Preparedness Notes for Monday — March 9, 2020

March 9th is the birthday of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin – the first man to ever travel in space. He was born in 1934 and died in the crash of a MiG-15-UTI fighter on March 27, 1968. Today is also the birthday of writer John McPhee (b. 1931), a master of creative nonfiction. One of McPhee’s most widely read books is Coming into the Country, which eloquently describes the Alaskan wilderness. — We are pleased to welcome aboard our newest advertiser: Redoubt Scout. If you are considering a move to northern Idaho, then you should definitely take a look at their …




Cold Steel AD-15, by Pat Cascio

I’ve been an amateur knife designer since the early 1980s, and several of my designs have actually been produced by custom knife makers, as well as some factories. One custom designer went so far as to add my design to his inventory – never giving me credit for the design, nor paying me any royalties, but that’s okay, I don’t hold a grudge. Another knife company has been producing several of my designs for quite a few years now, and I actually gave them my design, to help them get their company up and running – no problem there at …




Recipe of the Week: Jen’s Storage Foods Brownies

Jen kindly sent us three recipe options for small batches of brownies baked in a bread loaf pan.  Jen says: “Make a small batch of brownies when you need a little “comfort food” fix.  It will help make your supplies of these ingredients last longer.” The traditional recipe utilizes fresh ingredients. Both just-add-water mixes use powdered eggs and powdered vanilla extract.  You can find powdered vanilla extract in upper-end grocery stores right near the liquid vanilla extract and on Amazon.com. Just-add-water mix #1 has straight coconut oil. Mix #2 replaces some of the coconut oil with butter powder and water and …




Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at investing in AR-15/M16 Magazines, as a hedge of future legislation. (See the Tangibles Investing section.) Precious Metals: Gold price is on a path to $1,700 but volatility will be high – analysts o  o  o Investment demand for gold outweighs weak consumer demand Economy & Finance: The bloodbath continues: Dow …




The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K.” – Sir Eddie George, Governor Bank of England in a letter to Nicholas J. Morrell, chief …