Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its origin to the plague. Men who cooly ventured on what they had formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. So they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their lives and riches as alike things of a day. Perseverance in what men called honour was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honourable and useful. Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them. As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his offenses, but each felt that a far severer sentence had already been passed upon them all and hung over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little." – Thucydides The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2, Chapter 7, Section 53, translation by Richard Crawley; revised by R. Feetham, 1952, regarding the conditions during the Athenian plague during the Second Siege of Athens by the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC.



Notes from JWR:

I decided not to “black out” my blog today, but you can be assured that that I’m 100% opposed to SOPA. That horrible legislation was the impetus for setting up our server in Sweden. (Which, BTW, is still undergoing configuration and test.) Please both call and e-mail your congresscritters and urge them to stop SOPA and PIPA!!!

Today we present another two entries for Round 39 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 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), and E.) 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 F-50 hand well pump (a $349 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.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, C.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and D.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 39 ends on January 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.



The Year I Accidentally Grew Wheat, by Gonzo In Virginia

I’d like to share a recent adventure in practical survival skills that I stumbled upon by accident. Luckily for me this was not a disaster that forced this, but instead the natural friction that occurs between man and wife. In the course of a year I grew a crop of wheat, harvested, processed, and made a loaf of bread. The adventure was that I did not start out to do any of those things! In the course of this learning experience I found out that things “everyone knows” are not, in fact, easy to find out.

The adventure started innocently enough with the typical chore item. The wife asked for a flower garden in the front yard. The spot designated for this garden was a small section of grass in a ¼ oval shape. It was About 8 feet wide and 15 feet long that existed between the front porch and the sidewalk.   Over a course of a weekend I dug the hard soil, tilled it with a hand tiller attachment on my weed trimmer, and amended the soil.

This was the first lesson I learned in my growing of the wheat, even though I had not started to grow it yet!  The typical suburban yard is a mess when it comes to growing anything but grass. My yard, being typical, at one time was farm land, but 40 years ago the farm land was converted into a subdivision and the front yard has had nothing but grass in it for those 40 years. This leads to the soil becoming as hard as rock over time underneath the thin layer of sod on top of it. There is no aeration or other activity to break the soil up. When I went to till the ground I found my tiller jumping all over the place. It would scalp the ground, chewing up the thin layer of sod, but not dig into the soil underneath.

Finally I had to set the tiller aside and grab a spade. A spade differs from a regular shovel in that it has a point like a spade on a playing card, a flat shovel will not work in this situation. I then began to break the soil in my garden up with the spade. I would put the tip in, step on it and drive it into the soil, lever a hunk out, take a step back, and repeat. I found over time that working in a straight line back and forth helped as it relieved pressure on two sides, the side I had taken the previous bite out of and the row that was missing next to it. This process is often referred to as turning the soil.

What I was doing, and had not realized until later research, closely mimicked what the settlers had to do on the Great Plains. To create any sort of acreage you first cross the field with a plow and break the soil up into large chunks. A plow is the large, single bladed, instrument pulled by a tractor or a horse. The next step is to run a disc tiller across that field and break down the loosened chunks into a finer soil.  The disc is the item that looks like a bunch of saw blades on a rack. Once you have done that you amend the soil by spreading manure or other fertilizers on the field and till it again. Finally you can return with your plow of similar device and turn the soil into rows if that is what you need.

After I hand spaded the flower garden, which was back breaking even for this small area, I used my handheld tiller to simulate the action of the disc and broke the soil up. When that was done I tossed some random fertilizer and peat I had laying around onto the garden and worked that in to improve drainage and amend the soil. After 40 years of growing grass it turns out that yard soil is extremely depleted of nutrients. I suggest a nice 10-10-10 fertilizer if you are not growing something specific. It is a nice balance of nutrients without so much of any one you have to worry about hurting a crop. I then re-tilled to work this in.

This whole adventure had gone from a couple hours on a Saturday to almost 30 hours over two weekends. So I informed my wife that if a weed grew anywhere in that garden after all my work I was going to be very displeased, and as this was her garden, she had to keep the weeds out. In order to do this she did not want a layer of plastic and then a layer of mulch as I expected but wanted straw. To kill two birds with one stone when buying Halloween decorations I bought three bails of straw from the local feed and seed. Once they were done with their decorating purposes she spread them all over the Garden as weed control, which they immediately failed at when green shoots started sprouting everywhere. I brought this up to my wife she said not to worry, the winter would kill these shoots and she would make sure there were no weeds in the spring.

After a fairly wet and mild winter we had, as you probably can now guess, a nice crop of winter wheat in our front lawn. The bails of straw I had purchased were wheat straw and they took to my freshly tilled garden very nicely. By March I had a nice thick crop in the yard that was waist high and nicely forming heads. I then informed my wife that I was now taking over the garden as my wheat project as I had decided I was going to make a loaf of bread for all my hard work. I figured this would be a great opportunity to practice a couple skills that I was sure were easy. How hard could they be? Subsistence farms had been doing exactly this for a thousand years.

Once I had decided that I was going to do this project I began researching how to go from a stand of wheat to a loaf of bread on the table and found out something interesting. There is a huge gap between theory and practice. You can find tons of information online on how to grow wheat, and tons of information and how to make processed wheat berries into bread, but there is a major drop out of information between the two.  I found it very difficult to find information on when to harvest, how to harvest, what to do with the harvested wheat, etc etc. It seemed that if a 15th century French peasant could do it, then anyone could and no one has bothered to ever document the process.

So I watched my wheat yellow and dry on the stalks until it was completely dried out. I decided to harvest my wheat at this point. Further research has shown that I waited too long. What I should have done was waited until there was just a hint of green left in the stalks and then cut the wheat down and made sheaves out of it. A sheave is a 6 inch diameter bundle of wheat tied around the middle with a wheat stalk. You make groups of sheaves, and then stack them into a pyramid shape to allow air flow through the stack to finish the drying process.  If you wait too long then your wheat is prone to shatter, which is where the wheat berries fall off the stalk when it is cut by the scythe or when stacked and the wheat berries are lost. The idea is to cut the wheat before this shatter point, stack and dry it until it crosses that point, and then use this tendency to separate the wheat berries from stalks in a controlled matter.

Luckily for me I did not have a scythe, I had bunny rabbits. The bunnies had taken up residence in my small wheat patch, making a warren beneath the wheat straw. My wife was worried that the hawks would get the bunnies (BTW bunnies is the correct term as rabbits are things you eat apparently.) She requested that I not cut the stalks down but instead just pull the heads off the stalks. So I found myself one weekend with a 5 gallon bucket picking wheat like it was huckleberry season. The things we do for love. This, on the other hand, got me around the shatter problem; I did not even realize it was a possible problem until later. I also got to inspect each head for signs of mildew or mold as I went.

As a trade off to save the bunnies, my wife agreed to shuck my wheat heads for me and sat on the porch running each one through her hand to pull the berries out and put them in a container. Again very slow going, but did have the advantage of keeping the chaff down. This, of course I learned later, was not the normal way. Normally you would have taken your sheaves of wheat you made earlier from your pile once they dried and taken them to some sort of processing ground. Usually a cleared dirt space shaped like a bowl, if you are in sub Saharan Africa, or a tarp will work as good. The idea then is to beat your wheat until all the berries fall off the stalks on to your surface, using the natural tendency for wheat to shatter I mentioned before.  A sharp strike from a flail or other implement is what you want here. A pressing force, such as walking on the stalks, will not knock the wheat berries loose from the stalks as well as a sharp strike will.

Quickly it became obvious to me that shucking these heads was not going to work for me and the wife, the bunnies seemed to have no opinion. I was not about to go buy a thresher or other device to work these buckets of wheat so I had to improvise. While rooting around in the garage for a solution I found a concrete mixing paddle that was fairly clean. I then grabbed my cordless drill and had a solution! I put the bit into the drill, shoved it into the buckets of wheat heads and turned it on! Success! The flailing paddle in short order beat the wheat out of my heads and fell to the bottom of my bucket. Now I had a bunch of short stalks, a bunch of chaff (the small leaves that surround the wheat berry), and a bunch of wheat berries. Then came the next problem, how to separate these items?

Grabbing some wire mesh I poured wheat between buckets through the mesh and cleaned the stalks out. The berries, and that dang chaff, passed through the screen and left the stalks behind. If the stalks had been longer, or my mesh finer, this would have been quick, unfortunately this step took a pass or two.  With these two steps what I had recreated was the basic thresher. These were simply a paddle that moved and flailed the wheat across a conveyer belt with slots in it causing the wheat and chaff to drop down to the bottom of the thresher and the wheat to come out the other end. Powered by farm animal power or steam they greatly sped up farm production of wheat in the 1800s.These early threshers were simply a set of flails and a conveyer on a shaft turned by a belt attached to an animal walk system. It would have been easy to reproduce I believe, except I had no farm animal except the bunnies, and they continued to be no help in this process.

After a day of my work with the drill and my improvised thresher I now had a 5 gallon bucket about ¾ full of wheat berries and chaff.  I had heard that the way that has normally used to remove chaff was the wind. So I started pouring my wheat from bucket to bucket held high so the wind would take the chaff, which it did, but it was slow and prone to spillage. So I went and got a fan and started passing this wheat in front of the fan. This worked pretty well. After about a dozen passes I finally had my end product, about 10 pounds of wheat berries nicely cleaned. Excited I went into the house and check to see how much a bushel of wheat (60 pounds) sold for thinking of all the money I had saved. The price of a bushel of wheat turned out to be just around eleven dollars. Please note that the eleven dollar price is for a bushel of wheat delivered by the train load, so don’t use that price to price shop with your local dealer. I figured that after four weekends of hard work I had made almost three dollars! At this rate it would be a race to see if I starved to death before I went broke. Still determined I was going to get my loaf of bread I set on my next task, making this wheat into flour.

Now I should mention the sort of prepper I am. I like to figure out how, from a zero starting point, how a guy can make the tools he needs to survive. This often means making the tools, to make the tools, to make the tools. I have found out that things that were so easy an illiterate 15th century peasant could do it does not actually work out to be that simple after all. It turns out that simple things are really hard to do.

The problem I now faced was, I had wheat berries that were inedible. Wheat is an interesting plant product. It is a very hard outer shell surrounding gluten filled starch. To get to this little pocket of flour you have to break the rock like germ on the outside. Human teeth cannot do this so the wheat has to be processed into some other form to make it edible.
I had three avenues to turn my wheat into a food source. I could sprout the berries by soaking them in water until a sprout forms breaking and softening the outer germ. This process is surprisingly quick, only taking about 12 hours. You then dry this and grind it to make bread and other items, or put the sprouted berries into hot water and eat them like porridge. I could feed this wheat and its straw to live stock and turn the wheat into protein that way. Like a lot of conversions though you lose a lot of calories doing this, and we had already established that the bunnies are out of bounds as a food source, for me and the hawks. So my third option was to grind my wheat berries into smaller bits and make some flour.

I went back to my tools of tools method and started to work on the problem of how to make a flour mill. Now lots of places will sell you a mill, or mill parts. Lots of places will tell you that the 15th century peasant went to the mill, but if you want to make a mill then things get quiet. Eventually I found from a web site how to make a 15th Century quern and learned the magic of the wheat grinding process. This process lives in the matching faces of convex and concave shapes.

The most basic idea of wheat grinding is that you have to have two hard surfaces that are finely matched with each other. This could be as simple as two stones you are rubbing together or as complex as water driven mill stones.  There is a good chance that, as preppers, you own a mortar and pestle. Go grab it and look at it. You will notice that the two surfaces actually match up to a great degree. If they did not grinding with it would be impossible. Mill stones and querns work the same way. You have two stones , one of which is mobile and one of which is stationary. The top stone needs to be concave while the bottom stone needs to be convex and have their surfaces mesh. This can be a very shallow slope, but it does need to be there. Then in the surface of your two stones you need to put grooves that narrow down to nothing. On the stop stone you have a hole that the wheat is placed in dead center of the top stone. The idea is the wheat works its way, by gravity and the turning action of the stones, into those grooves and gets ground smaller and smaller against the face of the opposing stone until if finally falls off the outside of the stone where it is collected as flour.

You can make your stones from metal, or concrete, or even large chiseled river rocks if you like. Once you have your shapes close you can then place sand between the stones and rotate them until both surfaces mesh. This is the trick, if you don’t cast the stones from concrete on mirror forms, to making your surfaces mesh. Get them close and then grind down the stones with some grit in between. This grinds both surfaces equally removing distortions until they mesh perfectly. Then you can chisel your grooves in.  Once the chiseling is done on either way of making them run them for a bit to knock any loose grit out of the stones and then brush them off.

Once you have the stones you can power them any way you wish. A quern was powered by muscle power. It had an offset handle that was gripped and used to rotate the whole top stone around a central spindle mounted in the bottom stone. Wheat was placed into a hole in the top stone and fell down past the spindle in between the stones. The foxfire books show how to make barrel mills and other such devices to power larger stones. You could even go full size with a good sized stream to damn and create a sluice and wheel system.

After this bout of research and looking at the time and effort to making a quern, realizing I did not have a stream or river to damn for a traditional mill, and deciding I did not want to run a barrel wheel powered mill off my garden hose. Reality also set in. The fact of the matter was it was entirely possible that after all this work, once I made my bread, I might find out I hated it. This led me to believe that I did not want to spend a single dollar on this process, so I went and found an old electric coffee grinder and proceeded to grind up my wheat in it. I managed to get my 8 cups for a batch of bread before it burned up and it only took four hours. In other words this is not really a solution to the wheat grinding problem either.

Since my experiment ended I have procured a living grain mill from Ready Made Resources to use for grinding my wheat. I love this mill. The hand crank is on a flywheel that is already grooved to accept a V-belt. This makes turning this unit into a powered unit a snap. Gas, muscle, electrical, or bunny power is all possible with this mill. I find I can turn out enough flour to make a batch of bread in about 45 minutes using the hand crank, and I get a great cardio workout with it, too!

Once I had my 8 cups of wheat flour I then proceeded to make my bread. There are a ton of recipes in books and on the internet for making bread so I won’t take up space including one here. I decided to make mine with honey as the sweetener to keep it as true to what would have been produced by my model peasant. I also looked into making my own yeast for this process. I quickly found out that yeast is not as readily available as one would think. With thousands of possible strains in the world, and only a handful being useful, making yeast is not something to take lightly and outside of the scope of this article.
Once I had my loaves of bread I sat down to try them and they were wonderful! Since I had freshly ground the grain I retained all the nutrients. Since it was the whole grain it was whole wheat bread with the extra roughage. This produced some profound gastrointestinal benefits in addition to tasting great. I found I also had more energy over the next couple days. This might have been a side benefit of all the physical labor I had done, but it seemed like a missing nutrient had been replaced in my diet.

So in the end I had my loaves of bread after several weeks of work, at zero cost, and a lot of learning. I also still had several bunnies and a happy wife. I also now feel confident that I have taken some major steps in learning how to actually farm wheat. This confidence in my wheat using and growing abilities has allowed me to add wheat to my personal stockpiles. More importantly I now use my wheat regularly in my day to day cooking, allowing me to cycle my stores of wheat properly.

The lesson learned from my accidental experiment is that you should always check your assumptions.  I had assumed making bread was easy, I had assumed growing wheat was easy, I had no idea how much labor was really involved. I had assumed I could just use my stored wheat, not realizing that it needs preparation. Finally I also learned the power of names. When the family stops referring to it as that darn rabbit, and starts calling them the cute bunnies, you are going to have an issue.  Cute, it turns out, is a work creator, not a work reducer. So be quick with the three S conservation plan to these problems. Shoot, shovel, and shut up. It will save you a lot of effort in the long run.



Keeping Chickens in a Backyard Flock, by Nightshade

In a SHTF scenario, already having a small flock of laying chickens will be of great benefit for everyone from an urban backyard to a rural, backwoods bunker setting. They are easy to care for, provide eggs and eventually, can grace your stewpot once they have stopped laying. Given the opportunity, they are also resourceful, and will scavenge for insects, grubs, and their favorite greenery. Be warned, they absolutely adore strawberries and kale, and will eat it right out of your garden!

A laying hen reaches maturity and begins laying eggs at around 4-6 months of age. She will lay an average of two eggs every three days for the next 3-5 years. After that, you may wish to consider adding the girl to the stewpot. Laying hens are not as tender as young meat birds (which are typically slaughtered at eight weeks of age) but their meat is still salvageable if boiled or tenderized with some vinegar prior to cooking.

Laying Hens or Meat Birds?

The first decision you need to make is whether to have laying hens or meat birds. Chickens have been cultivated for a long time, and while some breeds make excellent laying hens, and lay large eggs for a long period of time, other breeds are definitely cultivated to grow quickly and be consumed in short order.
We have twelve Araucanas and one Rhode Island Red – all laying hens. The Araucanas lay a pale blue-green egg, that is considered a medium sized egg. The Rhode Island Red lays an extra-large brown egg. Rhode Island Reds are known for their large, high production egg capacity.
At this point, we have no meat birds. However, from my past interactions with them I have to say that they are very different from their egg-laying counterparts. Meat birds have one goal – to consume as much food as possible. That is why in eight weeks, a meat bird will average about 6-8 pounds, whereas my delicate Araucanas weigh in at a total of five pounds each full grown. Meat birds can also be rather aggressive, pecking and drawing blood on each other and more importantly, you. Take care if you have small children and meat birds, it could be traumatizing.

Benefits That Chickens Give

Will Eat Leftovers – Besides the obvious benefit of providing eggs and meat, chickens are one of nature’s garbage disposals. An omnivore, a chicken will consume nearly anything – meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, grains, rice. Not a single thing goes to waste in our house between the chickens, dogs and cats. Chickens will eat anything smaller than themselves – this means mice, if they can catch them. A few months ago, we caught two marauding mice in the house. We fed them both to the chickens who fought over the little carcasses – waste not, want not.
We also feed them their own eggshells, which are high in calcium, negating the need to buy crushed oyster shells as a calcium supplement.
If you have carnivores (dogs and cats) than you will probably feed them most of your meat scraps, but save a little for the birds. I’ve given them leftover soup, rice, quinoa, carrot peelings, the bases of broccoli, cauliflower leaves, tomatoes, and so much more. For a special treat, feed them some grapes, they go crazy for them and it is also a good source of water for them as well.

Will Process Paper
– There’s no need to burn paper, and please don’t throw it away. Instead, shred it (I actually use a high-capacity shredder and shred everything (phone books, newspapers, magazines, envelopes, you name it) and then place it in the chicken house. On the floor and in the roosts it absorbs the chicken waste, which is high in nitrogen. From there, simply sweep it out the door onto the ground of the enclosed chicken coop. This makes the ground less muddy. During the summer we also add grass clippings and encourage our neighbor to bring over his grass clippings to us as well. During the warm months, every 1-2 months we will rake up all of the gunk from the ground and throw it into the compost. A month or two later and it is compost, full of nutrients and ready to be spread onto our raised beds and worked into the dirt.
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Pest Control
– In the warm months we open the door to the coop during the day and allow the hens to roam free, scratching and digging in the grass and raised beds. They search for and find plenty of insects, grubs, and even will go after mice and small birds. This provides them with some extra protein which they need for egg production. Later in summer, feed them any tomato hornworms you may find. They adore them, and it saves your tomato plants from being denuded of the sheltering green leaves tomatoes need for protection from the sun.

The Chicken Rules

Chickens are easy to keep as long as you follow the basic rules of good chicken ownership. So here are some quick tips to keep in mind.
Easy to Doctor – They are quite easy to doctor. You will need: Q-tip cotton swabs, triple antibiotic cream, pine tar, and if you like a general poultry antibiotic. Basically the first three ingredients are to treat your bird if they get in a tussle with another bird. This happens more when they are younger and the pecking order (yes, it’s real) has not been established. A chicken will rise within the flock by pecking a foe until she bleeds, and since chickens are naturally attracted to the color red (blood, red-painted toenails, red grapes, etc) that bird will then be pecked and pecked repeatedly, and chickens can and will kill one of the flock if not stopped. We bring in the hurt bird, wash off the blood, sometimes apply baby powder to help with the clotting, spread some antibiotic cream on the wound and then paint it with pine tar.
It smells bad and tastes worse. An attacking bird gets a mouthful of that and decides to pick on someone else!
As for the general poultry antibiotic…chickens sometimes get colds. If you see one that is lethargic and has not moved, has drainage around the beak or eyes, she may benefit from a regimen of antibiotics. They are available in most feed stores and you simply add them to the water. In one hen’s case, we had to force feed the antibiotics to her with a dropper. After three days she got better and she is now doing great.

Excessive Heat Will Kill Them – I suggest letting them loose during excessive heat waves and allowing your hens to search out the shaded, cool areas of your yard. Provide plenty of water, throw in some chunks of ice if you can to cool it down. We installed a fan in the chicken house last summer and placed it in front of a hunk of ice. The girls clustered around that or dug into the dark, shaded areas of our yard and into the cool dirt. I would not advise trying to eat a bird who dies of heat stroke unless  you see it die and know there wasn’t any other reason for it to be deceased (sickness, etc).

Cold Doesn’t Affect Laying, Light Does – I hear it over and over, “My chickens stopped laying because it has been so cold.” No, they could care less about that. Instead, it has to do with light exposure. Chickens need approximately 12-14 hours of exposure to direct light, in order to release an egg. Cloudy, overcast days have the same effect. Beginning in October, or earlier if you live in the more extreme climes, install a 40 watt bulb in your chicken house on a 12-14 hour timer. We have ours set to turn on at 6am in the morning and turn off at 8pm at night.
We had watched our production rates fall to around 3-5 eggs per day from our thirteen hens. After installing the light, production spiked and has stayed steady at 8-10 eggs per day. Our record is 11 eggs in one day – keep making those eggs, girls! (Or it is the stewpot for you)

Keep a Rooster (if you can get away with it) – Roosters can be noisy and are often aggressive. And most of us live in urban and suburban settings that prohibit us from having one. However, if you can get away with it, I do suggest having a rooster. For one, roosters provide an enzyme that turns the ‘bad’ cholesterol in eggs to ‘good’ cholesterol. Most importantly though is the ability to renew your flock. If push comes to shove, you want the ability to make more birds and in a SHTF scenario, you won’t much care if they are meat birds or laying birds – they are FOOD, plain and simple. Portable, easy to maintain, FOOD. Having a rooster there to propagate more of the food opportunities just makes good common sense.

Protect Them From Predators – I would think this would go without saying, but there are plenty of creatures out there besides us who think chickens, and their eggs, are tasty treats. If you let your birds free range during the day, be aware that hawks and eagles find them to be a yummy main dish. Raccoons and possum will also happily hunt and kill your birds in the dark of night. I recommend a chicken house that you can lock them in at night in, and an enclosed chicken yard (covered which chicken wire on all sides) as a sort of double protection. Occasionally dogs or even cats have been known to hunt chickens. Our dogs know not to hunt them, but one of the cats found the practice to be fun and entertaining – until the entire flock of chickens chased after him and ‘pinned’ him under a forsythia bush for a good twenty minutes. After that he wasn’t too interested! Snakes, rats and mice are also a concern. Snakes love eggs, and the rats and mice tend to go after the chicken feed.
We have found keeping chickens to be easy, entertaining, and…delicious. For more tips on chicken care, recipes for pickled eggs, and more, click on the link below.
Chickens, Recipes and More



Letter Re: Alaska as a Retreat Locale

Dear Mr. Rawles,

I just finished your novel novel “Survivors”. It was a good book and it spells out a lot of things that might happen. I have been an avid reader of your books and materials for some time. I would like to point out that Alaska is a better survivor island than many of the other Western States.

First: Alaska does rely on products being imported but it has the capacity to manufacture its own fuel. Presently we have three refineries within our state but they concentrate on the manufacture of Aviation Gas because it has the highest profit. We could seek to change our production to diesel and to automobile gasoline if we were cut off. We also have geothermal heat sources and large deposit of coal that we would be able to use as fuels. We have active wood resource use and technology involving wood boilers.

Second: Anchorage would be toast. It is kind of known as Los Anchorage. It has a high Asian/Pacific Islander/Filipino population mixed with greenies (emigres from California) that would wipe themselves out quickly. The rest of the state would have increased resources with that group roughly taking itself out. Those that would be left would be roving gangs but for the most part would not leave their central location. People would probably seek to cut the roads out in and out of anchorage and this would be easy with the destruction of a couple of bridges. Anchorage would be isolated and would be a death trap.

Third: In a “Crunch” type scenario things that have restricted Alaska for a long time like the Jones Act would be null. Alaska presently can not direct export its resources to other foreign powers. Alaska has a significant war chest in its constitutional reserve that is largely composed of stocks, and real estate. Alaska could possibly pull some very quick trade deals with other PacRim countries for import/exports.

Fourth: Military in Alaska. We have a large military presence here and those people would follow military procedures. Many would be called back to the states or would move back with their families. Once that happened our population would be more sustainable. Many military folks would stay. Alaska would be the home to the stryker divisions, airborne and quick response divisions that could easily protect its borders. We have tactical bombers, missile defense and F22 Raptor fighters that would provide for supports.

Fifth: Long term Alaskans- Would easily slowly retract from the rest of the US. We produce a lot of gold and precious metals and would be able to produce a lot more if Federal Restrictions ended. 66% of the state[land area] is Federally controlled. The lack of an operating over the shoulder Uncle Sugar would produce a lot of mom and pop gold mining that would be highly profitable in the crunch.

Sixth: The amount of salmon and other basic food stuffs could be concentrated on. Delta and the Matsu valley have the capabilities to produce enough potatoes, barley and vegetables that with the new[ly-reduced] population and regular dynamics we would be okay. We actually built storage facilities for these products that are not in use. Global Warming is a reality and Alaska has longer growing seasons with capabilities that would allow it survive. We would not face starvation as mentioned in the book. Many in Alaska are preppers and I believe that the average household in Alaska has between two and four months worth of food. Things like Sailor Boy pilot bread and other products that last for long without refrigeration are found in greater quantities up here.

Seventh: There are some Alaskans who would die quickly in the aftermath of TEOTWAWKI but if Alaska was not completely nuked it would have circles of influence that would try to keep things in check. There are several very active groups of people who would seek to take quick steps if it happened. They are here and are prepared. Alaska’s constitution is different from US constitution and it is much more connected with the original constitution and not all of the interpretation and missteps that our Framing document has taken.

I liked your novel very much. I think that you should investigate the capabilities of modern compound bow technology. Bows are much more accurate and deadly than they have ever been. They have the ability to engage targets at ranges greater than 100 yards. Sincerely, – Thomas K.



Letter Re: Buffalo Bore Ammunition–Thinking Outside The Box

James,
I’d like to offer a quick bit of follow up on Pat Cascio’s review of Buffalo Bore ammo. I’m a big fan of their ammo, and have quite a bit of experience with it. I recently ordered and tested some of the .45 Auto Rim +P 225 grain hard cast wad cutters, as well as the 200 grain version in .44 Special. I shot the Auto Rim in a 325 Airlight 2.5″ Smith & Wesson, as well as a Model 22 4″. This is stout ammo, pushing the big flat point bullet at over 1100 fps. I have to admit that it was not fun to shoot in the lightweight snubby, very much like shooting full house .357 ammo in a lightweight J frame. I believe that I will order some of the non +P version (1,000 fps) for the 325, and reserve the +P version for the all steel revolver. It was very controllable and accurate in the Model 22, and I’d feel very confident and well armed with it against two or four legged predators. The .44 Special version pushes a 200 grain bullet about 1,000 fps, and was a joy to shoot in a 3″ 629. There is a .44 Magnum version available that pushes about 1300 fps. These big wadcutter loads harken back to Jim Cirillo and the “man stopper” loads he used on stake out duty with the NYPD. While somewhat “retro”, they provide reliable stopping power and penetration without relying on a hollow point that may or may not expand. I believe they would be excellent carry loads for the backwoods.

As Pat mentioned, what I really like is that Buffalo Bore creates ammo that maximizes the potential of the case capacity, with bullets that meet real world needs, and tests their ammo in real world guns. Each cartridge description includes real world velocities for actual firearms, not long test barrels.

I also recommend their .357 Magnum “Low flash, low recoil, tactical” 158 grain jacketed hollow point ammo, which I’ve found to be an ideal load for a S&W 327 Nightguard snubby. In my .38 Specials, such as the Detective Special I’m carrying, I use their 158 grain lead semi-wadcutter hollow points. I’ve never found any problems with the BB ammo, finding them to be accurate, powerful and reliable. Much of their line is available at Cabela’s, but I normally order directly from the Buffalo Bore web site, and have experienced quick and reliable shipping.

I’m just a satisfied customer, have bought all my own Buffalo Bore ammo, and have no interest in the company. Thanks, – S.M.O.



Economics and Investing:

Chris D. recommended this YouTube mini-documentary: Confiscation and Inflation

Reader Kevin K. liked this piece: The $U.S. Dollar Centric Derivatives Complex: Progenitor of Parasitic, Ponzi Price-Fixing

Twenty Two Signs Pointing to a Devastating Global Recession
 
All You Need to Know About Iran, $200 Oil, and $6.00 Gas Prices

Items from The Economatrix:

The Worst Economic Recovery Since The Great Depression

Nearly 1 Million Workers Vanish Under Obama

Home Seizures May Jump 25% this Year as US Foreclosures Resume

Apocalypse How?  Dire 2012 Forecasts Pessimistic Prognosticators



Odds ‘n Sods:

Tom H. sent this: Free EMS nationwide radio scanner feeds, via Internet streaming.

   o o o

Clarke M. mentioned that there are some great resources for homeschoolers available at Donna Young’s web site.

   o o o

The 10 Worst States to Retire In: They’re Frosty and Costly

   o o o

With some angst, an Elle magazine writer asks: Should I Buy a Gun? (The journalist recently moved to Montana. So instead of having doubts about being unarmed, does this mean she is having Redoubts?)

   o o o

And just for fun, a little South of the Border humor: The Skeleton Bike Rider. (Some budding track stars! Note that the prankster set up just outside a walled cemetery.)



Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Free wood is puppy dogs and sunsets! Free wood is money in the bank, fuel for the furnace, and landscaping all in one! It’s miraculous in its absence of liquidity. Ever seen a lawyer come and steal half your firewood? Had a politician skim 10% of the top of the cord? Had it vanish in a hard drive crash? I think not. Free wood is peace and joy…” – The Adaptive Curmudgeon blog



Notes from JWR:

In reviewing SurvivalBlog’s web statistics for last month, I see that our traffic was a whopping 1,929.92 Gigabytes in December, 2011. That is huge number for a blog that presents mostly text. (We post very few graphics.) We also logged 334,239 unique visits per week. That is about the same number of unique visits we received per month, back in 2008. Our bandwidth has quadrupled in less than three years!

Thanks for spreading the word about SurvivalBlog to your family, co-workers, church congregants, and friends. I also appreciate that so many of you have added links to SurvivalBlog in your web pages and blogs, and even in your e-mail footers. I feel blessed. May God Bless You!

Today we present another two entries for Round 39 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 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), and E.) 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 F-50 hand well pump (a $349 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.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, C.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and D.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 39 ends on January 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.



Night Vision Gear for Those on a Tight Budget, by Robert C.

Prepping on a budget is quite important to my family as I am sure it is to many avid readers of this fine blog.  I have purchased the book, “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times” and am following it to the best of my ability and financial means.

However one aspect that is woefully lacking is my nighttime surveillance capability.  Sure I have strong LED flashlights with rechargeable batteries, solar panels ready to recharge those batteries at a moments notice, and enough batteries to last a lifetime.  I have solar powered motion sensitive lighting on each corner of my house just like any good Prepper.

However in many instances that I can envision, I would want the capability see what is going on in and around my area of operations (AO) without alerting what I am attempting to observe that I am attempting to observe it.  Whether it is shooting that feral hog out of the garden, observing the deer that are eating my grapes, or seeing what that two legged predator is doing walking my fence line on the back of my property.

I have been looking and reviewing various night vision scopes and binoculars, however of the ones that I reviewed, none that were in my price range seemed worth owning and the ones that were barely in my price range had marginal reviews. 

With money being so tight just to make ends meet, let alone prep, I simply could not afford to roll the dice and take the chance that a particular night vision scope would fulfill my purpose.  And, even if it did, with the” two is one and one is none” philosophy; I certainly couldn’t afford multiples of any of the scopes that I had seen.Not only that, but even if I could find an affordable (to me) night vision scope and I could afford to get multiples of that scope, I would need one that could fit multiple uses as well.

For example, I would need one that I could fit as a head-mounted unit to use as a hands free unit that would allow me to keep my hands free for other things and still see good enough to scout.  I would want a handheld one that I could have on me at all times just in case I get caught out after dark.  I would want one that I could mount behind the iron sights or scope of my ARs.  And, to make it all worse, I would want several of each to allow each member of my family and group to have the same capabilities.

With all of these things on my checklist, it certainly appeared that I was going to have to sacrifice and either have one that I squeezed into many roles, or spend more money than I could really justify on trying to cover all of the roles that I needed to.

Then Christmas rolled around and I went shopping for my children.  As I was walking down the toy aisle of my local big box retailer, I came upon a infrared binocular toy from Spy Net that had been marked down.  So I took $20 out of my prepping budget and made the purchase.  With the caveat that if I didn’t like what I was seeing through them in a test, it would still make a cool Christmas present for a 10 year old boy.

Now I might lose some readers here, but please bear with me.

This night vision toy functions only as an IR viewer–it does not have an light amplification intensifier tube.  It uses any ambient light source and two built in infrared lights (if there is no sufficient ambient light source) to light the way.  Instead of an intensifier tube, it uses a tiny CMOS camera that transmits to a small LCD screen.  The upside to the CMOS camera is that it will not be damaged by a sudden bright light source like some early intensifier tube night vision equipment, and can still function during the day.  The downside is that they are not as durable as intensifier tube night vision devices and they rely on a lot of circuitry to operate.

When I brought it home and test it as soon as it was dark, outside. The first thing that I noticed is that it does an amazing job of using any ambient light source.  The small CMOS camera and screen showed decent detail and I could mostly identify people at a decent distance (25 to 30 yards), not just as people, but also some facial features allowing recognition. 

The second thing that I noticed is that the two built in infrared lights were woefully inadequate at lighting anything beyond 15 feet.  The good news is that I was only looking for the first thing, because I had no intention of using the built in lights anyway since they had no control to turn them off if they were not needed (or desired).

I had purchased this with the specific intention of taking it apart and modifying it to increase its capability and increase its durability several fold.

As I took it apart, it amazed me on how compact and small the actual functional unit was.  About 90% of the size of the binoculars was just empty air surrounded by plastic that was made to look high tech for a kid’s toy.  The actual unit was able to fit in the palm of my medium sized hands with room to spare.

So after disassembly, and removing all of the extraneous controls (it has the ability to record and playback video and audio which I didn’t need and just added extra bulk), so those circuits were quickly cut and removed along with their corresponding wiring and controls. 

I was left with just the CMOS camera, the circuit board, the attached video screen (about .75îx1î) the power switch and the battery pack. 

My next job was to fashion up a durable housing to place this in.  Since it is so small, I was able to make the housing a bit larger for durability. 

I was originally wanting a cylindrical tube, however because the rest of the unit was square, using a round tube would increase the size of the whole unit too much, so I used a thin walled square cross-section aluminum tube and placed the circuits inside.  To help increase durability and protect the circuits, I poured clear resin inside the square tube and let it dry (keeping the resin away from the actual camera or screen of course).  This will help reduce any shock that it might endure as well as protect the circuits and wires from damage.

I used a very small section of square tubing to house the unit itself, then I added in a shade on the backside (between the screen and the users eye) to help cut down on the glare from the small screen.  Lastly I added on a rubber eye piece from an old scope, so the user could get a good “eye weld” onto the scope for optimum viewing.

Since I had removed the very inadequate infrared LEDs, I replaced them with a Solar Force flashlight with an infrared emitter.  The flashlight is mounted to the outside of the unit, so it could be removed and replaced if necessary.  The final step that I used was wrapping the entire thing in Kydex and heat forming it around the aluminum tube.  This made it easier to handle and added yet another layer of protection.

So for a bit under $50 for the entire thing (which unfortunately entailed some trial and error with the aluminum tube and Kydex forming) I have a functional, seemingly durable night vision scope (durability testing will come after I have made a few more and established a solid methodology of how I am going to use these).

My next version (which I have already ordered) will be a bit more compact with a smaller housing and I will use it as a single side head mounted unit.  This will allow me to use it as both a hands-free unit for observation, but will also be able to use a rifle or pistol in the dark (after much practice of course).

My intermediate plan is to have one of these for each member of my house as well.

I have not tested these extensively for durability yet, but I can honestly say that it works better than I had could have hoped for.  This first unit is just a bit unwieldy, but I am not discouraged at all since this is my very first unit.  I am certain that I will find many ways to improve it as I discover the ways that I will use it and how it can be modified.

In my humble opinion, this could never take the place of a dedicated, purpose built night vision device, but like the old saying goes, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

I would rather have limited night vision capability than money put back saving for a better unit.  And for the very limited amount of money that these cost, it could be a great intermediate step and backup as needed.

JWR Adds: Most night vision monoculars are not up to the recoil stresses of mounting on a rifle–even a light-recoiling 5.56 mm. Also, the mounting interface for anything other than a purpose-built rifle scope tends to be problematic. Even a scope without a reticle (depending on the reticle of red dot scope mounted behind it) can still be a challenge to mount with reliability. The “duct tape and bailer twine” school of gunsmithing (also known as WECSOGing) is fraught with peril. In essence, re-purposing a toy IR scope can work with very limited reliability, but don’t expect it to work for you as anything more than just a hand-held monocular.

The next step up from a toy IR scope like Robert describes is buying a Bushnell Gen 1 night vision monocular. For under $180, these are sturdy, reliable, relatively weatherproof, and they have a decent built-in IR light. They operate on two standard AA batteries. They can sometimes be found used on eBay for less than $90.

Beyond that, purpose-built rifle starlight night vision scopes start at around $400. A fairly decent civilian model is made by ATN: the MK350 Guardian. But keep in mind that there is no true low-cost substitute for mil-spec quality. Sadly, that level of quality comes only with a high price tag.

If you already own one or more night vision monoculars (such as a Yukon), then a low-cost alternative is to wear a night vision monocular in a head mount or helmet mount, and attach an infrared laser to a Picatinny rail on your rifle. The rifle is then shot “from the hip”, using the the laser pointer for aiming. (Sort of a “Poor Man’s PAQ-4“.)

The bottom line: I recommend that you buy the best night vision gear that you can afford. As Robert pointed out, that can begin with a miniscule budget. Watch eBay closely for used Russian night vision monoculars (such as the Night Owl Brand.) These sometimes sell for as little as $60. They are better than nothing. Even after you eventually save up and buy the PVS-14 of your dreams, be sure to retain your older, less expensive, night vision gear. Those will be useful for spares, or worth their weight in gold, for barter.



Individual Movement in Escape and Evasion Situations, by A.E.

What follows is a collection of tips, tricks and strategies that I have personally tested/evaluated and passed on to students within my capacity as a survival and tracking instructor working with responsible civilians, military and law enforcement. Some of this has been around for years, some of it is very recent wisdom, most of it is just common sense. This is not an exhaustive study in any way, but rather a useful primer designed to inspire creative solutions while adhering to time worn tactical truisms. Note also, we are not covering SERE, as survival and resistance are truly separate topics.

Setting Out

Assuming we find ourselves in a sufficiently hostile environment such that we must immediately begin to manage our physical and psychological responses to extreme external pressures, the following recommendation might strike a person as counter-intuitive. That recommendation: sit down, have a cup of tea and relax.

The tea is optional of course, however the sitting and the sentiment are not. Common sense dictates that first steps lead to later consequences. Recent research shows that as human animals under stress we are literally subject to our hormonal and biological responses. Let it be clear: you must take this step.

Techniques such as tactical breathing (breathe for four, hold for four, exhale for four) have become standard training for EMS, public speakers and elite soldiers alike because they work to balance the fight/flight response and gain leverage on the adrenaline dump that accompanies survival situations.

Specifically, sitting down forces a person to acquaint themselves with the environment, let go of the urge to bolt wildly into the unknown and–in many individuals–contributes to and facilitates the calming effect of conscious breathing.

This whole activity might last two minutes or twenty. It all depends on you, the urgency of the situation and related factors. But to forgo this step defies both conventional and cutting-edge wisdom. Consider learning a few mantras, prayers, yoga positions or whatever else you can use to bring you back down to earth and center your mind. Cause you’re going to need it in a major way.

Taking Stock

This is not the time to wish you had studied, procured and trained with your survival kit so let’s pretend that anyone reading this has taken it upon themselves to arrive to the moment in question with at least the barest of essentials–the big five of food, water, fire, shelter and security. So those are covered, but what else do we have at our disposal? What are we missing that we might need or might come in handy? If we need to travel fast and light, what can we ditch or stash for later retrieval?

This is the step where you must come to grips with your situation. You have taken a moment, at least, to calm yourself and manage those primal instincts now you must force logic and training to the forefront and make choices based on that logic. I would urge you to explore the concept of the Trivium, as well as the related topics of logic and rhetoric as such activities and tools can only strengthen your mind and add tools to your toolbox.

Moving on, just as the scope of this essay cannot cover survival kits, its scope can neither cover every conceivable escape and evasion situation. There are simply too many permutations. Therefore and due to the adaptive nature of such situations, as well as my own natural distaste for lists, we must emphasize adaptation and flexibility of thought. We are talking about escape and evasion, yet is it possible to simply lie still? That wouldn’t make for a very good escape scene in a movie, but it might very well give you a tactical advantage in certain scenarios. Again, it cannot be emphasized enough: the point here is to gather your resources, evaluate the situation and make choices.

Your resources are in your survival kit, in your environment and in your mind. Evaluation of your situation includes timing, distances, pursuit forces, places of safety and all other factors affecting your current status as well as your prospects in the immediate future. Making choices is essential–it forces a return to logic and re-evaluation of any possible assumptions you have made thus far. As well, the making of choices is an act which has within it the elements of courage, self determination and (hopefully) humility.

Pace of Movement

Movement in E&E is defined less by your wants and more by your environment. Let’s assume you have made your plan. For example: you find yourself five miles from your home; WROL environment; you’re being pursed by a force of unknown character/training; you have at your disposal a small personal survival kit, light weaponry, no effective long range communication ability; night is falling.

If you know the way home, run. Just flat out run for a mile. Take a break to watch your back trail and if it’s clear, keep running and repeat until you are to a safe zone. Yes, give some serious consideration to noise discipline but as a tracker I can tell you that the single most effective counter-tracking technique is speed. Pure and simple. Forget about dog legs, fake shoe prints or anything else. Just run and increase the time/distance gap.  

Now, let’s take the above scenario but let’s say you are 20 miles from your safe zone. Depending on your level of fitness and knowledge of the area, running may still be a decent option. However, at a certain distance or given changes in other decision making factors you are going need to examine other options. As well, you may need to seriously evaluate your pursuers.

 

Silent Movement

Even with night vision optics silent travel at night can be very difficult and often impossible in certain terrain. Since our above scenario involves lightweight outfitting, let’s consider things without NVGs and without flashlights, as the latter must be strictly rationed to avoid detection.

Let’s just say it: unless you’re in the desert, avoid moving at night. If you must move at night, you are facing the quandary of utilizing well established and easy to travel trails and/or roads which can be a highly dangerous proposition if you don’t know the area or don’t have a clear idea of where your pursuers are moving. Bushwhacking by day has it’s downfalls as well, however at the least you have an increased ability to control your noise.

Silent travel really comes down to choosing your route, slow movement and manipulating sound-producing debris such as leaf litter, downed limbs and the like. Put your weight into your back foot and use your forefoot to gently brush aside a clear area to place this foot on the ground. Repeat. It takes forever and one mistake will make waste of your accumulated effort. I will note that for some people the process of putting weight on the back leg, stepping forward, etc. is actually counter effective. So you need to practice this and fine tune it.

Choose paths based on topography and levels of travel resistance i.e. avoid thickets, vines, areas of dense deadfall in favor of grass, moss or triple canopy where undergrowth is sparse.

The take away points here are: move twice as slow as you think you should and actually pick up, kick aside or otherwise physically move noise producing articles in your path.

One other note from personal experience: I have found that the technique of ‘high stepping’ actually does work if you can sustain it over a series of obstacles. It is particularly useful in area of low light and prevalent exposed tree roots or similar hangups. It has something to do with the fact that the foot is striking directly down upon the earth versus sweeping forward where toes can be caught up.

Habit of Movement

Related to silent movement is your habit of movement, though this line of thinking can also include your other counter-tracking techniques as well as some utilization of day/night routines dependent on your environment as visibility factor.

In our scenario, let’s say your safe zone is on a basic azimuth heading north. Don’t start out going north, instead move east and northeast making a few doglegs and/or roundabouts along the way. Gradually pull your line of travel toward your actual destination. If you have the opportunity or if travel in any way permits, turn around and study your back trail at some distance to evaluate and monitor your pursuers. This is a place where magnified optics have their weight in gold.

In a longer term evasion you need to establish habits that both serve you and avoid detection. This seems contradictory insofar as habits of prey are what most all good hunting is based on, thus avoiding habits would appear at first to be a worthy strategy. The difference is that we are humans and have the capacity for instantaneous evaluation and adaptation. With this in mind, you need to rapidly determine what is serving you and what is not. If traveling early and late in the day and holing up midday is working, use it, habituate it but only to the extent that it serves its purpose. The survival literature time and time again shows that success often comes when a sort of rhythm is established. Whether this is literally the rhythm of your feet and breath as you run, or whether it is in your routines hastily established, if they work use them.

Most likely you are going to need to rest. You might also require water. If you need it–get it and move on quickly. If you can continue without it—go without, as every stop and every choice will have it’s consequences at some point. Speaking of consequences, if you recall when you took a moment and ‘made your cup of tea,’ keep in mind that this ethos is in fact central to your entire act of evasion. So return to that ideal of double edged calm and evaluation. Keep your options wide open; dump a plan if it stops working; continually seek to interface with reality based on its terms while seeking to establish your own foothold in continued survival.

Using the Environment

We mentioned evaluating your pursuers and rest stops. Generally speaking, most people don’t carry pruning shears in their EDC gear, though snipers often carry them as part of their standard gear and for good reason. In an evasion scenario such as we are sketching out, there probably isn’t a whole lot of use for a fully functional sniper’s hide, (though, in keeping with our ideal of adaptation never discount the option of burrowing in and hiding) however modified hides based on well established principles are highly useful and should be practiced.

Where terrain and plant life make it possible, use your pruners to carve out niches in dense thickets. Blackberry vine tangles are ideal because no one wants to touch them and no one would consider that you might actually go inside one. Evaluate the area for an escape route and line(s) of sight; make as few cuts as are needed to burrow into the mass of vines; once firmly entrenched, start to hollow out a useable space, establish a hasty exit route and check your line of sight.

This concept can be utilized in trees where gaining an immediate high-ground advantage is untenable. If you can climb the tree leaving minimal evidence of your effort, staying in the tree as pursuers pass is not a totally unfounded nor untested idea. However, even if you just ascend the tree and make a few choice cuts to gain a decent vantage point on your back trail, it might be worth the effort.

Use of the environment is also going to give you immediate feedback on the talent and tenacity of those on your trail. If your decision making matrix deems it appropriate, consider purposely taking an extremely difficult route. Certain high angles, rapid ascents, rocky terrain, open meadows and the like will allow you to study and make retro-determinations on your hunters’ prowess with respect to tactical acumen, stamina, weaponry, as well whatever else pops out at you.

Good literature on natural concealment is widely available so I won’t harp on it too much. Suffice it to say that a person need not spend more than a minute or two collecting various foliage to effectively break up the conspicuous outline of the human head and shoulders. Attached with paracord, laces or simply tucked into folds in clothing, you can even do this while you’re moving. Avoid leaving obvious traces of your activity such as the white of cut limbs or mangled fern fronds.

Survival skills and their limits are going to play a role in this category of evasion, mainly with respect to what calorie sources you can utilize. I recommend adapting the old concept of the Possibles Bag here as it allows for hasty acquisition and storage of materials found without necessity to pause and rummage through gear. It also allows your pockets to remain available, clean and dry for other uses.

A long utilized method of sustenance by military evaders involves the use of livestock, goods and other useable items usurped from locals, generally in rural areas. This may or may not be appropriate given your situation. For soldiers trapped behind enemy lines and among hostile, fearful or bribe-hungry locals the risk should be weighed carefully. In other scenarios, simply asking the locals for assistance may be optimal and put a swift conclusion to your problem.

This aspect of evasion also brings up the possibility of switching roles from hunter to hunted. Classically, traps and related devices as well as sniper work are brought up in the discussion at this point. It goes without saying however, that these and other tactics and techniques cross a certain line which may or may not be appropriate based on your personal situation. Evaluations such as legality, rules of engagement and morality all must be read in here with their appropriate caveats.

Tips/Tricks/Etc.

I will leave you with a short recap of the high points and a selection of handy tips to keep in your mental back pocket. Recall that when the adrenaline hits, take time to make tea, breathe or whatever else you find forces you to humbly and quickly square up to reality. Like setting the table for dinner, now that you’re tuned in start evaluating, making decisive, logical decisions. Move at the fastest and safest possible pace, utilizing terrain, foliage, weather and anything else possible to your greatest advantage. Stealth is directly related to speed so consider trade offs and continually force yourself to re-evaluate your decisions and assumptions based on the feedback reality is offering you along the way. Ultimately, deliberate action coupled with common sense and perhaps a healthy dose of humility is going to fair you pretty well.

-Don’t follow obvious terrain features such as rivers, rims, tree lines.
-Take care of your feet. If you feel a hot spot, then stop and evaluate.
-Smoke is an effective scent mask.
-Learn how to make a Dakota fire pit. It gives off low light, and when burning certain barks and woods it is near smokeless. Use it only if you absolutely must, to live.
-Keep a 5×7 earth-tone survival tarp in your kit. Cord pre-attached to tie offs.
-An inexpensive monocular or set of binoculars kept in the car or in a pocket can be very handy.
-For calories on a mid to long term evasion look to insects, grubs and fish. In that order.
-Cardiovascular stamina cannot be overestimated.
-Smear dirt+spittle on the stumps of cut limbs or trees.
-Hopping from rock to rock to log, doglegs, walking back in your tracks and other counter-tracking techniques have their price—they tell your hunters something about you, so use them sparingly if at all and never the same technique twice.
-Do a web search: ‘Etymology of red herring.’



Letter Re: A Gardening Zone Mapping Tool

Sir,
 
I am interested in moving to the American Redoubt. As an avid gardener, I am looking for the most promising areas in terms of zone and eco-climate. While trying to find a detailed agricultural plant zone map of the United States, I stumbled upon this site: PlantMaps.com

 When I checking a listing for a property, I can enter the zip code and the site provides significant climate information about that specific location including precipitation levels per month, drought index, average temps as well as a wealth of area maps.  It is easy to discern the effect of elevation on those factors.  For those like me interested in growing our own food, it is a wonderful site!

Thank you, – Pamela B.



Economics and Investing:

Peter Schiff: U.S. is In Worse Shape Than Europe

An interesting podcast: Preparing for the Coming Dollar Meltdown with Gold, Silver, Agriculture, and Energy

Huge Financial Bombs Just Got Dropped All Over Europe

Items from The Economatrix:

Market Resiliency Shines Through French Rating Cut

Oil Prices Below $99 On New Europe Debt Concerns

Europe’s $39 Trillion Pension Risk Grows as Economy Falters

Economic Collapse — Why It Won’t Be Stopped



Odds ‘n Sods:

B.G. sent this from Lifehacker: Use an Egg Carton to Jumpstart Your Garden this Spring

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Reader Pete K. wrote to to tell me that the e-book of the quasi-survivalist novel The Walk” is presently available free of charge to Amazon Prime members, and $3.50 to others.. (It is normally $12.)

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Yes another good reason to save your nickels, folks: NASA Publicly Reveals LENR Research. (If successfully developed at an economical price per kilowatt, warm fusion should send the price of nickel ore soaring!)

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Larry H. mentioned: Why raise your own tobacco? [JWR Notes: I don’t smoke and I strongly discourage it, but if you need to wean yourself or a loved one from an addiction, then here’s a method to produce your own crop.]

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I heard from LPC Survival that the price of the Wise Food Storage 60 Serving Meat long term storage pails is increasing soon. LPC still has them for at $109. (Order yours soon, before the price jumps to $125!