (buildings, towers, parks, ponds, restaurants, playgrounds, etc) and could tell you where we were in relation to home or other important establishments. As the “point man” for many years in SEAL platoons, forever being oriented was of the utmost importance not only to me, but to my teammates and to mission accomplishment. My son had clearly picked up this innate interest in knowing where he was either from me, his mom or he had it instinctively. But, where he got it from was unimportant to me. What was important was that I wanted to encourage him to refine this talent and use it as a stepping stone to discover other similar talents.

This is where the trouble started and where a major life lesson took place for me. How do I make disaster, death and mayhem look attractive and not scary to a child? How do I relate my oldest son’s love of the outdoors, chess and legos to hunting, self-defense and problem solving? Ok, admittedly that makes it sound pretty easy. In fact in the beginning it was pretty easy because where ever I went my son went. Whatever I did my son wanted to try which is the reason my son has been skiing for four years and he’s only 6. But, as he got older and the challenges or maybe the learning curve got steeper I found myself struggling to make it happen. The crazy thing is I have a background in education. Albeit it was training SEAL candidates, but I spent nearly 6 years of my life trying relate, convey and transfer life saving skills to what amounted to a bunch of kids. How then did it not come naturally when it came to working with my own son? That’s what this article is about, how to teach your kids essential life skills.

Being Oriented
In the remainder of this article I will go through the concepts and steps that I believe to be essential to nurturing our children’s natural desire to protect one another and their family and to be generally safe in daily life. The concepts are more child psychology and motivational methods than direct practical preparedness steps, but I believe them to be imperative to our children’s complete understanding of why they must prepare. The steps on the other hand are…

The first word in any parents training vocabulary should be encourage. We have all experienced that parent that believes he or she must instill drive in his or her children. That children need to be pushed from time to time or in some cases all the time. Encourage is the optimal way to build a lasting interest in, well pretty much anything. This seems like a very obvious concept but as my own experience has shown me, our best intentions to encourage can often wane as we the parent see our children lose interest in something, get distracted or even rebel against the activity altogether. I have a tendency to come in a little too intense when my son shows interest in something I believe to be highly beneficial. For example, my son showed considerable interest in wanting to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow. Great I thought he will take down his first white tail by the time he’s 8. I had it all mapped out. I went out and bought all the gear. Set up a 10 meter range in the backyard. For the first week he was into it, again it was easy. I didn’t have to do anything but say lets go shoot and he was ready. But, the interest soon subsided and out of frustration seeing my dream of a 7 year old taking down the families Thanksgiving turkey fading I started to use poor tactics. It was my amazing wife who reminded me of our family values, that we would never be derogatory with our children. If they showed an interest in something we would support and encourage them. The only steadfast rule we had was that if our sons started something they would see it through. For example if my eldest wanted to play soccer he would play the season not quit halfway through. If he didn’t want to play soccer again the next season so be it. And so it went with archery. I backed off, relaxed a little and when he did want to got out back and shoot I was full of encouragement and took the opportunity to connect with my son as much as pass on skills.

The next concept I believe to be essential to raising self-reliant, confident and skilled children is appreciation. I always like to say appreciation over compliance. If our children learn to appreciate how important being prepared for a home invasion or a fire is they are much more likely to act appropriately. By contrast, if a child has been taught to be compliant with the rules of what to do in case of a fire the compliant child will generally be devoid of freewill. Freewill you say? Yes freewill, I want my children to be problem solvers. I don’t want them to freeze when mom and dad are incapacitated and my oldest son needs to get his little brother out of a second story bedroom that’s on fire. My oldest has always wanted to know “why”. Once again he has taught me some valuable lessons by way of continually challenging me to help him understand how things work. He would sooner jump off a bridge than be immediately compliant on most anything especially if he doesn’t understand the importance of the task. I am sure he is not the only 6 year old that fits this mold. But, I am positive that it presents some unique challenges when trying to teach a child something that we as adults believe to be so intuitive. To promote appreciation be willing to “work with” your child. My wife is the queen of analogies. She can relate most any idea to an example, to illustrate an idea. I lack this skill, but I have worked to develop it. It’s just as important to help my sons appreciate how they can be of considerable assistance in even the most mundane things, like taking out the trash or peeling the carrots. It is even more important to show them how they are integral to the safety of their family. Think of ways to help your children see the importance of being an active part of planning, preparing, and getting through a stressful, life threatening situation. Your child’s appreciation and understanding of his/her role in your family, to problem solve and think on their feet may save your life.

The third and final concept of my philosophy towards teaching our children preparedness and self-sufficiency is for us as parents to be less objective oriented. Children, especially young children are experience oriented. That experiencing may take place at the beginning of an outing or lesson, at the middle or towards the end. For example, there is a 50 acre nature preserve two blocks away from my family’s house. My oldest son has dubbed this forested area the “spooky woods”. Although the woods have never scared him, from the age of 3 they have reminded him of the many fairy tells his mom and I read to him. It seemed to him that all fairytales took place in scary forests. My son and I have spent hours exploring the woods. A couple times I tried to plan and organized an outing with clear objectives (i.e. build a debris hut, a wood bridge over the creek, a solar still to collect water). I soon realized my first mistake was to plan anything, to organize anything. What I wanted to do was of little concern to my young son once he found a dead raccoon to poke with a stick, a frozen creek to throw rocks through or if he just wanted to sit and pick the bark off some deadfall. What I learned from this was to be ready. I learned to carry a pack with the makings of a bow drill fire starter or a snare. I became less interested in learning a specific skill, meeting an objective or making a particular destination and more about the experience. I allowed my son to drive where we went and what we saw and experienced. I stayed open enough to use the opportunities my son presented me to pass on knowledge. On one outing we were discussing the merits of being observant. I wasn’t using any specific examples from our outing, just relaying the idea of stopping every so often and taking a real look around. I was trying to extol the ideal that you miss a lot when you put your head down and just follow the trail. Within 15 minutes of the end of our conversation my son spies what he thinks looks like the tip of a spear poking out of the fall leaf pack. As he digs through the leaves he finds the right antler of an 8 pointer. My sons still proud of that find and reminds me often how he used his superior observation skills to find such a treasure. The other amazing attribute of this concept is that for us as parents being less objective oriented is much less stressful, much more peaceful and once again affords the us to connect with our children on a much more intimate and personal level.

It’s probably comes as no surprise to any of the readers that orientation is vital to survival, preparedness and sustainability among many other things. The following are

Steps to Orientation

– Start with learning land marks and their importance – situation awareness
– Fun with maps
– Give them the tools to navigation
– Observation drills
– Relate to other activities
– Travel

Letter Re: A Self-Sufficient Vermonter

Hi James, 
Thank you for SurvivalBlog. It’s an incredible resource. I thought you and your readers mind find this interesting:

There is a man that lives with his family on his 24 acre parcel of forested mountain in Vermont, completely off the grid using hydro-electric and solar for power and a natural spring for water. He builds everything himself, including his house and workshop. His land is mostly accessible only on foot (though he has cleared a road — by hand). This guy is building a giant mechanical robot. Seriously. But the best part is that all of this is documented in his dozens of videos on YouTube. His intelligence, humor, self-reliance, and creativity make the videos very instructional and entertaining. I stumbled across him a message board.  His progress through the years and the story of what eventually happens to him is quite fascinating.

All the best, – Alex C.

Letter Re: Beans, Bullets, Band-Aids and Birthdays

Mr. Rawles;
When my first child was born, the wife of my husband’s boss gave me 7 bags of clothes her then 5 year old had out grown.  She said, “I know you don’t need these right now, but you will be amazed how quickly he will grow.”  Two years later, when my daughter was born, she gave me 3 bags of girls clothes.  Those clothes were a Godsend.  Every time I found they had outgrown what was in their drawers, I remembered that I had more stored in the garage.  10 years later, I have 2 more kids, and no extra bags of clothes hiding away, and life is much more expensive.  I have made a practice of gifting a large box of second hand clothes up to size 2T and 3T to new moms who I know will not be offended by used clothes.  I always include something handmade, especially for that baby also.  But, I know from experience how helpful it is to have the future stored and waiting.

I live in Michigan.  I have no cherries, pears or peaches on my trees.  I may have 5 to 10 apples on each tree where the blossoms were hidden under the leaves, if I’m lucky. I am adding blueberries, blackberries, hazelnuts and walnut trees to the mix.  Anything to provide a variety of food and increase my chances for a crop of some kind. 

Thank you for your articles, I have enjoyed your blog site for several years. – Kimberly in Michigan

Economics and Investing:

F.G. sent this: Postal Service: Will keep rural post offices open

Michael A. sent this: Liberty Dollars may be subject to seizure.
|
AmEx (American Expat) spotted this: Dutch With Food Aid Shows New Economic Reality Engulfing Europe

Items from The Economatrix:

The Countdown To The Break Up Of The Euro Has Officially Begun

Economic Alert:  If You’re Not Worried Yet, You Should Be

Analyst:  US Still Headed For Recession

Oil Falls To Near $97 Amid Weak US, Europe Demand

Odds ‘n Sods:

Reach out and touch someone: U.S. military snipers are changing warfare. (A hat tip to James K. for sending the link.)

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G.G. flagged this tale of a Polar Pure’s “precursor chemical” woes: “Collateral damage.” How the DEA defines your business, your freedom, and your life.

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From Kevin S.: Researchers discover cell phone hackers can track your location without your knowledge

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Also from Kevin: Private Drone Wars

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Another ultralight flying video from TTabs: Dry Falls Washington – Trike Flying. His description of the terrain: Only understanding the cataclysmic events that happened here at Dry Falls State Park in Washington State can you fully appreciate the topography of this area. The land now sits parched and desolate but once was home to the largest falls in the world – 10 times longer than Niagara Falls and nearly twice as high. Massive vortices from torrential currents scoured potholes unlike anything in the world. Boulders the size of large buildings were swept away as far as the Pacific Ocean.

Note From JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 40 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol. It is a $439 value courtesy of Next Level Training. B.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and E.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 40 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Assessing Risk and Analyzing Hazards for Any Scenario, by Kyrottimus

As a former United States Air Force Readiness Troop (formerly known as “Disaster Preparedness” and, I think, now known as “Emergency Management”), AFSC 3E9X1, part of the Disaster Response Force within Civil Engineering Squadron’s “Prime BEEF” (Base Emergency Engineer Force), and having trained heavily with RED HORSE, I was exposed to quite the gamut of “Full-Spectrum Threat Response Plans”. I could go on ad nauseam about the myriad of tasks and responsibilities affiliated with this career field, but I wont. Specifically, this is about the process of performing a Risk Assessment and Hazard Analysis.

I’m sure as many experts in their own fields can relate: when consulting with clients, many times they are confronted with a mentality involving those wanting to be spoon-fed instructions and to simply have someone tell them how to do things. This isn’t a healthy paradigm for learning, as it fails to take into account the varied circumstances and different types of need which exists between individuals. We have to assess our own situations, capabilities and thusly fulfill our own particular needs. As the line goes, “Give a man a fish, and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime.” What I’m going to attempt with this article is to assist in determining our needs based on a fairly simple process and subsequently attempt to safeguard the fulfillment of those needs.

Now, before I get into the meat and potatoes of this process, let me preface this by stating that my current method is far-removed from the standard I learned in the USAF. Though, let me point out this was the fundamental foundation which I’ve built upon, streamlined and adapted to my own needs. That being said, your results may vary.

First, before we can analyze any potential hazards that could stem from exposure to any one risk, we must first assess the risk itself. Risk is not just an engrossing board game that often tests one’s patience with their family/friends, it is something we do every day, mostly on a subconscious level. When you cross the street, you look both ways (I would hope). Even if there are no vehicles on the road, there could be, the potential is there. Hence the risk and the need to look both ways. That’s an example of a simple risk assessment.

When we want to bring our conscious minds into the decision-making paradigm, it takes on a bit more of a “brainstorming” format. The keystone of the Risk Assessment is identifying risk. Some risks are easy to identify and often very obvious. Others, as I’m about ready to get into, are asymmetric and seemingly random. One must use reason, as while mathematically we are all at risk of having a meteor plow through the ceiling and strike us dead, it’s not within likelihood to consider it as a “reasonable” risk.

The first step in Risk Assessment is first look at your setting (or potential setting if brainstorming future potential risks). Where you are, where are you going, what is likely going on around you, what the weather is like and even the motivations of people around you. Here is where a lot of imagination comes into play as well as mental role-playing. Get a pen and paper and start jotting down adjectives/nouns to describe the likely setting.

For example, if I were going on a cross-country road trip this summer, I would list something like this:

High Gas Prices
Heat
Rain
Traffic
Construction Work
Late night driving
Desert Route
Older vehicle
   -Broken A/C
   -Bald Tires
   -No Spare Tire
No vacancy in motels
   -Sleeping at rest stop in vehicle
   -Driving straight through the night without sleep
Speed Traps
   -Minimal Insurance Coverage
   -Out-of-State Tags

This is just a quick and dirty brainstorm of potential settings encountered on a trip such as this, but one could apply this method to any daily activity, whether it be indoors or out, mobile or static. The more you do it the more you can quickly turn your brain into the powerful difference engine that it is and do it more in your head and on the fly–even doing it quickly in the middle of a constantly changing situation. We’ll get more into that later.

Now that we’ve outlined the basic setting we’d likely encounter in our scenario, we can identify the risks associated with it. At first glance, we can just scan down the list, and let the potential risks pop in our heads when we read each line. “High Gas Prices” might make you think “Potentially insufficient funding for trip costs”, just as we see “Heat” and might combine that with “Older Vehicle” and think “potential engine overheating” or even “potential dehydration” when also combined with “Broken A/C” and “Desert Route”. Now we’re jiving with identifying actual risks. Jot these thoughts down. These are actual risks.

Once you’ve identified the risks, we can now finalize our “risk” step by assessing them all. There is no precise mathematical formula for this, so it takes a lot of logic, reasoning and common sense. I would go through this new list of identified risks and number them in the order of their priority/severity/probability. Once you’ve considered the severity/likely exposure to each risk, you’ve successfully assessed them. Now we’re simply seeing how likely each identified risk is, and how much each might impact our situation if things go worst-case.

A quick side-note on “worst-case”. Sometimes we hate to think this way but even if it’s extremely unlikely that something could go so wrong, if you plan for it going that wrong, then even if/when something happens and it is likely less severe, you’ll be more than ready for it because you’ve already considered/factored in something far worse.

Now that we’ve assessed (prioritized) our risks, we’re going to analyze the hazards each one could potentially expose us to (starting with the highest-priority risk). While looking at the areas which generated the most severe risk, we can derive any number of hazards that come along with it.

This process can take a little longer, and a little more in-depth consideration. We’ve already identified the risk of traveling through a desert route in an old vehicle in the summer without working air-conditioning. If we were to attempt to mitigate that risk and not drive through any deserts, we’d potentially increase the risk of running out of trip funds in paying high-gas prices by increasing miles driven. This is merely weighing the risks of one vs. the other.

Every action has some consequence, just like every identified risk has a hazard that needs analyzing. In the setting brainstorming phase, we saw the potential to drive without sleeping through the night. One of the risks that could incur would be impaired driving or falling asleep at the wheel. The hazards that could stem from that risk would be swerving off the road, hitting an animal (not reacting in time), rear-ending another vehicle, etc.

Basically, when analyzing a hazard, you’re simply looking at any and all worst-case scenarios each risk can lead to. To simply, we’ll revisit the crossing-the-road example. Crossing the road is the act. Potentially crossing in front of the path of moving vehicles on that road are the risk. Getting struck by a vehicle and being injured or killed is the hazard.

Now, let us return to the topic of doing this process ad hoc or on the fly. It takes practice in a more formalized setting to “tune” your thought-patterns into it but you’ll pick up on it quickly. The more you use this in your prepping brainstorming, the more efficient it can be accomplished. You’ll know you’ve “got it” when you can process the risks/hazards at your present time and location and project forward in likely future settings, compartmentalizing contingency plans A, B, C. etc. off the top of your head. But even doing this as simply an exercise can help prioritize your needs and your loved-ones’ needs and incorporate those needs into your contingency plans.

To maximize survival, do everything you can to plan to avoid threats to the fulfillment of those needs. This process can be applied to anything. From walking outside to get the mail or planning another moon landing. Consider everything.

Remember that once you’ve established a baseline Risk Assessment and Hazard Analysis, you can move on to mitigating risks by planning around them. It really is a risk-vs.-reward type of thinking. If the risk is too great for any potential reward/benefit, try to work around another way. If the other way is too implausible, then you might have to move on to taking the risk and then focus on minimizing hazards (by planning for them–in fact by even expecting them).

Things can get dicey, because planning for and minimizing potential hazards can be both time consuming (training) and expensive (gear/logistics). Just like anything valuable to us (goods or services), prepping is paramount. In its essence, prepping is hinged upon specific goods (stored food, medical supplies, firearms/ammo, water purification, spare ___(fill-in-the-blank)___, etc.) and services (medical training, firearms training, martial arts training, etc.).

Prepping in both material and mindset is valuable not only because of the exponential increase in survivability in contingency situations, but in all the time and resources (i.e. money) spent in its pursuits. It is an investment. An investment in our future and likely the futures of those we hold dear. determine your needs, and protect the continuing fulfillment of those needs accordingly by considering all the angles you can possibly imagine. Use your imagination, be creative. Brainstorm, bounce ideas around with others who share your concerns.

Don’t be afraid to streamline or alter this process to suit your own needs. Or to think of something entirely new. That sort of thing is what leads to innovation, after all. Don’t lead people blindly or follow people blindly. Innovation comes from creative individual need-fulfillment. Learn from each other. Teach each other. Share anecdotes, they may open someone else’s eyes to risks and hazards they never considered before–and hopefully they may do the same for you.

As always: Keep your ear to the ground, an eye to the sky, your bayonet sharp and your powder dry.

Letter Re: Sunspot 11476 Update

Hi James,

At about 12:30 UTC this morning Sunspot 11476 flared at the M4.7 level thereafter remaining at an elevated emission state. As of just a few minutes ago it re-flared, peaking to M1.8. Last night’s read at Solen.info gave the area as 1100 SM and noted significant complexity at at least two points within the spot. This morning’s HMIB from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) platform has in the leading spot a section in which very high positive and negative magnetic gradients are immediately adjacent to each other with strong intermixing occurring. This is almost always a sign that further high-grade flaring will follow. Looks like the next 24 hours will be “interesting.”

Extreme close-up examination of the HMIB (magnetic gradient) of  the leading segment of 11476 shows a very high gradient area of negative polarity strongly infiltrating an equally high magnitude area of positive polarity effectively placing the very strongest +/- zones in extremely close proximity to each other. This circumstance forms a basis for high magnitude (X-Class to high X-Class) solar flare activity. I expect the next 6-12 hours will tell the tale.

Update 00:10 AM EST Thursday, May 10th:

11476 is closing in on it’s maximum geoeffective position at this time. The current estimation for it to be along the polar meridian is about ~18 hrs. Concurrently, the spot has grown to over 1100 SM (in NOAA’s estimation, I’m sure that Solen.info will be listing a larger size at the midnight report) and maintains a complex magnetic configuration, even NOAA has acknowledged it as “BGD”, Beta-Gamma-Delta, the most complex type of solar magnetic configuration observed. In addition, the most recent HMIB from SDO, when closely examined, indicates that a segment of the lead spot has an area within it where an extremely strong gradient exists between positive and negative polarity fields. It therefore goes without saying that at this time a very high potential for X-flaring exists regardless of the official line given. (NOAA is abysmally slow at evaluating spot state.) Be assured, this spot merits significant attention – as much or more than any we’ve monitored thus far in this solar cycle. – J. Boston

Letter Re: A Source for Camouflage Material

Mr. Rawles,
While searching around the Internet for camouflage, I came across this web site for Milsim (Airsoft) gamers that has a lot of fairly inexpensive new clothing and tactical items and is searchable by camo pattern.  They have an inexpensive version of Multicam I’m looking at, as well as a number of items in your oft-mentioned British DPM pattern.  I haven’t ordered from them yet, so can’t speak to their service or quality.
 
Thanks, – Brian  in Colorado