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 …


Why a Dow Peak Will Boost Silver, by Hubert Moolman

During the Great Depression, both silver (1931) and the Dow (1932) reached a significant low. Both have rallied significantly since then. However, the structure of these rallies was very different. To date, the Dow has significantly outperformed silver since those lows. The Dow increased 988-fold from the low to the all-time high, whereas silver has only increased 179-fold from the low to the all-time high.


Weather the Storm with Backup Power – Part 3, by E.R.

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) Inverters Most of us are interested in running a few 120 volt AC appliances. The fridge, the furnace, the shallow well pump – standard AC devices that we want to keep alive during a power outage. For these we will require what is known as an inverter. Inverters take DC battery power and invert it into standard 120 volt AC household power. Inverters are available in all shapes and sizes these days. You can get off-shore-manufactured modified sine wave inverters that plug into the cigarette lighter plug in your car, rather cheaply. …


Weather the Storm with Backup Power – Part 2, by E.R.

(Continued from Part 1.) Charging Overview At a high level, the stages of charging a battery include: bulk, absorption, and float. On batteries that have been discharged deeply, there is also an equalization charge required. Bulk charging demands high current. Absorption charging requires less current but a slightly elevated voltage. Float is your trickle charge which has low current at about one volt above the stasis voltage of a charged battery. As covered in a recent SurvivalBlog article, the charge levels of flooded batteries can be determined accurately using a hydrometer. Each cell should have an equal level of charge. …


Weather the Storm with Backup Power – Part 1, by E.R

This adventure begins with a windstorm after which it took crews days to repair the severely damaged power lines. At that time we had been using a pair of old end-of-life batteries rescued from a Cummins diesel pickup truck connected to a conventional marine battery charger as our backup power. We waited all day as our freezer continued operations, powered by these old batteries. Towards dusk, I finally dragged out the generator to power the rest. Surely, there was a better way. That summer, I finally made it a priority to get solar panels installed up on the roof and …


Extending The Life of Flooded Lead Acid Batteries, by Tunnel Rabbit

The following described method is for those of us with more time than money. But this may be an increasingly valuable skill in a prolonged austere environment. Note that this pertains only to 12 VDC flooded lead acid batteries, including semi-sealed or “maintenance-free” batteries. This will be a succinct tutorial. This is an old-school method, a technique of a bygone era. It is nothing new, but old school and time-tested. I have more than 40 years of experience in the automotive world. I’ve known about this since the early 1980s. My success rate is now at 70 percent, yet how …


Warrior Poet Rifle 1 — A Course Review, by N.C.

I have previously written a review of the Warrior Poet Society streaming service. And, after much deliberation I bought the expensive (to me) in-person training for “Rifle 1”. What follows is my experience, some suggestions and lessons I learned. The Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR) Summary Warrior Poet training is excellent value for your money. I have zero regrets paying the money, Scottish genes notwithstanding. It has already made me a better shooter and set me on a path to get even better. I’ve seen other casual shooters changed for the better after trying Warrior Poet training. I hope to …


Prepping With My Non-Prepper Neighbors, by 3AD Scout

I do not belong to an organized and/or trained Mutual Assistance Group (MAG), but I might have a structure that may be just as good. That is, I have neighbors who are skilled and resilient. These neighbors might not be ready to survive a nuclear apocalypse but their lifestyle gives them an edge over many others when it comes to surviving the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI). Who are these neighbors? Like any community, our little neighborhood is made up of all types of people. The main thing in common is, the vast majority have some …


The War On Human Life – Part 3, by J.B.H.

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.) Societal Matters We have less control regarding societal matters than the previously discussed personal matters. But I do believe we can influence some of these things at least within our own families. If enough families change, society changes. The First Step The first step is adjusting how we view these problems. For instance when we view the issue of homosexuality, many view this primarily as a moral failing or disgusting or that they simply don’t like it or it is just a personal choice? These things may be true but, how many …


The War On Human Life – Part 2, by J.B.H.

(Continued from Part 1.) Drug Addiction and Homelessness To this point, I have talked about the attack on babies to prevent their existence or to terminate them after they come into existence. How about adults? In many major US cities there is an epidemic of drug addiction and resulting homelessness. The news frequently covers the resulting tent cities, crime, filth, etc. But the toll on the addicts themselves is enormous. I recently heard that at the height of the 1960s drug culture, there were approximately 6,000-8,000 drug overdose deaths a year. It is estimated that 100,000+ people died of drug …


The War On Human Life – Part 1, by J.B.H.

This essay expresses some thoughts that rattle around in my head pretty much every day, lately. There is likely little in it that SurvivalBlog readers are not familiar with in a certain way. However, I would like to express what I feel and perhaps fear is a central theme in virtually all the topics we discuss and the events we witness in today’s world. As a warning upfront, it is entirely possible that I am taking disjointed, some might say random trends of our time and desperately attempting to make sense of the nonsense by packaging them in one neat …


Designing a 7.62×39 Handload, by Tunnel Rabbit

At this moment I am anticipating the arrival of an antique Mauser rifle that has been fitted with a new barrel chambered in 7.62×39. By the grace of God, I was able to obtain an antique custom rifle in the ubiquitous 7.62×39 from Elk Creek Company. This will be a scoped rifle that might use the same ammunition that I already stock for my semi-automatic rifles that use 7.62×39 ammunition with bullet diameters of .310 inches. An Expectant Father Waits for the Arrival As I wait for it to arrive via UPS, I am writing this article and thinking ahead …


Providing For Your Family During Power Outages – Part 2, by B.S.V.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Unfortunately, there isn’t a good level of sun available during heavy rains. We were also beginning to lose sunlight so solar wouldn’t be all that helpful even if the skies were clear. Evaluating the EB70S powering the television, I could see that it was going to lose power overnight. We didn’t need it for information any longer, but as we were still trapped inside from significant rain, it was now our primary source of entertainment. Of course, in a dire situation we could ration that power consumption to make it last multiple …


Providing For Your Family During Power Outages – Part 1, by B.S.V.

For the last several months I have been thinking of writing an article for SurvivalBlog, but there have been so many great articles by so many knowledgeable people that I have spent most of my time learning from SurvivalBlog rather than writing for it. That changed last week (as I write this). I live in North Texas and was impacted by the storms that came through. A lot of news has, rightfully, focused on those areas where tornadoes caused damage – and there were enough of those to keep the news cycles busy. However, the news coverage was virtually non-existent …


Come Home, Now!, by M. Paul

This article is addressed to my adult children and their families. It should be useful to those readers who have family members who are spread out across a region of the country. It is intended to provide information and logistics for improving the odds of successful transport for those who may be planning to come “home” when there are natural disasters, or the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF). Disasters, in my judgment, can range from large storms, tornados, large fires, and floods, all the way up to EMPs, world war, or deep societal breakdown. Each of these, to varying degrees, …