Category: Retreat Logistics

Your Brain On Paper—How to Write Useful Operating Instructions, by M.R. – Part 2

Topic Areas for Operating Instructions Topics will vary for different groups, depending upon the extent of their preparations and unique specifics. I live in the mountains of California. You will find earthquake instruction in my binder, but you will not find one concerning hurricanes. Choose one or two areas important to you, and start with them. This will allow you to learn and test the format and save a lot of re-do time. On the bright side, you may find that the operating instructions and the binder provide a place to organize and include papers and information that you have …


Letter Re: My Personal Alexandria, Now Less Flammable!, by ASC

Good Morning Hugh ASC’s article on the E-readers is spot on. I’ve been using e-readers in various forms for some time now, and I’ve incorporated them into my jourmey of getting ready for whatever may be on the horizon. If I may I’d like to add a few additional points that may be of help when using an E-reader as part of a preparedness plan. As JWR has said many times, “Two is one and one is none.” Words to live by. In regards to an E-reader, I encourage those who rely on these devices to accumulate more than one …


Your Brain On Paper—How to Write Useful Operating Instructions, by M.R. – Part 1

Do you have any idea how much of your prepper knowledge is actually recorded in your head and nowhere else? I’m talking about details that you think are common knowledge but aren’t actually common among those in your survival party. If you are the key member of the group—the one who has done the lion’s share of planning and training, it’s likely that others don’t know as much as you think they know or that they will be able to remember as much as you think they will. If you drop off your twig unexpectedly or suffer a mentally-incapacitating illness …


The Care and Feeding of a Woodstove

Here, at the Rawles Ranch, we heat our house with a masonry wood stove. Because of the thermal mass of its masonry construction, the stove holds heat and, therefore, provides a much more consistent heating effect; well, that is the case for at least three-fourths of our house. Our stove’s wood box is large, so there is the risk of overheating the living room, especially in the fall and spring, when the afternoons warm up outdoors. In those seasons, we have to be careful to keep the stove’s air vent nearly closed almost all of the time. (However, we are …


Staff Article: Rotation, Rotation, Rotation! – Effective Food Storage Strategies, by L.K.O.

“If you don’t use it, you lose it.” As any realtor will tell you, at least those who recite the cliché, the three most important factors in real estate are location, location, location. The three most important factors in effective and economical food storage might just be rotation, rotation, and rotation. Of course, there are other considerations, but rotation is often overlooked, and it can have consequences for both your budget and your body; spoiled food is not only costly economically, but it can make you and your family sick, or it can even be lethal, in some cases. It …


Letter: Sharpening Crosscut Saws

Hugh, Since I sent you my comments on sharpening I’ve come across some information concerning crosscut saws that readers who have a crosscut saw as a backup for a chain saw will find useful. This link is for the Missoula Technology and Development Center. For the cost of a phone call you can request free copies of Warren Miller’s Crosscut Saw Manual and the companion video The Crosscut Saw Filer. [Editors Note: USFS- Missola Technology & Development Center has informed us that that they no longer have the Crosscut Saw manual available. Their stock has been depleted and it is …


Little Things WILL Become Big Things, and Food Will Be Everything!, by L.T.

When everything falls apart there are plenty of plans for “bugging out”, “bugging in”, and so forth. Whatever path you choose, things won’t return to normal soon and quite possibly never. Much has been written on beans, band aids, and bullets, but there will also be a huge demand for little things that we take for granted. Of course, there will be an even bigger demand for fresh food. Decent food is a major issue; you can’t live forever on storage foods, and most people can’t live forever in the woods. The following is information from our experiences to help …


What to Expect When Planning A Hardened Shelter With A Professional Team of Engineers and Architects, by D.C.

I’m writing this article to persons considering developing their retreat with a fortified shelter. Here, I will thoroughly explain the expected preparation and process we went through on our shelter design and construction phases with our design professionals (engineers and architects) and other building industry professionals (general contractors, subcontractors, and product vendors). I am a licensed architect, with licenses in more than eight states and over 25 years of experience. Much of my career has been spent in highly technical commercial work (MRI suites, computer data centers, pharmaceutical labs, and so forth). For a mid-career alternative, in 2001, I also …


Letter Re: Multi-Purpose Power Solution

HJL, Liquid fuels are expensive, heavy, dangerous to transport, and a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Even if you have enough stored for a year, what then? Direct conversion of biomass to fuel for gensets has been proven successful for thirty plus years now. I have operated a design for powering small gensets that works as well today as it did in the early 80’s. It’s also driven a few thousand miles on a truck that runs on nature’s finest. Due to space and weight limitations not present in stationary applications, refining wood into gas on board a vehicle …


Multi-Purpose Power Solution For Laying Low Or Bugging Out, by T.G.H.

We live in an area known for food storage. I’m a real estate broker and am in and out of people’s homes all over happy valley. I have firsthand knowledge of who’s prepared and who’s not. Although many have buckets of grains and a few shelves of canned goods, the vast majority are not really prepared for a true disaster lending itself to long-term survival and recovery. Believe it or not, most couldn’t survive a prolonged power outage in the middle of winter. As the readers of this blog know, there is a lot more to it than a wheat …


Survival and Prepping in a Homeowner’s Association, by M.B. – Part 2

Homeowner associations, property owner associations (POAs), planned unit developments (PUDs), or common interest developments (CIDS) may be in a unique position to take advantage of local planning, control, management, and oversight in providing both essential and recreational services to the members they represent, especially in times of disaster or severe economic downturns. The HOA should follow, at a minimum, the Community Associations Institute “Model Code of Ethics” for HOA Board members, which follows: “Board members should: Strive at all times to serve the best interests of the association as a whole regardless of their personal interests. Use sound judgment to …


Survival and Prepping in a Homeowner’s Association, by M.B. – Part 1

As federal, state, local, and county governments reel under the weight of reduced tax revenues, declining productivity, and impossible “unfunded liabilities” (pensions, entitlements and health–welfare services), many communities are only able to continue to operate and maintain their facilities and infrastructure due in whole or in part to self-governed Homeowner Associations (HOAs). “The fastest growing form of housing in the United States today is Common-interest developments (CIDs), a category that includes planned-unit developments of single-family homes, condominiums, and cooperative apartments. Since 1964, homeowner associations have become increasingly common in the USA. The Community Associations Institute trade association estimated that HOAs …


Letter Re: Letter on Harassment of Front Lawn Farmers

HJL, In Victorian times, front lawn vegetable gardens were common, even within towns and villages. The way it was done was to use curving, attractive beds where the vegetables were interplanted with flowers, with the mixed beds surrounding patches of lawn. This can also make for good OPSEC: carrots and cosmos have similar leaves, cherry tomatoes do not require staking and are unobtrusive when interplanted with similarly colored low growing flowers. Lettuces, spinach and other greens can also be gracefully scattered about. Most of the harassment of suburbanites who are farming their front lawns appears to be due to aesthetics. …


Two Letters Re: Using Homeowners Insurance To Replace Lost Prepping Supplies And Retreat

I have a distinct problem with OPSEC and insurance coverage. It is a blazing example of how self reporting can backfire in an event. The insurance company and your agent know what you have, how much, the dollar value, et cetera. There is no guarantee that the insurance agent, along with others, will just settle into a steady ongoing supply of whatever they need if things got bad via all these people who put insurance coverage as being tantamount to success. Even others getting access to this info, via a myriad of other means, could put you in jeopardy in …


Letter Re: Thanks for the Information

Hugh, I am now a senior citizen of 66 with a 56 year old wife. I’m a former Vietnam era infantry platoon leader, infantry OCS at Fort Benning, and Ranger trained. I had sworn never to again carry a firearm after I left the service. However, recent events in my upscale suburb of Cleveland, Ohio caused me to rethink my promise. We have had two break-ins in the area from gangbangers out of the city seeking goods to trade for drugs. Recently two girl-cashiers were killed during an armed robbery of a gas station four miles away. Also, very recently, …