Preparedness Notes for Friday — December 13, 2024

On December 13, 1266, rebels that were holed up inside Kenilworth Castle surrendered after 172 days to Henry III, ending one of the longest sieges in medieval English history. Here is an excerpt from a piece at English-heritage.org: “In the mid 1260s England was divided by civil war. Henry III, who had been on the throne since 1216, was at loggerheads with some of his leading nobles, who wanted to reform how the king governed. Their leader was the king’s brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who defeated the king’s forces at the Battle of Lewes in 1264 and …




Why A Cat Is The Most Valuable Animal on a Farm – Part 3, by W.J.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) HOW TO MAINTAIN AN OUTDOOR CAT COLONY If you want cats to be attracted to your home or homestead, and to stay around, you need to give them food, water and shelter, and teach them that people are a good thing. And you need to encourage good traits and prevent inbreeding. Food: I did not give my outdoor colony cats the Farmina Prime lamb kibble, imported from Italy, that my indoor fur family gets. But they get decent stuff, as well as leftovers, bones, and oddly enough, wheat germ muffins. They want …




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. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, a year-end look at the gold markets. (See the Precious Metals section.) Precious Metals: Market speculators did their best to push down the prices of gold and silver this week, but they failed. Spot gold seems quite resiliently holding above $2,690, and silver above $30.75, per Troy ounce.  I’m repeating my assertion that $30.50 is the …