Category: Contest

Year 3: An Honest Look at the Farm – Part 1, by SaraSue

Just when you think you’ve “arrived”, you realize you’re lost, or something like that.  One step forward, three steps back.  There are other ways that one might want to characterize homesteading.  None of it is easy.  Spring is particularly busy and I always think of selling the farm and “retiring” to a genteel life filled with laying poolside, chatting about absolutely nothing important, drinking mimosas, and dining on food that someone else raised and prepared.  But, I digress… I have written about my experiences in SurvivalBlog in 2022 and in SurvivalBlog in 2023.  Now I write about where the farm …


A Crash Course in Veterinary Medicine, by 3AD Scout

Dave Ramsey, a talk radio show host who discusses financial matters, is fond of saying that people who make expensive financial mistakes “just paid the stupid tax”. In my opinion, “stupid mistakes” of any kind are learning opportunities and sometimes that education can be expensive, but if you learn from it, that mistake and the subsequent education can be priceless. In the Summer of 2019, we moved full-time to our bug-out-location (BOL). In the spring of 2020 we purchased our first animals for our homestead, chickens. We soon added pigs and cows. Like any living creature, animals have basic needs …


Surviving the Heat – Part 2, by N.C.

(Continued from Part 1.  This concludes the article.) Ingest Cold Food and Drink Your body has to warm everything that you ingest up to 97 degrees Fahrenheit and that uses up some of the heat in your body. Going to the store and getting ice for your cooler for a heat snap is wise preparation. It’ll keep your freezer closed and cold but give you access to chilled food and beverages for the day. Which will cool you and you will also wind up with cold water which you can use to cool yourself directly. When we think cold food …


Surviving the Heat – Part 1, by N.C.

Every heat wave kills people. For most of us, it’s a minor inconvenience and hurts our wallets more than anything else. Here in the US, air conditioning is now almost ubiquitous and everything is fine. But what about when grid power is not available? This article is aimed at people living in cities and suburbs who find themselves without power during a heat wave. For whatever reason there is no power for some time, what do you do? It also applies to people who just can’t afford air conditioning which is where I learned a lot of these things. As …


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 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 …