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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Reader Fred S. wrote:
“This is a 3/4-inch PVC pipe coupler that I bought about 20 years ago. Note the marked 33-cent price. This same item is now priced at $3.99 in stores. House paint is also now very expensive. Every item in a hardware store is now noticeably much expensive, with some dramatic prices increases. It doesn’t matter where you live. Food has also gotten very expensive. I think that we’re going to have a food crisis.”
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Some wisdom from my friend Commander Zero, in his Notes From The Bunker blog : Standardization.
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South Dakota governor tells California gunmakers and owners to ‘make the move’ to her state.
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A television news video: Homeless encampments growing next to Beverly Hills.
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An interesting text via HF data modes project set up by the folks at S2 Underground — ideal for those quiet winter months: Video: Intro to Ghostnet. Some additional information can be found at this Patreon page: Ghostnet Plan. Also see: Receive-Only JS8Call.
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Tim J. mentioned this site that sells reprints of U.S. Army manuals — both full-size and half-size “minis”: myarmypublications.com. Tim’s Comment: “These manuals are fantastic and the minis are totally readable.”
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Those batteries, again: Huge Explosion at Airport Kills Boy, Injures 163 Others.
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Reader T.R. wrote to ask his fellow blog readers:
“We’ve been notified that our analog electric meter is going to be updated to a digital meter. Information on what these will do is vague and I wonder what readers know about them. I have read that they can turn off appliances and furnaces remotely and so I assume that means that non-smart appliances will become obsolete. What are these meters capable of doing, in terms of losing personal control and privacy?”
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Video: What Happened to Thermal Camouflage?
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At The Epoch Times: Conservatives Say Christian Nationalism Used by the Left to Paint Them as Extremists and ‘White Supremacists’.
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WND reports: 424-1! Dems join GOP to kill Biden’s anti-2nd Amendment scheme.
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Laphonza Butler’s Non-California Residence Raises Questions.
JWR’s Comment: Perhaps Newsom should have gone Full Caligula and appointed a horse to the Senate. It would be easy enough to find one that was foaled and stabled in California.
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Here Are The Last 79 Colleges Still Mandating COVID Vaccines. JWR’s Comment: Not surprisingly, if you refer to the included map, you will see that none of these colleges are located in the American Redoubt.
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SaraSue sent this snippet:
“Lots of activity and changes on the farm this past week. I am feeling much better due to diet and taking Vitamin B9 and Vitamin C. The IPP breeding pigs settled right in like they had been here forever. I am in process of setting up the farrowing barn for the two sows who are due to farrow soon. The small farrowing barn is connected to a fenced in, unused, garden area, that will be further protected via electric pig fencing. The electric fencing will be inside the regular fencing.
I decided to try one more time at raising meat birds after the last two years of chickens were wiped out by predators. A friend gave me the name of a Hatchery that put on a sale of $1.40 per chick, so I ordered 50 Cornish Cross. She was very happy with the birds she raised. The impetus was that I was at Costco for some supplies and looked at their organic chicken and the prices have gone up again. I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that price.
Knowing that a predator may well reappear after those birds get moved out of the brooders to the chicken run, I decided I needed a more permanent solution to my problem: Great Pyrenees for perimeter protection and electric fencing around the chicken run. A done deal.
I was fortunate to snag a good quantity of oversized straw bales for winter bedding at half the usual cost from a neighboring farm; I got both barns cleaned out and ready for winter. And… there was an oopsie here this week. My barn cats, I thought, were too young to spay, but lo and behold, one of them presented me with her week or two old kittens this morning as I was out milking the cows! OOOPS! There’s nothing like cute little kittens, but as I did the math in my head I realized I could quickly have hundreds of kittens running around if I don’t take care of business. Farm life!”
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Swedish leader summons army, police chiefs as gang violence rocks the nation. JWR’s Comments: Note that this was reported by the leftist/statist/anti-Christian biased NBC News. Nowhere in this article does it mention that nearly all of Sweden’s criminal gangs are Moslems.
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Tractorguy wrote:
“I read with interest Mrs. Alaska’s article about “How To Build An Outhouse”. I built one myself as an emergency backup toilet at my BOL earlier this year.
Instead of a wooden building, I went with a pre-manufactured 3×5 foot metal garden shed kit that I bought off of the dreaded Amazon for $193 with shipping. (I’m sure you could get one elsewhere if you want to avoid Amazon.) This had the advantage of already being engineered and manufactured, and all I had to do was assemble it. It made a nice looking building without further finishing, as well. I got it in a brown-grey color for camoflage purposes. I screwed it down to a piece of treated 1/2″ plywood for a base. I put a 12″ hole under the seat, and used a length of 12″ galvanized furnace duct between the base and the seat shelf.
For the pit, I used a plastic 55 gallon drum (with the ends cut out) for a liner, since the soil is quite sandy in our area, and the pit needs walls to keep from caving in. Here’s an easier way to dig a deep round hole for the pit — use a post hole digger instead of a shovel. Once you are down about two feet, take a five gallon pail and put a rope on the handle so you can lower and raise it easily in the hole. As you dig with the post hole digger, put the dirt in the five gallon pail, and then you only have to raise the pail when it gets full, instead of having to raise the post hole digger up several feet every stroke up to the surface. I don’t have much upper body strength, and my shoulders are in bad shape, so I do anything I can to make physical labor easier. Another thing you can do to make digging easier, if the soil is really dry and hard, is to pour a couple gallons of water down in the hole and let it set until the next day. I did that twice while digging my pit, until I got down deep enough that the soil was moist and was easier to dig.
An idea for a future column might be a list of in what states that outhouses are still permitted — or where to find whether or not they are legal in your area. Good luck and God bless.”
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And on the same topic, St. Funogas sent:
“I enjoyed Mrs. Alaska’s recent article on how to construct an outhouse. I wish she could provide more details on wintertime use. She mentioned the styrofoam seat insulator but what else was done to keep warm?
I was reminded of an aunt and uncle who had an off-grid cabin on a lake. Their outhouse was the nicest I’ve ever used. It was beautifully constructed, with paneling inside and best of all, clear Lexan panels for the roof. That skylight kept the outhouse bright and cheery and the sun warmed it as well.”
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Some video of the flooding in New York City, last weekend. An amazing two inches of rainfall per hour! Pity the owners of “Garden Apartments” on those particular streets: NYC Underwater: The Day Nature Rewrote the Record Books.
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Reader H.L. sent this: Biden admin issues restrictions on gas furnaces in latest war on appliances.
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M.J. sent this addendum to his recent article, titled: A Silver Conversion Exercise:
“Just for fun, I did a silver conversion exercise for Senator Menendez (D-NJ).
According to this article, he had $480,000 in cash stashed in his home.
Applying the same conversion rate in my original article of $23.31 per ounce (spot price at http://www.apmex.com on 09-16-2023, we find that $480,000 can buy 20,592 ounces of silver!
Divide 20,592 ounces by 16 ounces to the pound, we find that $480,000 can buy 1,287 pounds of silver!
That’s a lot of silver to lug around; no wonder he was also allegedly bribed with gold bars! Using the gold spot price of http://www.apmex.com on 09-16-2023 of $1937.50, we find that $480,000 buys 247.74 ounces of gold, or 15.48 pounds of gold. No need for a pickup truck to lug the bribes around; you can fit that much gold in a rucksack.
Representative Gaetz (R-FL) noted that the dollar is being devalued so fast that the gold bars were necessary to make sure that the bribes kept their value.
All of this may make more people aware of the value of hard currency. This means that demand, and thus prices, might go up soon. Buy more while we can!”
JWR Adds: To clarify, there are 12 Troy ounces in a Troy pound.
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And finally, a video from gun law attorney William Kirk: What This Incident Tells All of Us About Red Flag Laws. JWR’s Comments: Kirk is correct. Red Flag laws are a huge deprivation of our constitutional right to due process.
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