Year: 2023

A Special Appeal: The Ten Cent Challenge

I hope that you get at least 10 cents worth of knowledge, entertainment, and motivation each day from SurvivalBlog. It has been posted with fresh content daily, since 2005. In all these years I’ve only missed posting on a few days — most notably in the week after my first wife passed away. I do my best to mention the Ten Cent Challenge editorially only once each year. Unlike PBS, we don’t run agonizingly endless pledge drives. But we do depend on voluntary subscriptions to pay the blog’s bills. These expenses include: paying our staff writers, the local ISP monthly …


Hiding and Tracking – Part 4, by J.M.D.

(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article.) Tracking As I alluded to earlier, becoming an expert tracker requires a lifetime of practice and experience, but there are a number of things that you can do to begin developing and improving your ability to track people: Improved Endurance – The further away your target gets, the harder it will become to track them, and if they’re in better shape than you they’ll be able to quickly increase the gap between you. You need to be able to move long distances at a reasonable pace if you want to be able …


Economics & Investing For Preppers

In place of my usual news items and commentary on economics and the markets, I have some annual housekeeping to do: My Annual Financial/Investing/Foreign Interests Disclosures: By Federal law, I am obliged to make the following annual public disclosures. For the record: I am presently the sole author of SurvivalBlog’s Economics & Investing For Preppers column. I am not a paid investment counselor or adviser. Please see our Provisos page for our detailed disclaimers. My paid consulting is primarily on preparedness, relocation, retreat property development, and related topics–not on investing, per se. SurvivalBlog is a private information service and not a …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. But living was a field of grain blowing in the wind on the side of a hill. Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing. Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and the hills beyond.” – Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls


Preparedness Notes for Thursday — January 5, 2023

On January 5th, 2005 The solar system’s largest known dwarf planet was discovered. The discovery of Eris ultimately led to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgrading Pluto, which has roughly the same size, to a dwarf planet. — 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 could be worth more than $2000. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be …


Hiding and Tracking – Part 3, by J.M.D.

(Continued from Part 2.) Weather The weather can have a significant impact on both the trackers as well as the trackees. A clear sunny day can make it easier to follow someone visually and detect signs of their passage, while rain, snow, fog or mist can reduce visibility and require trackers to close the distance or move slower to locate sign. At the same time, snow on the ground will leave obvious footprints and is one of the easiest conditions in which to track someone, unless it’s snowing hard enough or blowing snow that fills in or covers tracks. Rain …


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 expected lower grain crop yields, because of the jump in fertilizer prices. Soaring Fertilizer Prices: Millions More Undernourished Reader C.B. sent us this disturbing news: Soaring fertilizer prices could see …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“There is a difference between resistance to specific commands and resistance by means of revolution to dethrone and replace an existing ruler. A tyrant is one whose habit of tyrannical actions strikes at a fundamental good of human society; his actions are akin to an unprovoked war against the people. Thus, he is a man warring against the nation, and since any nation can defend itself against national threats, the nation can conduct war against him. A just, violent revolution is a type of defensive war.” – Stephen Wolfe, The Case For Christian Nationalism


Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — January 4, 2023

On January 4th, 1896 Utah became the 45th state of the Union. One condition for statehood was that a ban on polygamy had to be written into the state constitution. — 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 could be worth more than $2000. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, …


Hiding and Tracking – Part 2, by J.M.D.

(Continued from Part 1.) A somewhat more obscure but still possible method of tracking is by following an electronic signal. If you’re using any type of transmitting device such as a radio or cell phone, a tracker could potentially locate you by detecting that signal. There have been a number of good articles on SurvivalBlog.com on radio frequency direction finding and locating, so I’m not going to go into detail here. Someone could also plant a dedicated tracking device on you or your vehicle and use that to track your location, but the tracker would obviously need the right equipment …


SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly column is a collection of short snippets: 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. — L.R. (a close friend of mine) recommended this thought-provoking essay: Lovers of Truth and Lovers of Lies: Seeing new lessons for today in Mel Gibson’s iconic portrayal of ‘The Patriot’. o  o  o The ultimate “down the memory hole” irony? Amazon Secretly Removes “1984” From the Kindle. o  o  o Reader C.B. sent …



Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — January 3, 2023

On January 3, 1924 the Pharaoh Tutankhamun mummy was located near Luxor, Egypt, where King Tut’s tomb was discovered two years prior. This stone sarcophagus, which inside contained a mummy of Pharaoh Tutankhamun of Egypt. — For those who have asked about ordering the 2005-2022 edition of the SurvivalBlog Archives USB stick: The new edition is being “built” now, and should be orderable by January 22nd, 2023. Please mark your calendar to look for the Archive USB stick ad that week. Shipments will begin in February. SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 104 of the SurvivalBlog …


Hiding and Tracking – Part 1, by J.M.D.

I enjoy learning new things and picking up new skills, and the many activities I engage in such as shooting, paintball, backpacking and, of course, prepping give me ample motivation and opportunity to do so. A year or so ago while on a backpacking trip with some friends I met a guy who was a pretty decent tracker, and after he kindly spent some time on that hike showing me some of the basics I decided that tracking (and evading trackers) were some skills that might be useful in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. Since then I’ve taken training classes, read books, …


SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies of interest to preppers and survivalists that are located in the American Redoubt region. In today’s column, news of an arrest in the Idaho multiple stabbing murders case. (See the Idaho section.) Idaho A suspect has been arrested in connection to the University of Idaho murders. Over at Fox News: Idaho murder suspect: Who is Bryan Christopher Kohberger?  A quote: …