Month: November 2009

Letter Re: The Fabric of Our Lives

Mr. Rawles; Spinning and weaving are certainly not lost arts. I know many women and some men who spin, and some who also weave. Spinning wheels and lessons are available in many cities, and there are active spinning and weaving guilds. Cards, wheels and looms can also be ordered online, and there are YouTube videos demonstrating the various processes. It is true spinning is more difficult to learn than knitting, and requires a larger initial investment in equipment. The cheapest spinning wheels start at around $200, from Babe’s Fiber Garden. (I have not used one of these so I cannot …


Eight Letters Re: Mountain Money Isn’t

Hi Jim, May your family count your blessings during this holiday time of the year. Being the first after losing a loved one. We all make that trip eventually. If the time was spent in a good fruitful life, then their are no regrets. Peace be with you and your family. I was in the Peace Corps in West Africa, The Sahel. This was the southern portion of the Sahara Desert. Water was plentiful but had to be drawn from 60 to 80 ft. deep wells by hand. Then transported in containers to or throughout the village. It was labor …


Economics and Investing:

A news item flagged by GG: IMF: Banks Still Hiding Half of Their Actual Losses; $1.5 trillion in bad debt on bank balance sheets, and losses on these bad loans still threaten the solvency of many institutions. From El Jefe Jeff E.: One in Four Borrowers Is Underwater Also from Jeff E.: FDIC Reports 552 ‘Problem Banks’ As of Sept. 30, 2009 Items from The Economatrix: IMF Warns Second Bailout Would Threaten Democracy Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Cities Wall Street Pummels US Cities Over Billions in Fees on Investments Gone Bad More Bankruptcy Cases Filed Rates on 30-Year …




Note from JWR:

JRH Enterprises is having their fourth annual “Black Friday” sale, which includes brand new Generation 3 AN/PVS-14 Starlight night vision scopes for $2,995, complete with the factory data card. I should mention that I personally purchased one of these units from them, and I love it. It is very versatile, since it can be used as a weapon sight (lined up behind a Aimpoint Comp M3), or with the flip of a throw lever be used hand-held, and then with the provided head mount it can be used as a hands-free monocular. The quick detach and consistent return to zero …


Letter Re: Generator Experiences During a Recent Nor’easter

Greetings Mr. Rawles, I just wanted to pass along a quick reminder to your readers who took the time and expense to buy a backup generator, but haven’t taken the time to periodically test and maintain it. Here in southeastern Virginia, we are still recovering from what was called the “Atlantic Assault” by the hyperventilating reporters on the Weather Channel. To be fair, though, this was indeed a whopper of a Nor’easter that gave us flooding only a foot or so less than Hurricane Isabel in 2003. We lost power the evening of November 12, but luckily got it back …


Letter Re: A Tip on Egg Organization

Good Day JWR, My prayers continue daily for you, and for your son’s hearts healing at the loss of Memsahib. May you find some fraction of reciprocal solace and warmth from the Thanksgiving Blessings from God for the many hundreds of thousands of lives that you have enriched with your blog and books. Thanksgivings to you JWR for what you have done and do so very well, by providing this valuable multi-national information highway of connectedness on survival and preparedness! Here is my organizational tip of the week I would like to share. We have free range poultry and very …


Letter Re: B&M Baked Beans and Canned Bread

Jim, Being born and raised in Maine, I was introduced to B&M baked beans at a young age. Beans and brown bread were our standard fare on Saturday nights for many years. Over the years, I have grown increasingly fond of them, although harder to find in the Midwest – they seem to get crowded off many grocery store shelves in favor of lesser rivals. In particular, I love B&M brown bread (with or without raisins) – rich, moist dense bread made with molasses and packaged in a can. It is heated inside the can (hint: slice it cold, before …


Economics and Investing:

GG sent this: A Mad Rush as Gold Bugs Get the Boot FAF sent this from Fox News: Economic Growth Revised Down in 3rd Quarter From El Jefe Jeff E.: Stocks, Oil Drop After U.S. Consumer Spending Trails Forecasts Items from The Economatrix: Crude Prices Sink Down Near $76 Reports on Consumer Confidence, GDP Tug at Stocks Banks Earn $2.8 Billion in 3Q, Insurance in Red Reports on GDP and Consumers Signal Modest Rebound Fed Under Fire as Public Anger Mounts Goldman Sachs and US Demise Wall Street Plays Hardball Restaurants Brace for a Sour Season as Consumers Lose Appetite …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Real estate bust opens doors for parties at vacant houses. (Thanks to GG for the link.)    o o o Reader Ken S. wrote to mention: “I have also been diving construction dumpsters at various construction sites for excess building materials. You’d be shocked at what a construction hand will throw away. It’s just another way to survive this worsening economy and put stacks of building materials in my storage shed.”    o o o Courtesy of reader HPD comes another Nanny State Britannia Update: British police arrest people ‘just for the DNA’; More than three-quarters of young black men …



Note from JWR:

A reminder that the special two-week 25% off sale on canned Mountain House foods at Ready Made Resources ends in less than a week. They are offering free shipping on full (“unbroken”) cases lots. But because of the higher handling costs, if you “mix and match” cans within cases, shipping will be charged.


Letter Re: A SurvivalBlogger Reviews Roland Emmerich’s 2012

Jim: I saw [Roland Emmerich’s new movie] 2012, the movie and must say it failed to live up to my hopes. It depended little on Mayan predictions and the coming of Planet X or Niburu but instead on some very iffy particle physics, the rapid heating of Earth’s interior due to an intense neutrino flux from an immense solar flare, the “largest ever recorded.” Never mind that a flare that size would have fried all grids, chips, and transistors and reset civilization back to the early iron age due to Carrington Effect. Nobody would have known what the hell was …


Letter Re: Preparing Your Spouse

I really liked the post about preparing your spouse but saw one thing missing or at least not stated explicitly. Your spouse needs to know how to do these things and the only way to really learn most of these practical tasks is to do them with your spouse. Binders [full of information] are great but unless you know how to execute all the steps, where all the necessary tools and pieces are and how to use them binders are not going to help much. To illustrate the importance of actually doing something I will relay a recent tale from …