Category: Contest

Preparedness Planning: The Business Trip, By Mr. Zipph

From time to time, my job requires that I travel for meetings with vendors or clients and to attend conferences. Some of these trips require air travel, which brings unique challenges over automobile travel. You can’t carry many common prepping items on an airplane. Also, legal restrictions and lack of reciprocity create challenges when it comes to firearms. For a decade or so, I have carried various prepping items with me on trips, but have not spent a great deal of time planning what that kit should look like. During my most recent trip, I decided to plan better and …


First Aid: Accident Drill!, by K.B., M.D.

It is time for a drill! I am a retired, disabled physician who is going to submit to you real-life scenarios that have happened in my family—-at home. In this practice, you are to imagine yourself and your loved ones in each of the following situations. What would you do? Do you have what you would need? Pretend that you are the first responder and decision-maker due to a SHTF situation in your region of the country. (Otherwise, always seek help from a trained and licensed medical care provider!) The phones are down and the roads are impassible. Disclaimer: I …


When Hunger Happens, by The Domesticated Ranger

When The Schomer Hits The Fan (WTSHTF) and food becomes very scarce, it won’t take very long before people find themselves quite literally starving. And I don’t mean “starving” the way that teenagers say it! To a teenager, they think they are starving if it’s been more than three hours since they’ve eaten a significant meal. When I refer to starvation, I mean that the body has consumed all of its stores of fat and is now consuming its own muscle mass for energy. I have been there. Back in 1995, I was a student in the US Army’s Ranger …


Review: Pi-Hole Network-Level Ad and Tracker Blocker, by TavernSandwich

Most privacy minded people do a decent job locking down their computers, phones, and other devices. I hope you’re reading this article on a secure browser (like Firefox with UBlockOrigin) over an encrypted VPN connection. If you are, congrats on being a reasonably savvy internet user! But what about the other people on your network? Are your family members and guests as privacy-minded? It’s rare to find a household where every single person shares the same level of dedication to staying safe online. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could extend some level of protection to the people sharing your …


Homemade Household Products Using Bulk Ingredients, by Mrs. Alaska

When people jokingly refer to Whole Foods as “Whole Paycheck” to indicate the price points, I wonder if they conclude that all organic products and foods have to be expensive. It is indeed more expensive to raise meat on a small homestead than to buy a rotisserie chicken at Costco. But so many pricey organic foods and value – add products are quickly and cheaply made at home. A frugal person can save thousands of dollars per year by combining ingredients for tasty or useful products. Put that cash to other purposes less easily accomplished. In addition, making products from …


Gardening in a Post-Nuclear Fallout Environment, by Don Shift

Several weeks ago, Reader L.E. asked how seeds would fare after a nuclear war. That got me researching about growing food after the nukes fly would be complicated. It turns out, not much. After a nuclear war, fallout and higher radiation counts worldwide will be a fact of life. The remnants of the fallout will remain acutely in our food chain for a century. Consuming radionuclides (radioactive isotopes or radioisotopes) will be unavoidable, but not as catastrophic as some think, and it can be mitigated. Fallout will not be a massive, universal phenomenon as some of the outdated fallout pattern …


Assembling Advanced Medical Cabinets, by K.B., M.D.

No doubt, we all have a medicine cabinet of some size. Lately, I reorganized and consolidated our medical supplies with the major assistance of my kind talented husband who built a set of floor-to-ceiling cabinets dedicated to that purpose even though he dislikes doing carpentry. (Thank you!) Because I am a retired and disabled physician, I obtain supplies to mainly care for those under our roof in a TEOTWAWKI situation. Of course, we all are very aware of recent supply shortages (masks, hand sanitizer, medications-both over the counter and prescription) but what about the possibility of a decline in the …


Lessons From a Fire, by R.M.

I wish to share with you my pitfalls, follies, and other lessons learned from a small fire in my yard. I wake up around the same time every night, thanks to nocturia. However, last night was different. I saw a red hue cast was over my backyard. I wondered what it could be. Was it a neighbor with a car in it’s backyard, some unusual atmospheric phenomenon, alien invasion? The lights weren’t flashing so it wasn’t first responders. My stomach felt like a rock dropped in it. I was thinking: “Please don’t be what I think it is.” I got …


Grow Food in Summer That Lasts All Winter – Part 2, by J.T.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) — Cabbage: One cabbage plant only produces one head weighing about two and half pounds. We like coleslaw, cabbage rolls, cooked cabbage with potatoes, and stews with cabbage. One cabbage each week should be sufficient for eating. Like broccoli, cabbage will not survive after year end, so we will plan to harvest only about 8 heads. (I harvested one cabbage in December. It lasted in our refrigerator until it was eaten 8 months later). These plants will need an area 5′ by 6′ of garden space for 8 plants placed 2′ apart …


Grow Food in Summer That Lasts All Winter – Part 1, by J.T.

Gardeners: You can grow crops in your summer garden that will feed your family during the non-growing season. It’s all about the proper timing for starting your seeds and knowing which plants can make it through the winter. When summer comes to an end and you no longer have those wonderful veggies that came from your garden, what are your options? Well, for many of us gardeners, we are at the mercy of shopping for produce at Safeway from November until next year’s summer crop which won’t become available until June or July. Therefore, through winter and spring you will …


Semi-Secure Digital Communications for Civilians, by R.T.D.

In times of emergency, many American citizens have found both amateur radio and FRS/GMRS radios very useful to keeping in touch with friends and family as well as keeping local, state, and federal disaster response agencies up-to-date with the latest information on road conditions and disaster area damages. All of those radio communications are made entirely in the clear as there is no need for encryption, obfuscation, or brevity codes for such work. It’s done as a public service to assist others in times of natural or man-made disasters and just part of being a good neighbor. But just how …


Has Healthcare Collapsed in the United States?, by SaraSue

First, let me say that these are my observations based on my experience the past two years. When the “pandemic” hit, the people I knew in the Healthcare industry seemed to overreact to the perceived threat. Some of those people were doctors and nurses. Most had no desire to see an alternative point of view and stuck to the “party line” of wherever they worked. They were adamant and strident in their points of view and communication. There was an air of superiority and certainly a total lack of recognizing that the patient was a customer – someone whose stated …


Prepping with Healing Herbs, by Bonnie Blue

I was fortunate enough to be largely raised by my grandmother, who was a Great Depression-era bride. Even before Victory Gardens came along, her generation knew you had to take care of your family’s food needs and be self-sustaining. She was a strong farm and ranch wife, with the tenderness to let my little hands help her from as far back as I can remember. It would have been much easier for her to do it herself, but she knew it was important information to pass on. Those early lessons were largely centered around gardening and canning the fruits of …


Nootropics and Mushrooms for Survival, by Robert R.

I’m writing about the benefits of nootropics and how they can be used to enhance health, reduce the effects of stress, and even help to mitigate and treat anxiety, depression and PTSD.  A nootropic is a substance, natural or synthetic, which enhances memory and cognitive functions.  Some of this article also assumes that the government has collapsed and there is no longer any legal system or laws.  I have tried a number of things to help with my own PTSD and ADD issues and learned about many nootropics and supplements that can help in a variety of circumstances. Imagine for …


Medical Community Autocracy, by ToAndFro

I thought long and hard about whether to share this due to OPSEC, but felt it was important. We have been seeing the same GP for healthcare for 28+ years and he was just slightly older than us. In June of 2020 he announced his retirement due to his own health concerns and COVID. He had always been very down-to-earth, understanding, listened more than he spoke, understood people, non-political, etc. The kind of doctor you would want for a Physician. Luckily, his office partner was able to see us so we didn’t have to find new doctors. I had a …