Know Who’s Running the Show, by B. Unknown

If the key to survival planning is about awareness, then start with becoming aware of the government of your own community. I don’t know about your town. But in my town, being a team player in local government means ignoring and promoting incompetence and tolerating abusive toxic behavior. If you’re a moron, then this is an easy task. If you are a moron who hates working and just wants to fill a seat and get paid for it and be told how wonderful you are for doing nothing, then this is the place for you. If you cry and complain …


An Introduction to Bodgery, by Noah L.

Greenwood crafts are essential to the preparedness community. It allows us to create what we need on the move or on homesteads, the things we need to keep going. This is why I have written this article on the practice of bodgery, a sect of greenwood crafts. Bodger. Though the word is synonymous in the United Kingdom with doing only half a job, it is also known in greenwood crafts circles as someone with great skills in the handling of unseasoned timbers (greenwood), with minimal tools and within the woodland masters of their craft bring forth fabrications of assumed unattainability. …


The Importance of Good Record Keeping, by Hollyberry

It is very important to keep accurate records of purchases, insurance polices, banking information, and other useful data. Organizing and maintaining files are not something most people (including myself) like to do but it makes life easier in the end. A little extra time on the front end saves a lot of time on the back end. It’s much easier to be organized than to spend half a day trying to locate one document that you desperately need. If you are lucky enough to find old family journals or family Bibles, read them! They are a wealth of information. The …


Thinking About Resilience, by C.H. in Kansas

Introduction I would like to direct this article to new SurvivalBlog readers. Perhaps you were referred here by a friend or coworker. Perhaps you stumbled into SurvivalBlog through an internet search. However you arrived, if you’ve taken the time to poke around, you may be overwhelmed by the abundance of information on preparedness both here and at other sites. As of this writing, the war between Hamas and Israel has entered its third week. The death toll continues to rise. Dead and wounded among the victims—the Israeli citizens and other nationals—number in the thousands. Violent demonstrations against the US have …


Choose Your Friends Wisely, by Hollyberry

Now, more than ever, it is important to have a good network of friends and family you can rely on in a time of crisis. That crisis may be a health issue that only affects your immediate family and friends or a natural or man-made disaster that is encompassing a large portion of the community. The saying goes that you can pick your nose or pick your friends but you can’t pick your family. Our own immediate family members are over 500 miles away and elderly, and have some minor health issues. They would do their best to support us …


How To Find a Trustworthy Doctor – Part 1, by C.A.J.

I’ll begin with a quote: “The first step is to give up the illusion that the primary purpose of modern medical research is to improve Americans’ health most effectively and efficiently. In our opinion, the primary purpose of commercially funded clinical research is to maximize financial return on investment, not health.” – John Abramson, M.D., Harvard Medical School The last few years have been revealing to many people about the world in which we live. For those of us who study (not just read) the Scriptures as well as others, the world appears to be in a spiritual as well …


12 Basic Actions To Make It Through the First 12 Weeks of TEOTWAWKI – Part 2, by Michael X.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Heat We have a super-efficient wood stove in our basement that can heat our entire cabin. We can vent heat into various parts of the house. We have two propane fireplaces that do not use any electricity. I put all these in when we built the cabin as our electricity as always spotty and my belief is that electricity is going to be a problem in almost every society fail scenario. I have a wood lot and prepare enough wood to stay warm all winter. I have several chain saws and can …


12 Basic Actions To Make It Through The First 12 Weeks of TEOTWAWKI – Part 1, by Michael X.

Is TEOTWAWKI imminent? I do not know. But things are slipping toward it happening soon. Will it be a violent, giant crash, like one involving many cars on the turnpike, or will it be a quiet breakdown along the side of a deserted country road? For myself, at this point, I am not thinking it will be a catastrophic, instantaneous crash caused by nuclear war, an EMP, asteroids, or alien invasion. More likely, I think it could be a slow slide that will catch people off guard until it is finally too late to get the basics in place. This …


Rebuilding: The Role of the Post-TEOTWAWKI Librarian, by W.J.

What will be missing during the great reconstruction of America after TEOTWAWKI is the knowledge of how to do it.  Those wonderful how-tos on YouTube will no longer be available unless people have electricity and they have systematically stored them as offline video files.  That will be very few people. There is an occupation that rarely gets mentioned that will be of immense value: Librarian.  With your own library.  Books. Books on how to do everything imaginable, starting with the basics.  How to grow food and care for livestock, obviously,  How to build with stone.  How to do carpentry with …


Why You Should Write an Article for SurvivalBlog, by St. Funogas

I’m going to cut right to the chase for once: You should write an article for SurvivalBlog because the prizes are great! In addition to that, you should write an article because everyone has a skill, or knowledge, or a viewpoint that would benefit the rest of us. That includes you. Everybody has something to contribute. Many of us look at SurvivalBlog as an online group discussion and everyone would like to hear from you. How I Got Started Writing Articles Before I was a regular SurvivalBlog reader, I used to run across SurvivalBlog articles now and then in my …


Farming and Prepping As a Lifestyle, by Bulldog

I have lived a prepping/survivalist lifestyle for a lifetime. I was born and raised in the Midwest to parents, who even by mid-20th century standards grew a huge garden every summer. A garden large enough to feed 6-8 large families, either selling or giving the excess to others. They canned and otherwise preserved more produce than anyone I knew at that time. In addition, we milked about 150 head of Holsteins. We were the largest dairy farm in about seven counties. Of course, all of the milk used in the household came out of the bulk milk tank. Prepping was …


Post-TEOTWAWKI Community and Employment – Part 2, by 3AD Scout

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Much like society today, those who have “the means of production” control industry, finance, and banking are like the nobles. Those who run the factories and institutions are like the vassals and blue collar and farm workers are like the peasants. So, thinking that in times of great social upheaval when a hundred-plus years of technology disappears, we could see feudal-“like” societies form out of the ashes. This is not far-fetched. Unlike hundreds of years ago, most communities are not self-sufficient. The closest thing to a self-sufficient community today would be Amish …


Post-TEOTWAWKI Community and Employment – Part 1, by 3AD Scout

Humans are no strangers to catastrophe. Through the centuries, civilizations across the earth have succumbed to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, plagues, and crop failures. Regardless of where this took place, or the people it affected, there was a rebuilding of society and life went on. For many of us, we focus on surviving the immediate effects of disaster or catastrophe, but few focus on what comes next, the recovery or rebuilding phase. Just like being prepared to survive the immediate impacts of an incident starts in the years long before the disaster ever strikes, so does preparing for rebuilding our …


Downsizing: Back to Farm Basics, by SaraSue

Things can change overnight, and recently, they have.  In my opinion, we have entered WWIII.  We don’t know yet how bad it’s going to be. But what we do know is that things are heading south, fast. There is no way to rationalize that we Americans are “going to be okay” with what is happening on the world stage. Not to mention, how quickly goods and services have degraded here at home.  You’d have to have your head stuck so deeply in a sand dune that you can’t get it out.  It is better to stand up and face reality …


The Societal Effects Of Inflation – Things Are Really Going Bad, by Brandon Smith

Editor’s Introductory Note: This article was authored by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.us and was originally published at Birch Gold Group. — Historically speaking, inflation/stagflation has always been a disastrous affair. One is hard-pressed to find any legitimate examples of a country that experienced an aggressive inflationary event that came out better for it. A rare scenario would be one in which a nation inflates to fund a war that they then win, but usually negative consequences still happen later down the road. The problem is that the effects of inflation can be subtle and far-reaching, quietly creeping up on a …