Category: Survival Mindset

The 21st Century Rural Migration, by Single Farmer

The idea that our country is thought of in terms of conservative versus liberal areas caused me to think about how so many people today and in the recent past have either moved, will be moving, or even thinking about moving for better opportunities. I wanted to write more about how this has occurred historically and more about how my conservative region is part of this trend including how it is impacting farms. Technological change and government interventions are often two factors that cause the settlement and population redistribution throughout the country.  Urbanization following the Second World War was just …


More Inflation Ahead: At Best, Plan on Semi-Retirement

Imagine that you were a weakling who kept his cash under his mattress, and you lived in a bad neighborhood that was dominated by the Mafia.  Every year or two, Mafia thugs would come by and threaten to beat you to death, and demand: “Half for us and half for you.”  That is a bit like what it is like to live in an era of mass inflation. But with inflation, the cash extractions are gradual, and almost invisible. No thugs. Just melting purchasing power. Perhaps I chose a poor analogy, but bear with me, while I explain: As a …


Raising, Hunting, and Harvesting Animals – Part 1, by Lodge Pole

In late 1929, when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began, the population of the United States was around 121.7 million people. All through the Great Depression, it was unheard of to leave roadkill on the side of the road left to rot. With high unemployment,  the hunting pressure was heavy. Small game, like rabbits and squirrels, nearly went extinct in large parts of the United States from being over-hunted, to feed desperate families. Today, in 2026, the estimated population of the US is 348.3 million. If animals were being hunted to near extinction when the population was …


Going Off Grid In The Tropics – Part 1, by Conan Stevens

Have you ever thought about going off-grid in the tropics?  No? Well, me neither, yet that’s where I find myself. First up, though I have had food stores and access to water as a habit for over a decade I have only been living (mostly) off-grid for a year. So I’m not very experienced and still learning the ropes. But I thought my experiences here might be a curiosity and possibly be interesting reading for others. I originally moved to Thailand to work in the action film industry, 21 years ago.  Since then I saw that the country started modernising, …


Thoughts on the Morality of Lethal Self-Defense, by Mr. Wobbet

Introduction The recent shooting death of Renee Good has resulted in a lot of discussion about whether or not the shooting was justified. Those discussions are important to our society and are illuminating when everyone engages with respect for each other. I project that most regular readers of this blog will land on the side of “legally justified self-defense”. But whether or not it is legally justified is not what I want to address in this missive. I think, especially if my projection of my audience is accurate, that what I want to address is even more important. What is …


Preparedness Lessons From Communist Mongolia – Part 2, by G.K.

(Continued from Part 1.  This concludes the article.) During winter, even the U.S. Embassy monitored the grid closely. The possibility of a complete system failure was taken seriously enough that commercial flights were placed on twenty-four-hour standby for potential evacuation of official personnel. We were nongovernmental residents. Those plans did not include us. Our planning had to be personal. Cold changed how time felt. Days stretched and compressed unpredictably. Waiting became a skill. Movement slowed, not from laziness, but from necessity. Mistakes in cold were costly. Dropping something, misjudging exposure, forgetting a step could mean numb fingers, wasted effort, or …


Preparedness Lessons From Communist Mongolia – Part 1, by G.K.

We lived in Mongolia in the early 1990s, for a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, during a time when the system had officially ended but its habits had not yet loosened their grip on daily life. I was in my early thirties, married, with two young daughters, trying to build a life far from anything familiar. We were not passing through, and we were not insulated expatriates. We were attempting to function inside the local economy, under local conditions, with consequences that were immediate and personal. At the time, I did not think of what we …


Introducing Your Community to Emergency Preparedness – Part 2, by A.F.

(Continued from Part 1.) The next topic is water. I begin with the low hanging fruit of having water stored at all times. It hurts my soul to thoughtlessly parrot the “one gallon per person per day minimum” tripe we have all heard so many times. My recommendation is to store no less than three gallons per person per day or ten gallons each. I follow this up by encouraging each family set a goal of having a five-gallon water jug set aside for last minute filling for each person. For those who lament storage space, I recommend the collapsible …


Lessons From a Fight at a Restaurant, by Robert E. Downing

(The photo above, courtesy of Openverse, was taken by “Terren in Virginia“, a witness to a 2008 baseball team “fan rivalry” brawl at a New York sports stadium.) The following is what I learned about security at lunch one day: Scenario One Tuesday, about six weeks ago, I stopped for a late lunch at a local upscale family restaurant in Virginia Beach, Virginia, that is part of a well-known chain.  It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it seemed to be a quiet place to have lunch and prepare my Sunday school lesson. I selected a seat near …


Balancing Farm Life for Success, by SaraSue

2025 was a difficult year to get through.  By the end of the year, I was not enjoying any of it.  In fact, I wanted to quit (do I feel this way at the end of every year?).  You have to laugh and find your sense of humor or you won’t make it through anything that is slightly difficult.  There were so many things that went wrong, so I had to sit down and list accomplishments to remind myself that a lot of things went right.  And once reminded of all the good, I can face the next year in …


The Hitchhiker’s Guide to TEOTWAWKI – Part 5, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.) Truckers. Contrary to popular belief, the depiction in the movies of truck drivers being a prime source of hitchhiking rides, just isn’t true. Maybe I’ve been doing something wrong all these years but in all my hitchhiking miles I’ve only been picked up by a trucker once. He explained that between company policies and insurance regulations, they’re not allowed to pick up hitchhikers. So, even though it won’t hurt to try, don’t expect to get many rides from truckers. Comedy. Humor can also help get a ride sometimes. On a cold day …


The Hitchhiker’s Guide to TEOTWAWKI – Part 4, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 3.) WEAPON It’s important to always maintain situational awareness wherever we are, and even more so when hitchhiking. There was only one time in all my hitchhiking travels where I had a negative experience during a ride. It got to the point where I thought it might be necessary to calmly let the driver know I was armed. A well-dressed guy in a Lincoln Continental gave me a ride. He looked like he was on his way to an important business meeting. We chitchatted for a while and then he made a homosexual proposition. It was out …


The Hitchhiker’s Guide to TEOTWAWKI – Part 3, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 2.) TRAVEL LIGHT The more belongings you have, the less the chances are that you’ll catch a ride in a timely manner. A single backpack will be more appealing than a bunch of gear. One important thing to keep in mind when you get picked up is to never put your gear in the trunk of a car, if at all possible. The chance of anyone driving off with your gear is minimal but as with all things, probabilities have to be weighed against consequences. Bugging out after losing all your gear would be a huge challenge, …


The Hitchhiker’s Guide to TEOTWAWKI – Part 2, by St. Funogas

(Continued from Part 1.) THE BASICS OF TRAVELING BY THUMB To be successful, a hitchhiker must consider several things: 1. Appearance 2. Destination sign 3. Traveling light 4. Gender and group size 5. Having a map 6. Weapon 7. Food and water 8. Money 9. Just can’t get a ride 10. Shelter APPEARANCE Appearance is the single-most important qualification if you want to catch a ride in a timely manner.


The Hitchhiker’s Guide to TEOTWAWKI – Part 1, by St. Funogas

In case the Powers That Be ask our opinions about how the world as we know it should end, I’m going to recommend the slow-motion kind that takes a few weeks, rather than an instantaneous welcome-to-Teotwawkiville atomic explosion or EMP. That will give die-hard preppers time to top off their supplies and buy that extra pallet of Thin Mints, but more importantly, give those with a bug-out retreat time to get there before the final SHTF events usher us into TEOTWAWKI. For those who find themselves up Schumer Creek with no reliable means of travel to their bug-out location; for …