Category: Self-Employment & Home-Based Businesses

Using the Past to Prepare for the Future – Part 2, by 3AD Scout

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Planting A good old-fashioned seed broadcaster maybe a good device to put back as well. The good news is they still manufacture these. I use mine in the mid-Spring to seed my hay field. I use a technique an old timer passed down to me. The method requires no tilling of the dirt. Just broadcast the seed right before it rains. When it rains, the seed will be transported into the “duff” or layer of decaying materials, where it should spout. I did this and had decent results. Another variation of this …


Using the Past to Prepare for the Future – Part 1, by 3AD Scout

It does not take much imagination to realize that our society will come crashing down without the cheap, steady flow of electricity. The world’s electric grids are the lifeblood of our modern lifestyle. Many predictions believe that if the electrical grid was shut down, by something like an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or a very strong Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), then civilization would be thrown back into the 1800s. Some predictions even think the 1700s or even further back. Regardless of what time period we are all transported back to, we are going to have to find ways to replace all …


My Experiment in Small-Scale Pig Farming, by SaraSue

It was a fluke, sort of, that I got a breeding group of pigs.  I had obtained two “feeder pigs” to see if I could raise them for the freezer.  I spoiled them, named them, and they had the run of the farm because they could get under the gates quite easily.  I didn’t really mind.  They were cute and would follow me everywhere.  The closer we got to their butcher date, the more they earned their new names: “the terrorists”.  I started calling them that because their love of food outweighed everything else.  They would get in the chicken …


How to Grow and Process Luffah Sponges, by St. Funogas

There are three types of people when it comes to luffah sponges: those who have no idea what they are, those who know what they are but think they’re for the kind of ladies who frequent health spas, and those who know they’re one of nature’s best all-around cleaning tools and natural scrub brushes. I’ve personally progressed through all three stages, and hopefully this article can get you straight to stage three. In a grid-down world, after all our sponges and scrub brushes have worn out, luffah sponges can take their place. They can also do the same before the …


Musical Instrument Basics for Preppers, by Kirk

The following are my thoughts on a topic that was suggested for the SurvivalBlog writing competition: This is a very broad topic. Does it mean the instruments themselves or the use and playing of them? Or perhaps it means how to choose one or how to master one? Does it pertain to what to have when SHTF or TEOTWAWKI? Are you at home, or on the road? Do you have room for a larger instrument or is your space limited? Do we start with the neophyte who is thinking about possibly getting into playing an instrument but is not sure …


Worth Reversal, by 3AD Scout

Being a serious preparedness-minded individual, I often look at venues that offer used or previously owned items for sale. These venues could be flea markets, thrift stores, antique stores, yard or garage sales, auctions, or online sites like Craigslist. It never ceases to amaze me the items that are offered for sale at these venues. When I go to these venues, I have prepping in mind and am looking for items to help make me and my family better prepared. Often, I have to wade through piles of, in my opinion, useless junk. What is useless junk in my book? …


Rebuilding: The Role of the Post-TEOTWAWKI Librarian, by W.J.

What will be missing during the great reconstruction of America after TEOTWAWKI is the knowledge of how to do it.  Those wonderful how-tos on YouTube will no longer be available unless people have electricity and they have systematically stored them as offline video files.  That will be very few people. There is an occupation that rarely gets mentioned that will be of immense value: Librarian.  With your own library.  Books. Books on how to do everything imaginable, starting with the basics.  How to grow food and care for livestock, obviously,  How to build with stone.  How to do carpentry with …


Post-TEOTWAWKI Community and Employment – Part 2, by 3AD Scout

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Much like society today, those who have “the means of production” control industry, finance, and banking are like the nobles. Those who run the factories and institutions are like the vassals and blue collar and farm workers are like the peasants. So, thinking that in times of great social upheaval when a hundred-plus years of technology disappears, we could see feudal-“like” societies form out of the ashes. This is not far-fetched. Unlike hundreds of years ago, most communities are not self-sufficient. The closest thing to a self-sufficient community today would be Amish …


Post-TEOTWAWKI Community and Employment – Part 1, by 3AD Scout

Humans are no strangers to catastrophe. Through the centuries, civilizations across the earth have succumbed to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, plagues, and crop failures. Regardless of where this took place, or the people it affected, there was a rebuilding of society and life went on. For many of us, we focus on surviving the immediate effects of disaster or catastrophe, but few focus on what comes next, the recovery or rebuilding phase. Just like being prepared to survive the immediate impacts of an incident starts in the years long before the disaster ever strikes, so does preparing for rebuilding our …


Downsizing: Back to Farm Basics, by SaraSue

Things can change overnight, and recently, they have.  In my opinion, we have entered WWIII.  We don’t know yet how bad it’s going to be. But what we do know is that things are heading south, fast. There is no way to rationalize that we Americans are “going to be okay” with what is happening on the world stage. Not to mention, how quickly goods and services have degraded here at home.  You’d have to have your head stuck so deeply in a sand dune that you can’t get it out.  It is better to stand up and face reality …


Cows and Chickens and Goats, Oh My!, by Elli O.

In this article, I compare different livestock – Start-up costs, Continuation costs, Profits, and Contradictions. I was not raised on a farm but when we purchased 20 acres I knew that we needed to put the land to good use. Thankfully, I have a husband who is almost as adventurous as I am so we jumped into the farm and homesteading life with both feet. God was gracious and we landed well- not very gracefully but we are surviving and even thriving in most areas! This article will compare the different animals that we have tried to raise on our …


EdgePro Apex 4 Knife Sharpening Kit, by Thomas Christianson

Many people know the theory of how to sharpen a knife. One needs only to sweep each side of the edge of a blade over a whetstone at a consistent angle until the edge is honed to perfection. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to put that theory into practice. Few people can hold a knife at a consistent angle as they run it over a whetstone. I am not one of the skillful few who can hand sharpen a knife well. I recently tested a tool that makes me feel like a knife-sharpening pro. It is the …


A Special Notice: The Harvest Guard Company is Up For Sale!

I was just informed by the owner, Brad Stieg, that because he is nearing retirement, that the Harvest Guard Reusable Canning Lids business is being put up for sale. Note that this is an essentially recession-proof business, because when times get hard, people tend to buy more canning lids than they do in good times. The following lists the assets and associated items included in the sale of Harvest Guard Reusable Canning Lids. Mr. Stieg writes: “We would love to see a like-minded entrepreneur take the reins and continue forward, especially considering the economic storm that we see on the …


Long-Term Survival Poultry, by J.S.

A few years ago, we moved out of the suburbs and onto a farm/homestead with plans to start raising every farm animal imaginable. Lots of friends and family thought we were crazy, but we had spent years researching animal husbandry and couldn’t wait to put our book knowledge to work. We moved in around Christmas and by mid-January we had baby chicks in the brooder and some donated hatching eggs in an incubator. While our farm is not our main source of income, we do run it like a business and each spring we raise a few hundred pullets (young …


A Call to Arms Toward Thriving – Part 2, by PrepperDoc

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Communications If we are left alone, then we can produce capital and transmit ideas and create industry at a far greater restorative rate than the original inventors of the 18th Century, who worked nearly in the dark. The carcasses of the production facilities will still exist. The machines will still be there, and the brilliant minds who know how to run them can still be found. Like any nation coming out of war, we should rapidly move forward to excess capital production. The prepper groups should be leading that charge, using already-cataloged …