Year: 2024

Surviving the Heat – Part 2, by N.C.

(Continued from Part 1.  This concludes the article.) Ingest Cold Food and Drink Your body has to warm everything that you ingest up to 97 degrees Fahrenheit and that uses up some of the heat in your body. Going to the store and getting ice for your cooler for a heat snap is wise preparation. It’ll keep your freezer closed and cold but give you access to chilled food and beverages for the day. Which will cool you and you will also wind up with cold water which you can use to cool yourself directly. When we think cold food …


The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is 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. In today’s column, another look at the government’s arbitrary mask laws. DHS Conflated ‘Religious’ and ‘Veteran” With Domestic Terrorism In The Federalist: Report: DHS Group Called Being ‘Religious’ An ‘Indicator’ Of …


The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Roll away the dawn, Roll away the dawn, and let me see, The land of the free, Has anything changed at all? Sweet liberty, Sweet liberty is in our hands, It’s part of the plan, Or is it a state of mind? Horses and men, Horses and men are on the field, They didn’t yield, Many have fallen here; Never forget, Never forget what they have done, The time will come, When it will change again, Never forget!” – Chris DeBurgh, lyrics to the song “Liberty“


Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — June 26, 2024

On June 26, 1894, Karl Benz of Germany received a US patent for a gasoline engine-driven automobile. — Last Day of the sale!  The big sale on all of the percussion revolvers in our Elk Creek Company inventory ends tonight.  No paperwork is required. Cartridge conversion cylinders are available for many of these guns. These can be mailed right to your door, in most states.  This sale ends at midnight Pacific Time tonight (Tuesday, June 26th), so get your order in, ASAP! — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 113 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. …


Surviving the Heat – Part 1, by N.C.

Every heat wave kills people. For most of us, it’s a minor inconvenience and hurts our wallets more than anything else. Here in the US, air conditioning is now almost ubiquitous and everything is fine. But what about when grid power is not available? This article is aimed at people living in cities and suburbs who find themselves without power during a heat wave. For whatever reason there is no power for some time, what do you do? It also applies to people who just can’t afford air conditioning which is where I learned a lot of these things. As …


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. — Magma beneath Mount St. Helens is ‘recharging,’ scientists say.  This article begins: “Mount St. Helens, which notoriously erupted in 1980, has been showing signs of increased seismic activity lately, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It’s thought to be part of the volcano’s natural magma recharging process. The volcano, which sits on …



Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — June 25, 2024

On June 25th, 1876, Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeated the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River. The Battle of Little Bighorn – also called Custer’s Last Stand – marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. While complicated, the generally accepted reason for the battle is that the discovery of gold in South Dakota’s Black Hills in 1875 led to the U.S. government disregarding previous treaty agreements. The gruesome …


Learning From My Amish Neighbor, by 3AD Scout

In February of this year, our neighbor sold his two houses and business. One of those houses was sold to our new neighbors. They are Old Order Amish who still do not use any electric lights on their buggies but rather use Kerosene lamps. It has been an interesting few months watching them transform their new-to-them home to their off-grid Amish lifestyle. I was wondering how the new owners would heat the large old farmhouse and get their water since the old neighbor used electricity for such things. The previous neighbor had an outside wood furnace that supplied both heat …


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 located in the American Redoubt region that are of interest to preppers and survivalists. Today, we focus on the recent eastern Idaho agricultural water controversy. (See the Idaho section.) Idaho Will 500,000 acres of Idaho farmland lose access to water? An update: Water curtailment order lifted for East Idaho farmers.  Here is a quote: “Groundwater irrigators and surface water irrigators have …



Preparedness Notes for Monday — June 24, 2024

On June 24, 1314, with the victory at the Battle of Bannockburn (pictured), Scotland regained its independence from England. — June 24th is the birthday of rifle-toting abolitionist pastor Henry Ward Beecher. (Born 1813, died March 8, 1887.) He and his adherents from his church smuggled so many Sharps rifles to Bleeding Kansas that the Sharps rifles picked up the nickname “Beecher’s Bibles.” The Infogalactic wiki states: “Several of his brothers and sisters became well-known educators and activists, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe, who achieved worldwide fame with her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” — I may be biased, but …


Predator Armor Plate Carrier and Plates, by Thomas Christianson

I recently had the chance to test the Predator Armor Minuteman Plate Carrier as well as a couple of Predator Armor steel plates. I found the 500D Cordura material from which the plate carrier is made to be robust, stain and odor resistant, comfortable to wear. It included 6 rows of MOLLE style webbing. It cost $160 at the time of this writing from www.predatorarmor.com. One of the plates I tested was a Level III+ Shooter’s Cut plate made from ballistic grade AR650 steel. With the multicurve body contour, it cost $145 for a single plate and $195 for a …


Recipe of the Week: Baked Summer Squash with Tomatoes and Cheese

The following recipe for Baked Summer Squash with Tomatoes and Cheese is from SurvivalBlog reader V.F.. Chef’s Notes:  “Squash season will soon be here! You can substitute zucchini squash. I make this with Mozzarella cheese. I haven’t tried substituting cheeses, but I assume that this could work with another mild cheese like Havarti or Monterey Jack. This takes just a half hour from start to finish. I’m not calling out exact quantities of spices and olive oil — just make them suit your taste.” Ingredients Summer squash (or zucchini squash) Salt Pepper Garlic Basil Olive oil Tomatoes (sliced) Tomato sauce …


SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week

Today’s graphic is a computer wallpaper created by vandon on X-Twitter, showing “America’s Great Conservative Migration Prior To Federal Collapse.”  He obviously put a lot of time and effort into this.  Take a close look, because there are a lot of little “Easter Eggs” hidden in the graphic’s layers. The thumbnail below is click-expandable:           For those who are curious about the included dark blue banner, I found this description at the RPC website: “The Reformed believers, known as Covenanters (from their support of the covenants), insisted on ‘the crown rights of King Jesus,”‘ which brought …