Category: Traditional Skills/Fieldcraft

Necessity is the Mother of Improvisation – Part 2, by 3AD Scout

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) At one auction, I found some very odd tools for some type of woodwork.  Upon research they were used by wheelwrights to make wooden wagon wheels.  I have an interest in several old trades but wheel making is not one of them.  On a trip to Holmes County, Ohio (in Amish country) I took those old wheelwright tools and traded them for some other tools (blacksmithing and chisels) that I did want at the Colonial Homestead Store, in Millersburg.  This store offers old but usable tools from many old trades.  Just walking …


Necessity is the Mother of Improvisation – Part 1, by 3AD Scout

We have all seen the post-apocalyptic movies where improvise armored vehicles with machine guns roam the landscape.  These Hollywood creations make for great entertainment but are such cobbled together machines just fantasy?  The civil war in Somalia introduced the world to “Technicals”, or utilizing civilian vehicles, like decades old Datsun and Totota Hilux pickup trucks, as a platform to mount heavy machine guns, like the Soviet era DShK 12.7mm.  Thirty years later and such vehicles are now being used on the battlefields of Ukraine.  Not only has Ukraine made improvised war wagons out of civilian pickup trucks but they have …


Your “Gray Man” Camouflage, by A.C.

Background I travel for work, often traveling all over the word into some not-so-friendly environments where I don’t want to be a target but I still need to remain capable. I’ve interviewed behaviorists about the science behind being memorable and I’ve also spoken with members of certain 3-letter-agencies about what they’ve learned about traveling in austere environments. This short essay is an aggregate of that information that is easily consumable and understandable. In the world of tactical preparation and survivalism, there is a pervasive image of the “operator”, that is; someone decked out in multicam patterns, sporting morale patches, and …


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 …


Some Extreme Cold Weather Advice, by Hollyberry

We have all seen the media drama these past few weeks regarding the weather. Until about 10 years ago, I never even heard the term “polar vortex”, it was just winter. Living in Maine for the past 20 + years and making through the harsh winters has been a humbling and rewarding experience. Every spring you can hear people sigh in relief. I feel sorry for the lower portion of the country that has been experiencing the extreme cold, ice and snow. It’s something that takes getting used to and it helps to have the proper clothing and gear to …


Going Off Grid In The Tropics – Part 2, by Conan Stevens

(Continued from Part 1.  This concludes the article.) To give a vivid image of what it is still like here, the next smaller village over where my girl grew up still has a single electrical wire held up by bamboo poles with a 3W LED bulb dangling off every 100m (330 ft) or so for street lights, and house wiring running off that same single wire. But the sand roads were concreted over a few years ago, so there is improvement happening. As you can imagine in the tropics solar power works great, in dry season we have full batteries …


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, …


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 …


Diamond “Strike-A-Fire” Fire Starters, by Thomas Christianson

Each Diamond “Strike-A-Fire” Fire Starter (SAF stick) is kind of like a giant match which is 5.75 inches long, 1.13 inches wide, and 0.25 inches thick. The shaft of a SAF stick seems to be made out of some sort of pressed wood that is impregnated with a waxy substance. When the match-like head of a SAF stick is struck on the striking strip on the box, it ignites the SAF stick which then burns for approximately 12 minutes. In the process, the SAF stick creates enough heat to effectively ignite most types of kindling. [JWR Adds: The SAF sticks …


Practical Preparedness Suggestions – Part 2, by R.J.

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) 5. Self Defense This segment references reading, training and situational awareness that will be difficult for some people. Use what you can. Learn how to profile people and your surroundings. It happens in many forms, constantly. There are predators who don’t care about how nice you are. (Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”) They will take advantage of the graces and courtesies that we usually employ to soften or de-escalate a problem. Learn what and how those predators think. Trust me, you …


The Dirty Side of Homesteading, by Patrice Lewis

Too often, homesteading articles, blogs, websites, and videos (including this one – guilty!) show only the successful side of homesteading. The abundant harvest, the completed projects, the fresh eggs and baby chicks and overflowing milk, the healthy livestock … by golly, this lifestyle must be easy-peasy, right? Yes and no. Of course things go right. And of course things go wrong. But what is seldom shown is the nitty-gritty day-to-day dirty side of homesteading, including the daily chores that must be done for the comfort and welfare of animals. For that reason, I thought I’d show you something I do …


Loaves, Fishes, Tree Bark, Seeds, and Knowledge – Part 3, by The Chemical Engineer

(Continued from Part 2.) 2.3 – Finding Edible Cambium Locally And Harvesting It If we live in an area with a sufficient number of trees, the next step would be to find out which ones have edible cambium. To accomplish this I recommend two sources. First, you would need to buy the National Audubon Society’s book titled Trees of North America or something equivalent. Here are two free sources that just have tree maps: Tree Map Link 1 and Tree Map Link 2. I am referring to the 2021 edition of Trees of North America in my following statements. This …


JIT Training for Trusted Friends, Family, and Neighbors, by Dr. Bob

This article will provide some thoughts on how to address a few common problems seen in the preparedness community. The first problem involves the difficulty finding like-minded people to form a community before the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF). The second problem is how to engage friends, family, and neighbors so that they take actions to prepare their families prior to SHTF. These problems are related and center on the realization that many people are bound by their current life circumstances and are unwilling or unable to consider that the current paradigm is in danger and, secondly, many of those …


A Three-Year Window or a Three-Month Window?

As an observer of contemporary politics, economics, and emerging threats, I have come to the conclusion that the last three years of Donald John Trump’s second term as President may provide a potential window of opportunity. If we were now living under a Harris-Walz Administration, we would surely be out of time to prepare. I have my doubts about Trump’s sincerity when he talks about scaling back the size and power of government. Alarmingly, the gains of the DOGE project were wiped out by the huge deficit spending included in the recent  “Big, Beautiful Bill”.  But I don’t consider DJT …


The “Come as You Are” Collapse–Have the Right Tools and Skills

Introductory Note From JWR: This article is an update and small expansion to a succinct post that I made back in February, 2008. When the Second World War broke out in September, 1939, the United States had nearly two full years to ramp up military training and production before decisively confronting the Axis powers. In the mid-1970s, looking at the recent experience of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the Pentagon’s strategic planners came to the realization that the next major war that the US military would wage would not be like the Second World War. There would not be the luxury …