Avoiding the Worst Case Scenario – Part 1, by M.B.

Author’s Introductory Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Although there are references to the legal system in this essay, no part of this essay should not be construed as legal advice. This essay is for informational purposes only. INTRODUCTION On April 11, 1986, near Miami, Florida, eight Federal Bureau of Investigation agents engaged in a four-minute gunfight against two suspected bank and armored car robbers. The shootout took place in front of a home in a residential neighborhood. When it was over, two FBI agents—Special Agent Ben Grogan and Special Agent Jerry Dove—were dead. Five agents were wounded—three seriously. Only …


The Repair Teardown – Part 2, by R.T.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) A factor that makes it difficult for the average homeowner to do their own repair jobs is that some manufacturers design their products to be serviced solely by them and not by you. Something to look for in a product before you buy it would be to find out how easy it is to repair. Product reviews are a way of doing that. A very helpful piece of information when viewing a product’s reviews is to look for a notice on the frequency of returns; this can be a more accurate indicator …


The Repair Teardown – Part 1, by R.T.

My dad lived through the Great Depression on a farm in the western plains of Minnesota. When there was a breakdown of the machinery there was no thought of ordering a replacement from the Sears & Roebuck catalog as they needed it “right now” and not in 4-to-8 months. Their only options were; go to town to the hardware store, or the blacksmith shop, or fix it themselves. I was born and grew up in the city after they sold the farm, but he never abandoned his frugal handyman ways, which I inherited. Although I did not think it was …


Post-SHTF Lighting – Part 3, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) THIRD OPTION: RECHARGEABLE LED LIGHTS This section will be a very basic look at the broad topic of rechargeable lights. The bulk of the information and all of the many options will be presented in the next article of this series on post-SHTF lighting. In order to use rechargeables for illumination after the SHTF three things are needed: 1. rechargeable lights 2. a charging device 3. a “plug-and-play” solar panel 1. Rechargeable lights Rechargeable lights come in a wide variety of styles with options such as battery capacity, hi, medium, and low …


Post-SHTF Lighting – Part 2, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 1.) Paraffin Lamps Halfway between a candle and an oil lamp are paraffin lamps. They’re similar to oil lamps and burn the same fuel but they come in a small jar with a wick. They’re essentially a small oil lamp that burns more like a candle. I thought it would be interesting to test one but by the time I finished with the candle portion of my tests, there was no doubt in my mind these paraffin lamps with their small wicks and long burn times (one claimed 115 hours) wouldn’t be much better than candles. There’s …


Post-SHTF Lighting – Part 1, by St. Funogas

Author’s Introductory Disclaimer: I have no association with or receive any benefit from any of the companies whose products are mentioned in this article. They’re used for examples only, I haven’t used some of them, I’m not making recommendations, and the reader is advised to do their own research before making any purchases. This is the first article of a planned series, discussing the various options for lighting our homesteads in a permanent grid-down world. Some of us have been in a multi-day grid-down situation at least once in our lives. For some, it is an inconvenience, for others an …


Europe Goes Full Totalitarian and Puts The Entire Western World at Risk, by Brandon Smith

It’s happening again. Europe is once again going totalitarian and this time there’s a decidedly familiar communist stench. The outcome was predictable for many of us in the alternative media and the situation is only going to get worse in the next few years, but what does this mean for the rest of the world? With the European elites casting off their humanist masks and going outright Orwellian, what kind of chaos can we expect to unfold? First and foremost I want to point out a key piece of irony here – For decades in the US we heard the …


Retreat Security: What We Can Learn from Israel – Part 2, by Don Shift

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) If you have a large property or a self-contained housing tract, layered defense could work well. Imagine an outer barbed wire fence, maybe one of those extra-sturdy five or six strand ones along an Interstate. Next, there would be (ideally) 100 yards or more of open ground with little to no cover that is easily observed from defensive fighting positions. The inner perimeter has a wall or tough, tall chain link and barbed or razor wire fence. Gates are ramming-resistant. If someone gets past that, the inner compound is further subdivided for …


Retreat Security: What We Can Learn from Israel – Part 1, by Don Shift

Introduction It’s every prepper’s fantasy: living in (mostly) a self-sufficient secure compound surrounded by liked-minded individuals living off the land just out of reach of the ravaging hordes. For novelists and daydreamers, living on the frontier in a simpler way is an appealing escape from the often-disheartening humdrum of ordinary life. Rather than worry about politics and taxes, you worry about raiders and if this summer’s crop will come in. But in the pages of fiction or the corners of our imagination, the good guy always prevails. Reality is much more stark. Those who lived on Israeli kibbutzim—collective compound-style communities— …


Helping Liberal and Elderly Family Members, by M.J.

As has been written many times here at SurvivalBlog, we preppers can’t do it alone. We need people we can work with, whether it be neighbors, friends, or family. Yet it’s frustrating to see one’s family and friends not taking prepping seriously. Their lack of preparation would make them an extra burden on us during a real emergency. If there’s one thing that my IT career has taught me, it’s that our computerized worldwide system of just-in-time delivery of goods, as well as utilities such as power, telecommunications, and water are extremely fragile. Even authorized updates to software apps can …


A Disaster Laptop Computer – Part 3, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) Reference Material Another useful function that computers do really well is store, manage, and interact with information. No one can remember everything, and there are a lot of sources of free or low-cost eBooks, articles, documents, manuals, etc. on the Internet that can be extremely useful for a post-disaster world. I created a folder on the 1TB microSD card on my disaster laptop named ‘Reference Material’, and here are some of the things I’ve collected and stored there: SurvivalBlog Archive – ($33) An obvious choice for SurvivalBlog readers. [JWR Adds: It also …


A Disaster Laptop Computer – Part 2, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 1.) I’ve created a list of the applications that I consider critical for supporting my post-disaster requirements. Where possible I prefer free or low-cost and open source software, but there are a couple of applications that you’re better off paying for. Note that many free or open source projects have the option to donate to their efforts – those folks invest a lot of their personal time writing and maintaining the applications, so if you find it useful please consider making a donation to help support their efforts. While I’m focusing on a Windows solution, most of …


Food Prepping With Freezer Bags – Part 3, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) The Final Answer: How Reliable Are Freezer Bags For Storing Food? The most important questions these experiments were trying to answer is how reliable freezer bags are as a food-storage method? Do they work for the short term? And how well will they work for the long term? Thinner sandwich bags are definitely a bad way to go. Pests had chewed through the plastic in just a few months. Pantry moths in my cupboard also had no trouble chewing through the foil packets of hot chocolate or getting under the lid of …


Food Prepping With Freezer Bags – Part 2, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 1.) Results of Cornmeal in Sandwich Bags As a side tangent, I wanted to know if weevils and their eggs in feed corn could survive being coarse ground into corn meal. Cornmeal is not ground as finely as wheat flour so I thought perhaps there was a small chance some eggs would survive. I put some weevily corn into the hopper of the grinder, added a bunch more weevils sifted out from some other corn, and ground it into meal. After grinding, half of the meal was put into a mason jar with a sealed lid, the …


Food Prepping With Freezer Bags – Part 1, by St. Funogas

As a followup to my article, “Just-in-Time Food Storage” (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) this article is to share with the reader the results of my freezer-bag food-storage experiments. The first article was for those who don’t currently have any food stored but plan on doing so at the last minute if it looks like the Schumer may be soon hitting the fan. While this wait-and-see method is highly discouraged and defeats the whole purpose of prepping, two methods were presented for those who’ll still be procrastinating anyway. Method 1: No special preps, just get some food! …