Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — January 18, 2023

On January 18, 1788, the first English settlers arrived in Australia’s Botany Bay to establish a penal colony. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson. January 18, 1813 was the birthday of Joseph Glidden, who invented barbed wire. Actor Kevin Costner was born on this day in 1955. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 104 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 …




Pessimist or a Realist? Our Present Situation – Part 1, by The Lone Canadian

“My wife calls me a pessimist. I claim I’m a realist. Chances are, I’m just an a** with an attitude problem.” That’s my tag line on one of the sites that I belong to. Now, you may take offense at my wording, but if you knew me, you’d have to agree that the sentiment is pretty accurate. I’m writing this in the final few days of 2022, and I’ve had to go back and examine that tag line. I’ve had to question whether I am a pessimist, or am I simply well-informed when it comes to current events, and honest …




SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — Slingshot and archery design genius Joerg Sprave is at it again, with a second generation of commercially available repeating crossbows. In this video, he demonstrates a full-auto crossbow prototype, powered by a Makita battery drill motor: Archery Extreme: Ode to Joy. It bears mentioning that Sprave’s video channel now has an astounding …