Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — May 13, 2026

On May 13, 1916 the Lafayette Escadrille, a volunteer American air force unit under French command saw its first combat at the Battle of Verdun. — May 13, 1958: The trade mark “Velcro” was registered. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 124 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. This is the final round of the contest. There will not be a “Round 125”! The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Gunsite Academy Three-Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value). American Gunsmithing Institute …




Small Farm Dairy Cattle – Part 2, by SaraSue

(Continued from Part 1.) Feeding and Condition This year started out in drought, so I will feed hay until such time as the fields are abundant in grass.  Last year, I did not have to feed hay year round, but the year before I did.  I don’t know how this year will go, but so far the cows have plentiful hay available to them.  When I first started with dairy cows, I fed the cows square bales, but soon found that to be a lot of work and not cost efficient with more than one cow to feed.  I purchased …




SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

Our 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. — Video: Rep. Chip Roy: Government-Mandated Kill Switch in Cars Violates the Fourth Amendment. o  o  o For those of you with Smart Phones, I heard about an interesting new inventory control app for preppers: PPantry. o  o  o