America’s polarized political tribes are moving away from each other.

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.

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America’s polarized political tribes are moving away from each other. Just look at a bluer Colorado and a redder Idaho.

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Ontario Knife Company has been sold. It has been reported that 56 employees will be losing their jobs. It is not clear what the new owner, Blue Ridge Knives of Virginia, plans to do with the product line. It has not yet been announced where or when production might resume.

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Family Who Died Trying to Live ‘Off the Grid’ Told Loved Ones About Their Plan: ‘We Tried to Stop Them’. JWR’s Comments: True survivalism is far-removed from starry-eyed, unrealistic romanticism and LARPing. Practical self-sufficiency takes real skills, hands-on experience, proper tools, and a very deep larder.

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In a recent video, Mark Dice details the now deeply-entrenched cultural Marxism of Hollywood: I Heard Through The Grapevine About an Underground Meeting in Hollywood. Here’s What Happened.

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Mike in Alaska wrote:

“Greetings from the northernmost part of the American Redoubt … Yeah, we annexed you folks into our little corner of God’s earth. Having read your latest posts about your work and activity there in your AO I just wanted to write and tell you of our work and activity up here.

Our weather here has been exceedingly warm for us in the mid-70s to mid-80s the days where it hits 80 to 83 is for us very warm. The evening temperatures drop down into the mid-50s to low 60s and we relish this time of day. It still doesn’t get “dark” at night, just dim like twilight. The greenhouse is producing food for us, mostly cucumbers and bell peppers so far, but we have a nice crop of assorted tomatoes coming in and will be ready to harvest by September; hopefully before the snow flies.

We’ve been in an inversion layer for the last couple of weeks and this has brought in smoke from the Canada fires, and as of day before yesterday, hundreds of fires started by a dry storm over the last few days. Those are storms we get here often all year round, there’s lots of thunder and lightning, but little or no rain or snow; yes, we get them in winter too. Today it hit 90 which is unusual for us so late in the season. Soon the sun will start to set lower in the sky and darkness will come late, around 12:30 PM … we are losing daylight by an average of 6 ~ 8 minutes a day now.

My bride bought me a new dehydrator for Father’s Day and this weekend I plan to start on some oranges, the fruit from Australia and Chile is in at the markets in Fairbanks and I plan to splurge on them since they are so sweet and good eating. This winter when the oranges come in from the lower 48 or Central, South American markets it will be far too expensive to buy. On average, about $1.25 per orange … and I’ve seen them go for more than $5 per orange in the north slope villages. Apples are a good buy as well so I want to start with fruit so when the snow is deep and the temperatures well below zero, we can enjoy the sweetness of the summer. I may even try tomatoes when they ripen. The cucumbers we just eat them as they ripen since we cannot grow enough to pickle in our limited greenhouse space.

Temperatures drop down into the mid to low 60s at night so it is comfortable sleeping; our house is so well insulated that the temps inside remain at least 15 to 20 degrees lower than the outside as long as we keep the front room curtains closed (south facing). My wife has overdone herself in this heat and has gotten sick from the heat; I try to slow her down but that’s like trying to goat rope a tornado …she loves the outdoors and does wonders around the property. I like setting in the sun, but just am not motivated anymore to do much yard work or heavy lifting. I do have a huge pile of birch rounds ready to split this fall, and about 20 trees of birch & spruce to cut up and split. They are deadfall or trees that were trimmed of all branches and the trunks left standing by the power company when they came and cleared out the right of way for the power lines.

As for me, next week praise the Lord I am having surgery to remove my chemotherapy port since I no longer need it; they were supposed to remove it last week but my blood pressure was to low and they decided to wait. Hopefully, there will be no issues this next week.

I am getting my antenna ready to deploy (again) and hopefully it will stay up much longer than the last year’s attempt after the snow and ice storms knocked it down. I have over an acre but due to the heavy tree load on it limited room for a dipole orientated to the south east and into your area is what I’m aiming for. I’d like to put up a tower and beam but the cost shipping one up here is ridiculous so I am keeping my eyes open for one, when they come available, they get bought up so fast. But I do want HF comms, this winter.

I know you are all busy around the ranch so I’ll bow out of here now, the good Lord richly bless you all and keep you safe, and pray that you will all be safe.”

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Whistleblower tells Congress the US is concealing ‘multi-decade’ program that captures [crashed] UFOs. JWR’s Comment: Wow! How does someone get read-on to that SCI compartment?

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Connecticut pushes to halt sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

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SaraSue sent us this Snippet:

“Alas, a predator climbed over a double fence (goat fencing wrapped in hardware cloth, almost 5 ft high) and into my chicken run and killed all but 7 of my pullets, absconding with as many as it could take. There were no breaks in the fence or evidence of tunneling under. The predator had to go over the fence. It had to be strong enough to carry birds back over the fence. I walked a trail across the pasture out to the forest, picking up pieces of what was left, as well as picked up the bodies left in the run, some with heads bitten off, innards pulled out. I had about 40 birds I was raising for the family freezers. Disposing all those bodies was horrible for me. I also noticed that there are about half of my laying hens, who enjoy free ranging, remaining. I can only conclude that they’ve been picked off one by one over time. The predator has not returned. My three roosters obviously were no threat to whatever it or they was/were. One of my Guineas recently disappeared, too. I don’t know if I’ll get an LGD for perimeter security. My German Shepherds protect the inner circle of the property that includes the home, but they are not out doing perimeter security.

In good news, the new well was finally connected to the house and my water woes are officially over. YAY!! It’s breeding time for the cows. My heifer and one cow were inseminated, one cow confirmed pregnant by the vet, one more to inseminate, and a steer scheduled for the butcher. My very broody hen finally hatched some chicks after months and months of trying. This last go round, I gave her seven fresh eggs to hatch and she hatched two. I was so proud of her. Let’s see if the tiny chicks survive. I have them in a smaller coop with a run, and locked doors.

It’s interesting how things work out. Here I am all ready to celebrate finally having enough water to the house, only to go into “mourning” over the loss of those chicks. Chicks used to be cheap to purchase, but they aren’t, any longer. Feed prices have gone way up. No matter how you look at it, money and lots of time and energy were lost. Not to mention how sad I feel for the chickens who endured that awful night of carnage. In the grand scheme? This is a small loss. I get that.

In the last big storm, a large tree came down, but it missed the barn. I am so grateful for that. A family member was not so fortunate as a large tree crashed down on their roof. I don’t have any large trees near the house, thank goodness. One of my large refrigerators died and will have to be replaced because it’s the “milk fridge”. It was old, sigh. Stay busy y’all.”

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The Hunter Biden prosecution fiasco has taken an odd turn: Hunter Biden’s full plea deal transcript – and how his sneaky lawyers and prosecution team tried to hide clause giving him ‘blanket immunity’ in ‘crazy, unprecedented’ tactic until Judge Maryellen Noreika ‘smelled a rat’.

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Biden admin withholding key funding for schools with hunting, archery programs. JWR’s Comment: The level anti-American, anti-nuclear family, and anti-traditionalist sentiment in the Biden Regime keeps exceeding all of our expectations! Frankly, after this, I don’t know what to expect next!

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Tim J. sent us the link to this interesting video: What the Siegfried Line “Dragon’s Teeth” Are Like Today.

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And lastly, just for fun, a dog video that should trigger some memories: Zen Moment: No Dogs Were Hurt Making This Video. (Note: The accompanying music is annoying. Just turn it down,)