Category: Traditional Skills/Fieldcraft

Deep Winter Prepping, by Ronald in Alberta

I live on a small ranch in Northern Alberta, Canada. I’m approximately a half hour drive to the nearest small town, and the winters here can be tremendous. I’ve always taken a slightly different approach to preps than most of my American counter parts, because most energy, food, shelter, water and defense advice floating around the Internet is not cold weather viable. In this short paper I will attempt to relay to you, the reader, the importance of being ready for winter in all aspects of survival. This is a short collection of some thoughts and experiences I’ve had living …


Letter Re: Stealth Wood Cutting and Splitting with Electric Tools

James, I wanted offer some praise to J.J.S. and is thorough submission titled Heating with Wood 101. I’m following his lead and wanted to offer your readers some additional ideas on wood processing with some stealth after TSHTF. Running a 50cc chainsaw and a 34-ton log splitter is all fine and dandy when there’s no one around meaning to do you any harm but its completely inappropriate in a TEOTWAWKI situation. If you are lucky enough to have a renewable energy source its advisable to switch to electrical tools because they are so quiet. Either of the big box stores …


Heating with Wood 101, by J.J.S.

 “If I have seen for miles, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton This line sums up SurvivalBlog and the contributing writers: it is a community of concerned preppers trying to share knowledge to help each other out.  My focus today is residential heating with wood as your fuel based on my experience heating with my airtight cast iron stove.  Pretty boring topic for the seasoned prepper, but I think there are plenty of new preppers who have recently seen the light and can feel the stuff hitting the fan and hopefully this …


Letter Re: Low-Budget Photovotaically Charged Drill Batteries

Dear Mr Rawles, This letter is in response to the piece on using photovoltaics to charge batteries by C.K.. I feel I should spend some time discussing some potential problems with charging Lithium Ion (“Li-ion”) batteries the way C.K. proposes. However first a few general notes. – I am all for scavenging if you know what you are doing like some of us. But ‘newbies’ are better off not trying to disassemble anything more complicated than a desktop power supply for safety reasons as JWR pointed out. I should add that the process that causes the ‘bounce’ after discharge also …


Prepping the Texas Cowboy Way, by Sophie

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Living in rural Texas has taught me how to live a fuller, deeper life, but with a western twist.  Although the American Redoubt has captured many preppers’ imaginations, I live in Texas by choice.  I’ve traveled the world, visited most states and lived in multiple cities on both coasts, but I choose to call the Texas Hill Country home.  The cowboy way of life is intoxicating. The first time I drove into the small town of Bandera (population 859) and saw cowboys riding horses down Main Street I immediately fell in love.  Many towns in the Texas Hill Country region …


Letter Re: Moving to Ohio’s Amish Country

James, Several years ago my family purchased an Amish farm in a settlement in southeast Ohio. I wanted to share a little about what we have learned because there are currently several Amish farms going on the market in our area which are not advertised anywhere. We are over two hours from any major city and nearly and hour from smaller ones. Our closest village is Woodsfield. We are in an area where Utica Shale is beginning to boom so the Amish are heading out, not wanting to be driving their buggies in the vicinity of big trucks, which I …


From The Big City To Homesteading–Our Ten Year Journey, by Wranglerstar

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Ten years ago, my wife and I, as young newlyweds, were living the American dream. Our future was bright. While my wife earned a lucrative salary and I built a successful online business, we were on the road to success.  Our urban lifestyle provided us with everything our hearts desired.  In 2006 everything changed.  With the collapse of the housing bubble and the economy in a tailspin, we woke up to the fact that our easy urban lifestyle was fragile and dependent on factors far outside of our control.  We began to be alarmed at the precariousness of our current …


Letter Re: Corn: Our Best Ally Against Starvation

We have begun our corn harvest. We just finished canning the corn from 2 rows of hybrid sweet corn. We planted two rows 100 feet long. We made approximately 400 ears of corn. From this we ate all we wanted and canned 39 quarts and 12 pints whole kernel. We don’t can any cream style, because it doesn’t do well. Many times the corn has a musty taste. We put it in jars rather than the freezer to protect it from a grid down scenario. We gave 20 ears to a local widow, and 48 ears to a local gentleman …


Teaching Opportunities, by J.L. in Pennsylvania

My story begins as another closet prepper.  As many of you, I did not have the support of my spouse for my new found drive to prepare for the unknown. Often I would attempt to sneak items that I planned to lay up long-term into the grocery bill without her noticing. I would even have online purchases delivered to a neighbor claiming to him that it was for her birthday or our anniversary. Needless to say, I usually (always) got caught, which would lead to long discussions about me “wasting money.”  As fate and the good lord would have it, …


The Other Use of Wild Edible Food, by Linda Runyon

I am a wild food author who lived it for years while homesteading in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, and I lived on wild food for many years after that during my teaching days. I still eat wild food today in retirement. YES.  Wild food is abundant, nutritious, healthy, easy-to-use and, best of all, free! This is important to know, and it’s an important cognition to have early on the way to becoming proficient with it. Having your eyes opened to the fact that it is everywhere must, of course, come before starting the journey that ends with being …


Letter Re: Harnessed Animal Power

Dear JWR: There is an estimated 250,000 animal-powered farmers in the U.S. doing all or part of their farming with animals. I’d recommend http://smallfarmersjournal.com/ for some good reading and information and a visit to Horse Progress Days to view the latest in modern equipment. Almost anything can be done with animals that can be done with tractors, even combining with a motorized forecart. Horse Progress Days has some interesting support equipment, including well made coal stoves and manual transplanters. If it’s in reach of you, I suggest attending for an eye-opening experience. The food is good, too. – James L.


Michael Z. Williamson’s Commentary: Peak Oil Meets Yuppie Marketing

Over at the One Scythe Revolution web site, Peak Oil expert Richard Heinberg states that in order to continue to grow the same amount of food in the future, without the use of cheap oil, we will need 40-to-50 million farmers, farming 3-to-50 acres each, cultivated with hand tools. No, not like in the Middle Ages. We are talking about “appropriate technology” here. But let’s face it, “appropriate technology” is wielded by slaves. Masters wield guns. Slaves wield scythes. Here is quote: “One good scythe per farm, could revolutionize small-scale farming.” I kinda feel like this has already been done. …


Survival Spearfishing, by Daniel B.

Most people have been fishing at some point in their life and in the event of TEOTWAWKI many people will include this basic survival skill in their portfolio of hunting and gathering activities.  Since the majority of the world lives along coastlines, fishing for survival might become fairly competitive and with so many lines in the water you’ll be better off jumping in and hunting your fish the way God intended.  After all, why else would humans be given the mammalian diving reflex, the set adaptations which occur as soon as your face touches the water that maximize your oxygen …


Letter Re: Sewing to Repurpose Items for SHTF

Sir: In her recent article on repurposing material by sewing, Penny Pincher said: “The Army poncho liner is nothing more than a thin quilt with a head hole in the middle.  It’s camo lightweight nylon with thin polyfil for batting, a few strings at the corners, and bound on the edges.  You could make something similar.  If you didn’t mind the extra weight, you could use some thin wool, maybe in two layers, and sandwich that between nylon to make it ride smoother.” I made something similar last spring, but with nylon on only one side. I like carrying a …


Letter Re: Post-TEOTWAWKI Welding

Dear Jim, I have been a welder, machinist, engineer, and someone interested in self-reliance for many years. I read the recent discussion on SurvivalBlog of post-SHTF welding with interest. I do not disagree that thermite could be made from scrap yard materials (done it, with aluminum filings and black sand (magnetite) from the river), but it would require a custom-made refractory mold for each joint.  IMHO two other forms of welding would be much more practical. Forge welding was the only available process up into the 1800s, and requires only anvil, hammer, fire of coke or charcoal and forced air.  …