Category: Contest

A Call to Arms Toward Thriving – Part 1, by PrepperDoc

I am hardly an expert compared to so many who’ve had articles published here in SurvivalBlog, on so many aspects of survival. I have to make apologies in advance that my concerns may be misstated. Yet I hold them and would like to share some suggestions for how the prepper community might advance. I served 30+ years as a physician, still serve in charity work, and I’m also an electrical engineer, and I’ve written simple techniques to mitigate the impact of EMP. (The DHS has well-written levels of protection that are worthy of studying.) Now in my retirement, I’m a …


A Medic of Last Resort – Part 4, by Tunnel Rabbit

(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article.) Antibiotics, Antibiotic ointments, and Antiseptics Antibiotics, antibiotic ointments, and any antiseptics will be worth their weight in gold, because these can save lives when nothing else will. If I were just starting to acquire a supply of medical goods, I would first begin by buying all the oral antibiotics that I could afford at the time, and then later fill the rest of my list.  It would be wise to learn about the latest medical advice about how and what to use to keep a wound from becoming infected.  And how the …


A Medic of Last Resort – Part 3, by Tunnel Rabbit

(Continued from Part 2.) Category #2, Group Medical Supplies for Wilderness/Retreat Locations Emergency Medical Supplies for Wilderness Situations are for stabilizing the injured at a remote location for the purpose of transporting the injured to where they can be properly cared for.  This is a compact kit sized for the number of persons, and designed to handle the most common injuries.  With broken bones, a simple fracture that could become a compound fracture where the bone could sever a vein or artery and protrude from the skin, and therefore be potentially life-threatening. There can also be ankle sprains, burns to …


A Medic of Last Resort – Part 2, by Tunnel Rabbit

(Continued from Part 1.) Learning As We Go Without the basic knowledge and skills to use our supplies, that first aid kit is actually a ‘last aid’ kit. By shopping shrewdly and avoiding items that we do not know how to use, one might acquire a larger store of items that we can actually use. Given the possible savings that result from shopping hard and long for bargains, and limiting ourselves to the basics, we can then purchase more of the basics supplies that are needed most of the time.  And we should strive to continually improve our knowledge and …


A Medic of Last Resort – Part 1, by Tunnel Rabbit

Introduction Prepping is ideally a systematic and balanced effort to acquire, in advance, the essential resources, skills and knowledge that make sustaining life on this planet possible after a collapse of a civilization occurs. Many preppers have the resources–that is, supplies and equipment–but do they have the skills and knowledge to make use of them?  Most, including myself, are sorely lacking in  medical knowledge, skills, and resources. Without one of these three (knowledge, skills, and resources) our ability to provide meaningful medical care is diminished. A medical professional could certainly do a better job on this topic than a layman …


My Burn Adventure Ride, by Dan D.

Introduction As a former Disney Imagineer I can reveal to you that all their rides and movies follow a simple pattern: things are great, then they go awry and finally everything is resolved in bunnies and rainbows (or as the Brazilians say, “We all eat pizza together.”) Befitting that framework here is the story of my Burn Adventure Ride. The usual caveats apply since I am not a medical professional – but I can read and learn the sciences – so just remember that in the trades we teach that hot steel looks just like cold steel. Put in the …


Long-Term Survival For Women, by T.E.

The problem with modern-day conveniences is that we have forgotten what our ancestors did to take care of feminine needs. Onething we all know is that women are complicated, but most survival blogs are geared to the general population, without the concerns of women. Women have specific needs, and provide specific roles that only women can do. If a family is preparing for long-term survival, then look at the members of your family to decide what needs they will have. I am a Registered Nurse, and I work as a School Nurse. This career has made me realize how most …


It Is Chick Season!, by Hollyberry

I open the mailbox and oh… there it is! Nothing perks me up from the winter blues more than getting the McMurray Hatchery chick catalog or a garden/seed catalog. I spend hours pouring through the pages of the catalogs and planning and plotting where I can add more chickens or growing space! I really don’t need any more birds in my flock but that will not deter me from adding at least 4-5 more this season out of our incubator. The first time I purchased chicks I ordered 50 meat birds and 50 Leghorn layers figuring I would kill at …


The Accounting Equation and Salvation Equation, by J.E.H.

There are some things I need to state before we get started. I am a CPA. Don’t quit reading thinking this will be another boring paper. Second, I am a Christian. How can a CPA be a Christian? CPAs are held to a higher ethical standard than any other profession. If you plan on sitting in front of an IRS auditor, who is going over your client’s tax return, you better be a truthful, ethical, and a praying person. A good CPA should have a healthy fear of the Lord and a healthy knowledge of IRS laws. On a sidenote, …


Compact Power To Go – Part 2, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 1.  This concludes the article.) Battery The next item to consider is a portable USB battery, frequently referred to as a USB power bank. These range in size from a little credit card-sized 2500mAh up to massive power bricks with over 60,000mAh. Note that USB power banks that provide QC or PD charging levels have recently started hitting the market, and they tend to be somewhat more expensive than the older ones that only provide 5V/2A outputs. I ended up using one that I picked up a while back, which is the Miisso 5000mAh model. It provides …


Compact Power To Go – Part 1, by J.M.

There have been numerous articles on SurvivalBlog.com about the use of various pieces of electronic technology such as flashlights, cell phones, night vision devices, radios, drones, etc., in disaster and survival situations – ‘Tactical Technology for TEOTWAWKI’, ‘Technology After TEOTWAWKI’, ‘Survival Electronics’, ‘Surviving With Electronics’, ‘Survival Electronics’, ‘How To Use a Baofeng UV-5R’ and many others. (Some of those were written by me.) As part of my general effort to lighten up my load and develop a lightweight modular approach to my mobile kit, I recently started focusing on how to power the various electronics I’m carrying. To that end, …


Reader Poll: New SurvivalBlog Feature Topics

It has been several years since we’ve conducted an opinion poll of blog readers. Because SurvivalBlog has been published for nearly 18 years, we’ve covered a lot of topics. But, obviously, we’ve missed a few, or we need to revisit a few, to get up-to-date and to cover them in greater depth. So, here is my question to readers: What topics would you like to see covered in SurvivalBlog feature articles, in the coming months? Here are a few topics that came to mind, when Avalanche Lily and I were brainstorming: Herbs — Medicinal and Cooking Wildcrafting with plants and …


My Swedish Death Cleaning Experience – Part 2, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Financial Death Cleaning A neighbor recently received a large portion of her financial inheritance from her mother even though she’s still alive and well. I’ve often thought the idea of leaving our wealth to our children when we die is an inefficient system now that people live so much longer than they did a century ago. Typically when older people die nowadays, they pass their wealth on to their children who themselves are already “old,” well-established in life, and who oftentimes have no practical use for the money. I think of how …


My Swedish Death Cleaning Experience – Part 1, by St. Funogas

“Swedish Death Cleaning” is an unusual moniker for an interesting process. The purpose of a Swedish death cleaning is to rid ourselves of unnecessary possessions so those we leave behind won’t have to when it’s our turn to do the ashes-to-ashes thing. It’s more commonly used by those wishing to declutter in a big way whether to downsize in general, move to a smaller residence, or just to simplify their lives. A Swedish death cleaning can benefit many people but it’s definitely not for everyone. Those in the minimalist camp can become even more so. Those on the other end …


Winter Foraging, by Mrs. Alaska

Climbing the learning curve from “erstwhile city slicker” in Texas to remote rural life in Alaska, my acclimation has been immeasurably aided by several courses in botany, which have enhanced both gardening and foraging for food, home remedies, and construction materials.  Currently, I am enrolled in a fascinating on-line course in Applied Ethnobotany. It is offered by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. As the name suggests, this field studies human use of plants – for food, fuel, textiles, shelter, medicine, and anything else.  I am learning how indigenous peoples and settlers utilized the resources all around them, that other people, like …