The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. The onslaught against the Second Amendment continues and the Middle East Tensions are on fire again. I’m starting to get whiplash from looking east and west so quickly. Second Amendment The Democrats have now added a 3 day waiting period and Tannerite regulations to the bills waiting in the wings of the House. Refer to the Preparedness Notes for Wednesday – October 18, 2017 for a list of these proposed bills. Note …







Preparedness Notes for Friday – October 20, 2017

October 20th is the birthday of actor Viggo Mortensen (born 1958.) He lives somewhere in the American Redoubt. On his ranch is his horse-for-life “TJ”–one of the five paint horses used in the filming of the movie Hidalgo. Most SurvivalBlog readers probably know him best for his starring role in The Road. This is also the birthday of “fast and fancy” shootist Ed McGivern (born 1874, died December 12, 1957.) He was born in Nebraska, but was a long-time resident of Butte, Montana.




Do We Have Your Full Attention Yet?- Part 2, by Old Bobbert

Experienced Preppers Fall Short As Great Teachers There seems to always be that cursed word “but”, where the experienced preppers usually fall just a little short of the mark of a great teacher. They never seem to actually talk much, or show much, about the “how” to actually do these necessary/important stuff. Their road map is kept to themselves. They never seem to realize that we all live in different worlds of experience with different needs and different financial positions. And we have different and often difficult family responsibilities, et cetera. How I Researched The Specific Article Illustrated Earlier So …




Freeze Dried Friday:

Welcome to Freeze Dried Friday on SurvivalBlog! We’ve been making so many things in the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer that we want to share some of them with you. If you have something wonderful you’ve prepared in your freeze dryer that you would like to share with SurvivalBlog readers, take a photo of it and send it in along with a description. We might just feature you here! Vacation is over The Latimer household is back online after a wonderful vacation. We are still unpacking and cleaning out the camping equipment though. I’m happy to report that the freeze dried …




Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on ancient coins.  The accompanying photo shows how many ancient coin hoards look, when first excavated. (See the Tangibles Investing section, near the end of this column.) Precious Metals: First up, at FX Empire: Silver Price Forecast October 18, 2017, Technical Analysis o o o Despite …







Preparedness Notes for Thursday – October 19, 2017

October 19th is the birthday of three notables– the late Alexander Zeisal “Zus” Bielski (born 1912), investor Jim Rogers (born 1942), and James Howard Kunstler (born 1948). Kunstler is well known to SurvivalBlog readers as the author of the novel World Made by Hand and the nonfiction book The Long Emergency. A fictionalized portrayal of Zus Bielski is seen in the movie Defiance. This movie was loosely based on the excellent book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec. o o o October 19th also marks the anniversary of Operation Gatling; the “Green Leader” raid in which Rhodesia attacked ZIPRA …




Do We Have Your Full Attention Yet?- Part 1, by Old Bobbert

Let me get your attention by sharing this fact: “Life expectancy is going up everywhere except in the U.S.” This opening statement is supposed to be the “grabber” and should make the reader want to read the entire article. Okay! Here we go with your bad news of the day in two parts. The first part is short, simple, and terrifying. It’s the one liner in quotes above. And the second part is worse yet. This part says that the life expectancy news today will be worse tomorrow, and every American is subject to the same bad news. However, there …




Letter: E-85 and Generators

Hugh, I didn’t have any luck searching for this on your website. May be something you consider for a future article. How well/poorly do portable generators function using “ethanol gas” (E-10 ‘the normal mix”, and E-15 [or higher] which various lobbies seem to want to foist on us)? How about going all the way to E-85 if you can’t obtain/forage/swap for “the good stuff”? Even with stabilizers, the ethanol is very hygroscopic so goes bad fast, but what about a post-hurricane/tornado/etc. scenario where it hasn’t had to sit long in the tank? I got to thinking in the post-Maria coverage …




The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. Kids smart watches are something that you may want to be careful of this Christmas shopping season. Owned by Debt Understanding debt and economic slavery is probably one of the most important preps that you can make. It’s not that all debt is bad, but you have to understand that the debtor is slave to the lender. That works whether the debt is for the latest iPhone, a new car, or even …







Preparedness Notes for Wednesday – October 18, 2017

The mass media-driven Congressional gun control juggernaut seems to be slowing. It is noteworthy that the horribly vague and unconstitutional H.R. 3999 appears to now be stuck at just 25 co-sponsors—but it is frightening to see that 12 of them are Republicans. Hopefully the bill will die in committee. Please keep up the pressure, folks. This fight is far from over! Please contact your Congressional Representative repeatedly (by phone and e-mail) and insist that he or she oppose ALL civilian disarmament legislation. There are now a half dozen bills pending in Congress. SurvivalBlog reader Kevin A. sent me this summary …




Reload Your Own Ammo, If You Want To Be A Good Shot!, by Steve Collins

Common Sense and Facts About Shooting Common sense tells us that if you want to be a good shooter, you need to shoot often. Facts tell us, though, that our wallets won’t allow us to shoot as often as we want or need to. While resorting to the .22 caliber firearms is often cited as an acceptable alternative, at some point you need to shoot your primary gun. The answer to buying factory ammo is to reload your own. I started reloading in 1984 when I got my first Colt 1911 .45 auto. Shortly thereafter I received a Smith & …




Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on Urbanization. (See the Troubling Trends section, near the end of this column.) Stocks: Bloomberg reports: Old Wall Street Is Losing the Battle Beneath the Surface of ETFs Commodities: Next, Nick Cunningham opines: Chinese EV Boom Could Crash Oil Prices   Economy and Finance: On to …