Author: SurvivalBlog Contributor

When your kids are old enough to learn to prepare, then I suggest that you make it fun, and make it worthwhile. I may be kind of weird. I love it when the power goes out. Where we live, we’ve had a lot of power outages for one reason or another. In Michigan, weather can change quickly. If you know someone who lives in our great state, you’ve probably heard jokes about how we can see all four seasons in one day. Unfortunately, it’s actually true. I remember days where it would start with relatively warm weather and rain, turn …

Throughout history, one of the most consistent problems that has faced soldiers, refugees, and homeless populations is lice. Read through the journals of soldiers throughout WW1 and WW2, and you’ll see countless references to lice. During the 1970s lice infestations (technically called pediculosis) reached pandemic levels. That was attributed to increases in poverty, sexual promiscuity, and international travel. Typically, social upheaval is where we find the greatest number of lice infestations. It is interesting to note that poverty and sexual promiscuity can probably be pretty safely correlated with social upheaval. Living life without all of the modern amenities seems to …

In the event of a SHTF event, my family and friends have long intended to co-locate and pool our skills and resources. While this was a great idea, we never documented how this group would be organized or how we would share responsibilities. Two things motivated us to formalize our arrangement: 1) A new family made it clear that they were committed to mutual support and started a more detailed discussion of how this would work. 2) We came across a new book, The Survival Group Handbook by Charley Hogwood. Hogwood does a great job of discussing the practical issues …

I’m now 71 years old, and I have had a toolbox ever since my dad helped me build my first one when I was about 12. He cut all the parts on a homemade tablesaw that he had built out of an old washing machine motor and plywood. He showed me how to nail the parts together and paint it. It was a simple tray-style toolbox; one side had room for pliers, a hammer, screwdriver and the other side had partitions for hardware. My mother’s diary records that I liked to build things at an early age, I still do. …

Many behavioral psychologists and sociologists have a saying: The best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior. When politicians, particularly those on the Left, refer to “civil unrest,” they are referring to what the man on the street calls a riot. Civil unrest is simply a “politically correct” or a “Liberal-friendly” euphemism for a riot. Survival web sites also frequently mention the need for preparing for “civil unrest,” particularly in urban areas. While not civil unrest, as such, the identical behavior involved in civil unrest was seen in the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and every American …