Preparedness Notes — June 30, 2026 

This Week in History:

As we prepare for the semiquincentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence, Americans reflect on the meaning of our liberty and independence.

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Happy birthday to actor/director Mel Brooks, who turned 100, on Sunday!

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In June, 1786, Bishop Alexander Macdonell and more than 500 other Roman Catholic highlanders left Scotland to settle in Glengarry County, Ontario.

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June 30th is the anniversary of the tragic death of 19 hotshots in the Yarnell Hill Fire in 2013.

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June 30, 1908: A giant fireball, most likely caused by the air burst of a large meteor, flattened 80 million trees near the Stony Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate, Russia, in the largest impact event in recorded history.

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A reminder: SurvivalBlog is now posted Fresh Every Tuesday.

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The big Independence Day sale on all of our blackpowder guns and all of our single-shot pre-1899 rifles and pistols at Elk Creek Company will end at midnight Eastern Time on Monday, July 6th, 2026. Place your order soon!

 

A Review of AGI’s Professional Gunsmithing Course Level I, by Gunsmith

Full Disclosure:

After a conversation I had with Gene Kelly of American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI), he offered me this course at no charge in exchange for an honest review in a written article for SurvivalBlog. There were no other strings attached, and I was not pressured in any way about the outcome of this review. He did not ask for a preview of the article, nor was he offered one before publication. This review is my own opinion of the course after having spent time taking it and passing the tests involved.

My Background

I have been interested in firearms and gunsmithing since I purchased my first Llama 1911 clone when I was in college. Before YouTube and social media, if you were going to learn gunsmithing, you had to hang out in gun shops hoping to learn a few crumbs of information as you peered over the counter at those who worked in the back. You also had the opportunity to attend a few schools that taught gunsmithing, such as Trinidad Junior College, Lassen College in California, or the Colorado School of Trades, in Colorado. There were others, but being from the Southwest those were the names that I knew.

When I graduated from college, my chosen career path did not have firearms in it. While I continued to be a collector, shooter, and reloader, my gunsmithing was strictly amateur.

Then I bought my first horse. Since I lived in an apartment, I had to board it at a facility near where I worked and lived. It turned out that the person who owned the boarding facility was a graduate of Colorado School of Trades.

I spent many an evening after work talking with him and picking his brain on firearm-related subjects, until one time when he asked me why I didn’t go to school myself for gunsmithing. I made some lame excuses about already having a chosen career and a busy schedule along with a full-time job. He merely pointed out that Colorado School of Trades was just down the road a few tens of miles and that they had an evening program designed to accommodate those who worked during the day. That brought me up short. He was right. There was really nothing stopping me from doing that. I had a good paying job and could afford the tuition. Since I lived nearby, I didn’t have to worry about room and board, and they had openings that fit my schedule. The next week I enrolled.
Continue reading“A Review of AGI’s Professional Gunsmithing Course Level I, by Gunsmith”

Recipe of the Week:

The following recipe for a Simple Apple & Cheese Salad is from SurvivalBlog reader D.G..

Ingredients
  • 4 Apples (select crisp and firm ones)
  • 1 teaspoon Juice of ½ lemon
  • 4 oz Mozzarella cheese
  • 1 tablespoon Spring onions, chopped Scallions, Green Onions, or Chives
  • 1 tablespoon Olive Oil or Coconut Oil
  • ⅛ teaspoon Salt (to taste)
Directions
  1. Wash the apples, and cut them into slices vertically. Lay down each piece of apple and cut them into long rectangular sticks French Fries shapes.
  2. Add the chopped apple sticks to a bowl and toss them with lemon juice.
  3. Cut the block of cheese into French Fries shapes
  4. Add the cheese sticks to the apple along with finely chopped scallions (spring onions or green onions or use chives), oil, and salt, and toss until combined.
SERVING

Serve this immediately.

STORAGE

It does not store well, so plan to eat it all in one sitting.

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Do you have a well-tested recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? In this recipe column, we place emphasis on recipes that use long-term storage foods, recipes for wild game, dutch oven recipes, slow cooker recipes, and any recipes that use home garden produce. If you have any favorite recipes, then please send them via e-mail. Thanks!

SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week

Today’s graphic is a map that shows the most often misspelled word in each state.  No offense, but I had to chuckle when I saw that “School” was the tough one, for Floridians. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.) The thumbnail image below is click-expandable.

 

Misspelled Words Map

 

 

 

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Please send your graphic ideas to JWR. (Either via e-mail or via our Contact form.) Any graphics that you send must either be your own creation or uncopyrighted.

Economics & Investing Media of the Week

In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers.

Economics & Investing Links of Interest

Economics & Investing Media Tips:

Please send your economics and investing links to JWR. (Either via e-mail or via our Contact form.) Thanks!

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, more about Wikipedia’s blatant bias.

Wikipedia Bans One of Its Founders

First up, there is this piece by Larry Sanger at The Free Press: I Co-Founded Wikipedia. Now I’m Banned for Life.

JWR’s Comment: For more details on Wikipedia’s horrendous bias, see my 2016 SurvivalBlog article: The World Through Pink-Colored Glasses: Wikipedia’s Leftist Editorial Distortions. Also see Grokipedia’s detailed AI-generated article on Wikipedia’s ideological bias.

Pushing Back Against The Beast System

Reader Brad F. suggested a recent essay by Leo Hohmann: How To Push Back Against The ‘Advancing Beast’ System. Here is a pericope:

“The power elites who run things at the local, state and federal levels want to tag and track our movement, but not just our movement. They want to track our diet, our healthcare, our purchasing habits, our use of energy, our online comment history, our very thoughts.

They want all of it. And if they get their way, you will own nothing. Literally nothing. Even if you technically own an asset, you will not control it, so do you really own it?”

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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Reader Mary L. sent this: Virginia ‘Assault Firearm’ Sponsors Say Governor Wants Amendments to New Law.  JWR’s Comments: Governor Spanberger is a Big Government Democrat stalwart who is strongly anti-Second Amendment. This draconian law is scheduled to take effect on July 1st.  I hope that Virginians have already heavily stocked up on battle rifles and full capacity magazines. (The limit for newly-acquired magazines in Virginia will be 15 rounds.) The Tidewater Gun Show in Virginia Beach last weekend must have been a frenzied scene, for magazine vendors. We should remember that Virginia was the home of George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. How far it has fallen since its formative years!  Pictured above is the south side of the Virginia Capitol. (A public domain photo by Taber Andrew Bain.)

An Important Update! Virginia gun law on hold after judge issues injunction.

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Neighbors dig through Venezuela rubble to search for loved ones as death toll climbs.

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Reader C.B. mentioned this good news: Supreme Court strikes down Hawaii gun restriction.

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You’ll Now Lose Your U.S. Passport If You Owe More Than $2,500.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”

SurvivalBlog’s American Redoubt Media of the Week

This weekly column features media from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest.

REDOUBT NEWS LINKS

Send Your Media Links

Please send your links to media from the American Redoubt region to JWR. Any photos that are posted or re-posted must be uncopyrighted. You can do so either via e-mail or via our Contact form.

Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

Although it was partly cool and rainy weather, we had another busy summer week: On four days, I did some more firewood cutting and splitting.

With Lily’s help, I drained, scrubbed, re-filled, and chlorinated our Redneck Pool.

I helped an elderly neighbor clear and cut up another fallen tree, into firewood.

We replaced the eight deep cycle 6-volt batteries in our Bad Boy Buggy electric UATV. With the exception of some faded and worn seats, that vehicle is back in great shape.  We get a lot of use out of it, with our various chores here at the Rawles Ranch. Most notably we use it for hauling when we go out to cut firewood.

On the rainy days of the week, I did some more organizing in the shop, and replaced the handles on two of our splitting mauls. I generally prefer American-made hickory handles.

I’m a bit concerned that we are getting too much rain this summer.  We buy most of our grass hay from a friend who lives about 20 miles away. I’m concerned that he won’t have 10 consecutive dry days for cutting, tedding, and baling his hay fields this year. I’m praying that things go well. We’ve contracted for 25 tons.

Yesterday, I slaughtered and butchered a four-month old ram lamb. Several more young rams from the same flock are scheduled to meet their destiny, over the next few weeks.  There will be more details on the butchering and lamb meat preserving in Lily’s part of the report…

Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

JWR’s Meme Of The Week:

The latest meme created by JWR:

Joy Reid Meme

Meme Text:

Our Thoughts and Prayers for the Health of Joy Reid…

She Has Developed a Chronic Blabber Infection

Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks!

Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.

The Editors’ Quote Of The Week:

“The Constitution … is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819

Preparedness Notes — June 23, 2026

This Week in History:

On June 23, 1810, John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor) organized the Pacific Fur Company in Astoria, Oregon.

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1931: American pilot Wiley Post and Australian navigator Harold Gatty took off from Roosevelt Field, New York, to attempt to set a new record circumnavigating the Earth. They successfully complete their series of flights in 8 days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes.

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And on June 25, 1798, US President John Adams signed into law the Alien Friends Act, authorizing the president to deport any foreigner deemed “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.”

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I’ve completed writing the new Introduction for a revised hardback edition of my first novel, Patriots.  Lord willing, that edition (with a spiffy new cover and a Foreword written by Michael Z. Williamson) should be available from Ulysses Press on November 3, 2026.  But please wait until that day to place your order. (Mark your calendar.) – JWR

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Signal Nomad (one of our advertisers) has expanded their product line to include Faraday bags, a rugged cellular phone with removable battery (for stealth), power banks, and more. Take a look at their site and click on “Products”.

Health, Fitness, and The End Of The World, by D.F.

In this article, I’ll describe how medicine and society will change, and why you should become a fitness nut and not just a prepper.

There’s a stereotype of preppers, and it’s not kind: A middle aged or older man with a BMI that passed 30 before he was 30 and grew by 1% every year, a ton of guns, canned food, and a half-hearted vegetable garden.

I know because I resemble that. As I’ve been struggling to recover my health, I’ve had a few realizations that have kept me on the path to fitness.

Health is something money can’t buy. Ultimately, whether you’re healthy and fit is a question of discipline and commitment. Having children or dependents should serve as inspiration for the average prepper to do more than just go to the range and plink at blue helmet cutouts. However, as someone who has worked as a Registered Nurse in healthcare, I wanted to discuss in depth some things that we don’t really think about.Continue reading“Health, Fitness, and The End Of The World, by D.F.”

Dark Mountain Arms StowAway Rifle in 5.7x28mm, by Thomas Christianson

Chambered in 5.7x28mm or in 9mm, the Dark Arms StowAway Rifle packs more punch than similar survival rifles chambered in .22LR or .22WMR.

The StowAway is a single-shot, bolt-action rifle. It has a detachable, 16-inch, threaded barrel. It is 31.78 inches long when fully assembled. I found the rifle to be simple, reliable, and reasonably accurate during my testing.

The rifle is light at only 2.8 pounds, easily breaks down into less than 17 inches in length, but is ruggedly built in spite of its feathery weight. A hollow pistol grip provides enough space to store many rounds of 5.7X28mm ammo. The rifle is made in the USA.

At the time of this writing, the StowAway rifle had a manufacturer suggested retail price of $419 at darkmountainarms.com . The StowAway is also available as a pistol or as a Federally-registered short-barrel rifle (SBR).

If you are looking for a pinweight survival rifle that hits harder than a rimfire, then you might want to take a look at the StowAway.Continue reading“Dark Mountain Arms StowAway Rifle in 5.7x28mm, by Thomas Christianson”

SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week

This week’s graphic is a map that shows the population density of U.S. counties, as of 2026.  Every  prepper knows that in a crisis, fewer people generally means fewer problems. Note the low population density in the American Redoubt. There is only one county in the entire American Redoubt region that is shaded dark green. That is Ada County, Idaho, with 519,000 people. For perspective, that is just a bit more than Raleigh, North Carolina. Ada County’s population includes the roughly 236,000 residents inside the city limits of Boise. – JWR

The thumbnail image below is click-expandable. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.)

 

 

 

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Please send your graphic ideas to JWR. (Either via e-mail or via our Contact form.) Any graphics that you send must either be your own creation or uncopyrighted.