Month: January 2007

Letter Re: Advice on Underground Retreat Construction

Sir: I have 40+ acres, all wooded. I want to build a shelter. There are plenty of hills that I can dig in to, build the shelter and then cover it up. but I don’t know a thing about building a shelter. I need to know everything. From making it water tight to air venting. Where can I go. I do not want to buy a shelter. I want to build it my self. Thank you, – Buddy JWR Replies: Building an underground house, a retreat, or just a simple below ground cache that doesn’t become an underground cistern is …


Letter Re: Sno-Seal for Boots and Gaiters

Mr R.: I finished reading “Patriots” and have begun passing it off to others with the admonition to buy it, link to SurvivalBlog, and pay attention. There are hard-info gems throughout. I can certainly tell that you were in communication in your other life. Info noted. Your passage [in Patriots] on the “book code” is superior to the [Vernam] one-time pad generation, sans a book. If security is rigorously maintained, a book code is “break-proof.” We got hit twice on successive weekends with big snowfalls. We went out slogging in the storms and got a chance to check just how …


Letter Re: Advice on Small-Scale Grain Growing, Harvesting, and Processing

Dear Editor: In an earlier posting you recommended the book “Small Scale Grain Raising” [by Gene Logsdon], but [I found] that it was out of print. However, I found an Australian library that will provide a free downloadable copy. It only took a few minutes on a high speed connection, but you get the book in a PDF file. – Roger H. in Virginia


Letter Re: Alternatives for Water Pumping, Sans Grid Power

JWR: T his is the first time that I have put forth any input to your blog. I love the site, and it’s a daily read! I heard on the radio news that the cattle ranchers in Colorado and Kansas are panicking because they have no power, and thus they cannot pump water to water their cattle. I had just finished reading this article, when I heard that on the radio. I think the cattle ranchers would have been very happy to have this information as would any of the survival-minded among us that may have to pump water for …



The Insidious Nature of Inflation–The Debasement of the U.S. Dollar Continues

I recently helped some elderly cousins move from their two story home of many years into a smaller one story apartment in a retirement community. (They are having “mobility” problems.) Part of this move involved cleaning out a storage space that hadn’t been touched in more than 40 years. The accumulation of household goods–mainly books–was not unusual or noteworthy. However, what was indeed notable was that many of the boxes had newspapers used as padding in the top. Pulling out these papers, which were mostly from 1958 was a real eye-opener for our kids. Here are some examples of the …


Two Letters Re: Advice on Retreat Locales–Former Microwave Sites?

Dear Jim and Family, This is in response to the article about microwave sites for survival shelters. As it happens, I spent half my summer just South of Whitehall, a couple years before I met you in [deleted for OPSEC]. I was finishing my geology degree and the geology of the area is very interesting. This is the new free mapping program through Wikipedia. It allows for annotations and contains good quality aerial photos of the terrain using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The region described around Whitehall is curious and deceptive. For one thing, there’s an active gold mine north …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Kara S. told us about this story: Thieves Steal $200K In Copper In Broad Daylight    o o o Our friend novelist Michael Z. Williamson mentioned this book that might prove useful in extremis: Unmentionable Cuisine by Calvin W. Schwabe    o o o For our readers in the UK that are wondering about the vaguely survivalist Jericho television series produced in the U.S., Simon in England mentioned: “Jericho is starting the the UK cable / satellite channel Hallmark at 20.00 on Friday 12 January 2007.”



Odds ‘n Sods:

Simon in England notes that do-it-yourself and garden centers there are presently selling off their ‘Christmas candles’ at closeout prices. He said that he got ten of the large pillar type candles for just £0.49 (around $1 USD) each that otherwise would have been £3.00 (around $6 USD) each. The nice thing about these candles is that most of them are formulated with extra stearic acid, for longer burning.    o o o From Yahoo News: 6 of 75 cities get top disaster rating. Jason says: “Yet another reason to ‘get out of Dodge”    o o o Front Sight …


Letter Re: How Should I Store My Extra Garden Seed?

Dear Editors: What is the best way to store my extra garden seed? I want to make it last several years, but still germinate properly. Also, what are the best kind of seeds for survival gardening? Thanks, – Liz, near Toledo The Memsahib Replies: Your seed stocks should be all non-hybrid (“heirloom”) varieties, so that the seed that you save from each harvest will breed true and continue to produce, year after year. (Hybrid varieties won’t!) Heirloom seed is available from The Ark Institute, the Seed Savers Exchange, and Ready Made Resources. Long term storage of gardening seed is best …


Letter Re: Recommended Versatile Dog Breeds for Retreat Security

There is a very good breed of dogs that I haven’t seen mentioned (and I did read through all the archives when I first found the SurvivalBlog): the English Shepherd (and their close cousin with no registration papers, the farm collie or farm shepherd). They are in the same family of dogs as the Collie, Border Collie, Australian Shepherd, and Sheltie, but with some advantages over all those breeds. Descended from the dogs brought to the United States by Scots escaping the Highland Clearances in the 1700s, the English Shepherd is a medium-sized dog of all work. They herd, hunt, …


Letter Re: Night Sights for Pistols

Hi Jim, I just wanted to tell you about the TRUGLO “TFO” (Tritium Fiber Optic) night sights that I recently got from Top Gun Supply and installed on my Glock 17. These things are amazing! The design combines the best of the Fiber Optic insert’s ability to gather ambient light during the day with the benefit of tritium night sights. Outside during the day, the sights look like three single LED lamp flashlights are switched on. At night they look like regular night sights. I have Meprolight brand and OEM Glock night sights on two of my other Glocks (a …



Note From JWR:

The following is another article for Round 8 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win a valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificate. (Worth up to $1,600.) Second prize is a copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. If there are a lot of great entries this round of the contest, I will again be sending out a few complimentary copies of my novel “Patriots” as “honorable mention” awards. If you want a chance to win the contest, start writing …