Month: March 2013

Dealing With Mentally Unbalanced Trespassers, by Hearthkeeper

The biggest weakness in preparedness planning is not a forgotten survival item, or too few cartridges.  The invisible weakness is lack of real time experience   It’s one thing to say your going to raise your own food, and maybe you have all the seeds and tools to do it stored away.  But if you have never actually planted a huge garden and tried to live off it your first year is going to be full of failures (see: learning opportunities) that could be potentially deadly in real survival time.  The same goes for every aspect of survival and emergency situation response.  Personally I have always …


Letter Re: Retreat Properties in Southwestern Oregon

James, In response to C.D.’s letter “Advice on Retreat Properties in Southwestern Oregon” found here: I would suggest this person change their retreat property search to just east of “the hill”. Klamath County and Lake County are within driving distance to allow continued work in Medford during the week (if renting in Medford) and travel to the retreat on weekends. I would suggest triangulating a search between Klamath Falls, Lakeview, and Bend (Deschutes County) or Prineville (Crook County). Personally, I set the western edge of the Redoubt at the eastern edge of the Cascades. There are several advantages to these …


Letter Re: Appendicitis and TEOTWAWKI

Regarding the discussion about appendicitis – While it is definitely not something you want to try at home, in 1961, Soviet physician Leonid Rogozov, removed his own appendix. He was the only physician in a Soviet Antarctic expedition station. In the words of a Russian account: “At night, on the 30th of April, 1961, the surgeon was being helped by a mechanical engineer and a meteorologist who were giving him the medical instruments and holding a small mirror at his belly. Laying half bent on the left side, the doctor made a local anesthesia with novocaine solution and made a …


Letter Re: Insulin Dependent Diabetics When TSHTF

Sir, Like so many others, I thank you for all that you and your family do with SurvivalBlog. It is immensely helpful. I just caught up on a bunch of recent posts related to diabetic preps and thought I’d toss in my 2 cents’ worth. For the record: I am a (female) type 1 diabetic, diagnosed at age 13 and currently in my mid-thirties. The info below is based entirely on my own 20+ years of personal experience; I am not in any way a medical or pharmaceutical professional. As always, consult a medical professional if you need advice regarding …


News From The American Redoubt:

The folks at Bison Barrels (near Gillette, Wyoming) also make complete custom rifles.    o o o Of Plowshares and Swords. “We happy farmers of the American Redoubt…”    o o o Some eastern Idaho schools to get gun safes. (Thanks to R.B.S. for the link.)    o o o House clears bill protecting Idaho-made firearms    o o o Black Dog Machine down in Nampa, Idaho is making magazines as fast as they can, without sacrificing quality control. Their web site still shows that they have some of their .22LR magazines for ARs and 10/22s stock.


Economics and Investing:

U.S. Game Changing Renewable – Geothermal Power. Note that the preponderance of the nation’s geothermal potential is in the Rocky Mountain States and the Intermountain West. The American Redoubt just keeps looking better…. Signs of the Times: Food stamps put Rhode Island town on monthly boom-and-bust cycle Could The “Cyprus Fiasco” Occur In The U.S.? Brian S. like this piece by Charles Hugh Smith: The Deeper Meanings of Cyprus A 15% Haircut for Italian depositors? Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge mentioned this quote in a Handelsblatt newspaper article from Commerzbank chief economist Jörg Krämer: “‘So it would make sense, in …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Emergency Essentials is continuing their semi-annual Mountain House Sale.  All Mountain House cans are priced 20-25% off.  The sale is for one week only, ending the night of March 21st at midnight.     o o o D.C. recommended this: An Orwellian America    o o o Pantry Paratus has recently added American-made Chop Rite brand grinders and presses to their catalog. These are made in America and have been since the late 1800s. In fact, if anyone has an old antique Enterprise brand meat grinder, that is the company’s original name and all of the replacement parts and attachments are …



Note from JWR:

Congratulations are in order for Joel Skousen, who by God’s Grace recently walked away from the crash of his Glasair kit plane, in in a forced rough field landing, following a fuel system failure. The crash landing occurred last Tuesday near Spanish Fork, Utah, on the return leg of cross country flight to Las Vegas. Joel was a fighter pilot in the Vietnam era, and has had countless hours of stick time as a private pilot, ever since. He kept a cool head in the incident, and that helped save his life. His plane was thoroughly pranged, but he walked …


Pat’s Product Review: SIG-Sauer M400 Enhanced

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Without a doubt, the hottest selling long-gun these days is some sort of AR-15/M4 type of gun. Thanks to the efforts of anti-gunners like Dianne Feinstein and Barack Obama, with their proposed bans on certain classes or types of firearms, there has been a run on these types of guns that has never been seen before. With looming threats of banning certain types of firearms, as well as magazines over 10 rounds, the American People are waking up, and are spending their hard-earned money on what they presume will be banned or regulated. Without a doubt, this has led to …


Harry’s Book Review: Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Book Title: Ashfall Author: Mike Mullin Copyright Date: 2011 Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing Inc. ISBN: 978-1-933718-55-2 Audio, e-book or foreign translation avail? Yes–Kindle Suitable for children? Perhaps late teens, but very dependant on the values you want to pass on to them. Ashfall is the first book in a trilogy of novels by Mike Mullin. This is a story of what the world could look like if Yellowstone blew up, portrayed through the eyes of a 15/16 year old boy who must quickly become a man in order to survive. Alex Halprin is alone in his home in Cedar Falls Iowa …


Letter Re: A Lesson About Rat Poison

Sir, Thank you for your service and for your tremendous witness and testimony shown through your blog! I am not an expert on poison, but a recent event made me realize this is probably an important topic to cover on this forum. My forum searches did not produce anything on this subject. About a month ago, my daughters small dog wondered into the garage while I was taking out the trash. When I went back into the living room I found him eating something green… which turned out to be an old rat poison bait he found in the corner …


Letter Re: Real Estate Prices in the American Redoubt?

Mr. Rawles, Now that you’re recommending we all vote with our feet and move to the American Redoubt, it seems you have created a demand that is causing prices to rise in those areas. How are those of us who wish to stay out of debt supposed to pay upwards of $300-400,000 for a retreat? – Barb in the Frozen Mid-West JWR Replies: I only have about 300,000 readers. Of those, less than 5% are likely to make a move to the Redoubt, so their impact will have a negligible impact on housing prices. The bargain retreat properties are remote …


Letter Re: The Eyes of A Prepper

Sir, As I go through life, I see the world through the eyes of a Prepper (Survivalist was the term used before I joined the ranks.).  I’m also a Type A personality with light to moderate obsessive-compulsive disorder. What this means in practical terms is every action I take in my daily life filters back to preparing for a disaster of some sort.  And I want to try and wake-up as many people as I can.  But at the same time, I don’t want to freak out everyone I come in contact with.  My wife and I started prepping in …


Three Letters Re: Out of Options — Get a Guard Dog

Dear Editor: Congratulations to TJ and family for getting connected with a great dog. I love German Shepherds! Allow me to offer a couple of additions to the concept of survivalists utilizing guard dogs. Food; When you ask people my grandparents age how they fed dogs “back in the day” you are likely to get the answer “the dogs ate table scraps” or the dogs ran around and found their own food. In a survival scenario there aren’t going to be any scraps nor is there going to be much to “forage.” Therefore if bringing a dog on to the …