Month: August 2021

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.” – Norman Maclean


Preparedness Notes for Monday — August 9, 2021

August 9th, 1831was the birthday of James Paris Lee (August 9, 1831 – February 24, 1904). He was a Scottish-Canadian and later American inventor and arms designer, best known for inventing the bolt action that led to the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield series of rifles. But most notably, Lee was the inventor of the spring-loaded detachable box magazine that has become standard in the vast majority of modern rifles and pistols, worldwide. Starting today, in honor of James Paris Lee’s birthday, we are running a two-week sale at Elk Creek Company. I’ve set sales prices with discounts from 5% to 25% …


Springfield Armory AR Pistol, by Pat Cascio

It is really hard to keep up with all the new firearms coming out of the Springfield Armory company. They don’t sit back on past accomplishments. Nope – they keep coming out with new or improved designs. That is commendable. I’ve tested several of the Springfield AR rifles and pistols over the years, and loved every one of them. Today, we’re looking at their newest AR pistol design, and it is simply called an AR Pistol. The lower receiver has a “Saint” logo, so i suppose this is considered part of their Saint series. The Springfield Armory item number is …


Recipe of the Week: Gwen’s Cajun Goulash

The following recipe for Cajun Goulash was kindly sent by SurvivalBlog reader Gwen. It is Gwen’s original recipe. Ingredients 1-to-2 lbs of ground meat 3 cups of Basmati Rice (or whatever quantity you desire, as a bed for your goulash.) 1 can petite tomatoes Corn starch or arrowroot powder Avocado oil Use any fresh vegetables you prefer. These are what I use: Mushrooms Green beans Sweet yellow pepper Zucchini Directions Start a batch of Basmati rice. Meanwhile, chop the veggies and sauté them in avocado oil or oil of preference. Season with Slap Your Mama. Scoop cooked veggie mix into …


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 again look at investing in military surplus (“mil-surp”) rifles. (See the Tangibles Investing section.) Precious Metals: Friday’s news: Why did gold price drop 2% today? More downside coming? Gareth Soloway on metals, stocks, Bitcoin.  JWR’s Comments:  I expect the futures and spot prices of gold and silver to recover, certainly by …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“We can’t spend money we don’t have. Period. Just look at what is happening with inflation. We were promised this infrastructure bill was fully paid for, and now we see that it’s not. This was nothing more than a bait and switch. $205 billion of this bill was to be paid for with repurposed COVID funds. The latest proposal only shows $50 billion in COVID funds being used, as well as a lot of the proposed ‘pay-fors’ missing. So we are asking our colleagues: How is this infrastructure spending bill being paid for? We still don’t know. We still don’t …


Preparedness Notes for Sunday — August 8, 2021

August 8th is the birthday of Terry Nation (August 8th, 1930 – March 9th, 1997), who was a Welsh television writer and novelist. Nation wrote two series, Survivors and Blake’s 7, in the 1970s. Survivors was re-made a few years ago. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today, we begin Round 96 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can …


Winning The War On Weeds – Part 2, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Most of your weeds will be annuals which must grow from seed each year and tend to be easy to deal with. My handful of “good weeds” grow large, are easy to pull up even when mature, and remain supple without getting too fibrous or woody making them excellent composting plants. An example is the perilla seen in Photo 5. This is my best composting weed so I let them get large (36”) as long as they’re not obstructing any crop plants. Others in this same category are most of the tender …



The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.  In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall …


Preparedness Notes for Saturday — August 7, 2021

August 7th, 1933 The birthday of Jerry Pournelle (August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017.)  He, along with Larry Niven, authored the survivalist classic Lucifer’s Hammer. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 96 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a …


Winning The War On Weeds – Part 1, by St. Funogas

We see it all the time: photos of blue-ribbon gardens with beautiful flowers and mouth-watering tomatoes, beans and squash. Everything is neat and tidy, well groomed, and not a weed in sight. People get all excited, visions of seed-catalog covers dancing in their heads, and decide they just have to start a garden so they too can have some of that fresh produce and flowers. A month later their garden more closely resembles an advertisement for Round-Up than anything they may have seen on the cover of Organic Gardening. How, oh how, do we make our gardens look like the …


Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in this column, in …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the …


Preparedness Notes for Friday — August 6, 2021

On August 6th, 1945 at 8:16 a.m. (Japanese time), an American B-29 bomber– the Enola Gay– dropped the world’s first war-time atom bomb over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people were killed as a result of the blast, with another 35,000 injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. History is always written by the victors, so the reasoning and justification for this will be argued for years to come. But one thing is for sure: this action officially ushered in the nuclear age in war and …