Rainwater Harvesting: An Easy and Efficient Build, by L.R.

With spring finally here, many a homesteader is turning their thoughts to this year’s vegetable garden. Whether their garden is large or small, experienced gardeners know the successful garden begins well before the seed is planted. Many gardeners diagram on paper where they want to plant what vegetable, how many rows of each, and calculate how many bedding plants or how much seed they will need. Then, it’s off to the seed catalogs or local nursery to stock up. For many of us who have been raising gardens for a long time, there’s nothing quite like planting seeds in grow …




Letter Re: Transporting Documents – Empty the Trash!

Hugh, The files that you think you deleted from your portable drive using the Windows “delete” command or the Mac “move to trash” command are still there; you just can’t see them. Learn how to securely delete files from the .trashes and hidden files from thumb drives by doing an Internet search on the topic of .trashes file and how to securely delete old files from them. This is a must do for anyone using a USB thumb or SD card. If you have a Windows computer and can find the option to “show hidden files” you should do that. …




Economics and Investing:

Why The Permian Doesn’t Keep OPEC Awake At Night. While the much touted Permian basin is a fantastic formation of hydrocarbon holding rocks, the effect of this play on global oil markets is wildly overstated. o o o Auto Loans: The Next Debt Bubble?. The auto-loan market has recently ballooned, but the delinquency data raises questions about how much longer these spending habits can last. o o o News Bites Geopolitical Events No Longer Main Drivers Of Gold Prices o o o Free Money! Banks Paid $22 Billion to Not Lend? o o o SurvivalBlog and its editors are not …




JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:

Note: Since today is Patriot Day, most of today’s recommendations follow that that theme. Books: Warsaw 1944: An Insurgent’s Journal of the Uprising Tactics of Christian Resistance by Dr. Gary North Lexington to Concord Movies: April Morning The Patriot (Note: When I last checked it was also available free for Amazon Prime members,) Television: Resistance: Untold Stories of Jewish Partisans Battle for Warsaw Instructional Videos: How to Make Thermite How to shoot an AR handgun (ala SIG brace, Shockwave Blade, etc) Online Sermon Videos: When Resistance Is Obligatory – by Chuck Baldwin on Jul. 31, 2016 Defying Tyrants is Obedience …




Odds ‘n Sods:

It’s not elites vs. populists. It’s cities vs. the countryside. o o o I just discovered that Repack Boxes (one of our very generous Writing Contest prize donors) has added several new varieties of die cut cardboard cartridge boxes to their already diverse product line. The new types include: .30-06, .303 British, 7.62x54r, .44 Magnum, 10mm, and 12 Gauge. The new 12 gauge shell box is cleverly designed to fit in a standard M16 30 round magazine pouch. New customers can get a special 15% discount at checkout by using the coupon code “NEW”. o o o Beat Extreme Heat …










The Mythical Group Retreat: Survival Preparations are Not Like Car Detailing

The mainstream media has recently featured many articles about multi-millionaires buying opulent shelter spaces marketed by companies like The Survival Condo Project and Terra Vivos Reportedly, these swank leased shelter spaces are being gobbled up by the rich and famous. (Important Caveat: Those are just two well-publicized examples among many similar ventures, and I’m not criticizing them, per se. I have serious doubts about the efficacy of all such leased retreat space ventures, if and when things fall apart.) Survival preparations are not like buying a service, such as car detailing or house painting. You can’t just “have it done” …




Letter Re: Coin Rolls – Roll Your Own

Editor: I decided to make my own coin rolls instead of spending any coins for them. I started with paper, but it turned out like origami gone wild. So I put on my thinking hat and asked, why not aluminum foil (for the coin rolls, not the hat)? But does silver and aluminum react? Apparently, it does in a good way if you add a baking soda solution. So I rolled away and am quite pleased with the outcome. That’s $100 face value in quarters in a pint-size vacuum sealed bag. What do you think? – R.T.




Letter: Venues for Learning Morse Code

Dear Editors:There is a good Morse Code practice group in the Pacific Northwest every morning on 3.970 mhz LSB at 8:00 PST. The guy sends Trivia questions to the others using Morse Code. Each person who checks in gets to take a turn on a rotating list. The code is sent at the speed each person is comfortable with. Once the question is sent and received, that person repeats the question by voice to confirm they copied it correctly. But if they can’t ANSWER the trivia question, anybody can jump in and try to answer it. This way of learning …




News From The American Redoubt:

Anyone looking for colloidal silver should check out this small company in Montana: Ion Silver. Their product is made with a special process that puts very small (“ionic”) silver particles in suspension, and that unlike their competitors, their solutions don’t “go brown” with silver dropping out of solution. o o o Idaho Governor Otter vetoes repeal of Idaho grocery tax o o o Oh, but wait!: BOOM! Gov. Otter Grocery Tax Veto Comes TOO LATE! o o o Rep. Matt Shea comments on the inevitable partition of Washington: $8 billion tax increase—Update From Olympia. o o o Spokane beekeepers swarm …




Economics and Investing:

CONSPIRACY vs FACT: How Much Gold Is In The World?? o o o The war on cash: India Outlawing Cash Altogether in 75 Cities – DSV o o o A walk down memory lane: This article was written in 2009, but it’s still good information today – The Great American Bubble Machine – D.F. o o o Wall Street banker Cohn moving Trump toward moderate policies o o o SurvivalBlog and its editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for details.




Odds ‘n Sods:

I recently ordered a couple of large plastic tool boxes that carry the Dewalt brand name. When they arrived, I was thrilled to see that they weren’t made in China but instead in Israel. They are fairly sturdy and quite reasonably priced at under $21 each. They also happen to be fairly covert for use as a “range box” for carrying handguns. With an inside length of 21”, they will even fit an AR-15 pistol with arm brace if it is broken down into two halves. o o o Okay, but it’s going to cost you! – ‘Gun Free’ Zone …







Notes for Monday – April 17, 2017

On April 17, 1961, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. Due to the Cuba/Soviet intelligence network as well as loose talk by members of the brigade, which was repeated in U.S. and foreign newspaper reports, the Cuban government knew in advance of the planned invasion. The Washington Post also reported that the Soviets knew the exact date of the attack, that the CIA was aware that they knew, and that the CIA did not inform president Kennedy. o o o SurvivalBlog …