Year: 2021

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every …


Preparedness Notes for Friday — May 14, 2021

On May 14th, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel, reestablishing the Jewish state after 2000 years. In an afternoon ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Ben-Gurion pronounced the words “We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel,” prompting applause and tears from the crowd gathered at the museum. Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first Prime Minister. The British Army had withdrawn the day earlier and fighting broke out almost immediately. Egypt launched an air assault later in the evening. Despite a blackout in Tel Aviv–and the …


Growing Your Own Food in the Inland Northwest – Part 4, by D.F.

(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article.) Harvesting I have tried several contrivances for hand harvesting grain or lentils etc., but each time I have been disappointed. Inevitably I have resorted to pulling a clean plastic garbage can behind me while I manually grab the grain heads and jerk or strip them off and deposit them into the garbage can. Surprisingly this procedure has been “perfected” such that I can harvest about a bushel worth of wheat per day. A bushel of wheat weighs 60 lbs. Because wheat and dry legumes have about 1,500 calories per pound a person …


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 rising steel prices. (See the Commodities section and the Equities section.) Precious Metals: A video interview: Roubini: There’s tech bubble, crypto bubble, Robinhood bubble, ‘I would be slightly overweight gold’ right now. o  o  o Egon von Greyerz: Gold vs $200 Trillion Counterfeit Money. Economy & Finance: ‘$17 trillion’: …



Preparedness Notes for Thursday — May 13, 2021

May 13th is the birthday of firearms engineer Theodor Koch (born 1905, died 1976.) Koch, along with Edmund Heckler and Alex Seidel salvaged tooling from the bombed-out Mauser factory at Oberndorf, and with it founded Heckler und Koch. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 94 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 …


Growing Your Own Food in The Inland Northwest – Part 3, by D.F.

(Continued from Part 2.) Little marvel peas were the usual variety planted for shelling. They also had a bad year in 2020 for some unknown reason. Some of my dry field peas were picked while green and shelled to substitute for this bad year. They are a satisfactory backup to the garden varieties. Shelled peas can be stored frozen or dried. Rehydrating dried ones has been acceptable but is not yet perfected. Oregon sugar pod peas for eating the pods have been planted. They generally produce acceptably, but suffered this last year with the other garden peas. They taste great …


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 “JWR”. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today, we look at the Colonial Pipeline hacking incident and the subsequent fuel shortages. Colonial Pipeline Hack Update First up, there was plenty of talk in the past few days about the Colonial fuel …



Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — May 12, 2021

One hundred years ago this week, in May of 1921 a solar storm began, dubbed The Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 1921. These were some of the headlines: “Telegraph Service Prostrated, Comet Not to Blame” — declared the Los Angeles Times on May 15, 1921. “Electrical Disturbance is ‘Worst Ever Known’” — reported the Chicago Daily Tribune. “Sunspot credited with Rail Tie-up” — in The New York Times. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 94 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum …


Growing Your Own Food in The Inland Northwest – Part 2, by D.F.

(Continued from Part 1.) What to grow I have tried quite a variety of plants, and have learned some that I like and others that I don’t. The Heavy Hitter Plants: Pinto beans appear to be the best bean variety for my situation. I tried black beans, grex, and navy beans. Routinely pinto bean plants look less robust than the others, but they surprise me with yields that are just as good; and they seem to get ripe and dry down for harvest sooner than the others. This is important if the fall rains are on time or perhaps slightly …


SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly column is a collection of short snippets: practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. We may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — This was a very thought-provoking essay: The Inevitable End of a Ruling Elite. o  o  o Michael J. wrote: “Here are my inflation-fighting tips for the SB community: 1) If you go to work, don’t buy your lunch; bring it from home.  When even a burrito can cost $10-13 dollars, that adds up fast.  Buy some lunch meat and …



Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — May 11, 2021

On May 11, 1949, Israel was admitted into the United Nations. — Our Jeff Cooper’s Birthday Sale at Elk Creek Company is now underway, and will end on May 21st.  This is the time to round out your collection of pre-1899 Federally-exempt guns! — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 94 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 …


Growing Your Own Food in The Inland Northwest – Part 1, by D.F.

My Background I grew up on a family farm in the Midwest where at one time or another apple orchards, field crops, cows, pigs and chickens were raised. I assisted my parents in nearly all these endeavors and in the process drove several different farm machines. This experience caused me to feel significant confidence in my gardening skill. However, I subsequently realized that I really only learned how to do farm work as instructed by my parents rather than actually learning how to farm. I am surprised sometimes at things I know that others don’t, but at other times I …